A better way to say boring

Cody Korus reads her translation of Swedish to English. "Swedish is something like German and something like English," Lorraine Duggin, artist-in-residency told MJHS eighth graders.

The artist-in-residence liked the way a McCook Junior High student described his life: "like a piece of pie without Cool Whip."

"That's much better than saying 'boring,' don't you think?," Lorraine Duggin asked writers in Julie Hauxwell's eighth grade English classes at MJHS.

Softly, Duggin let " ... never do ... never do ... never do ... " flow from the writing of another student. "That's very nice rhythm," Duggin said, explaining to students that repetition adds emphasis to the thoughts they capture on paper.

Lorraine Duggin reads a story written by a McCook eighth grader after MJHS students studied author Willa Cather's use of metaphors, similes, figures of speech and point of view in "O Pioneers" and "My Antonia."

Duggin was an artist-in-residence whose poetry, fiction, memoirs, essays and articles have been published and have won awards. She has bachelor of arts and master's degrees from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and a Ph.D. in English/creative writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Duggin has been an artist-in-residence with the Nebraska Arts Council Artists in Schools and Communities Program since 1983.

At McCook Junior High, Duggin enhanced the students' reading of Willa Cather's books, "O Pioneers" and "My Antonia."

Duggin explained the culture, the costumes, the architecture, the dances of the immigrants whose stories are told in the two Cather books. The students examined pioneer experiences and "other facets of living a century or more ago," Duggin said.

Lorraine Duggin teaches a writing enhancement class at McCook Junior High through an artist-in-residency sponsored by the Nebraska Arts Council Artists in Schools and Communities Program and the McCook Arts Council.

Duggin compared the fiction of Cather's two books with the truth of the characters' lives and their places in history.

"A writer is an architect of a good story," Duggin said. "He can change things, piece things together."

"If the book were all facts," Duggin said, "it would not be a novel, it would not be fiction. It would be a biography, a memoir."

Artist-in-residence Lorraine Duggin and MJHS eighth grader Jake Miller dance a Swedish waltz, in a study of the times and cultures of the characters in Willa Cather's Nebraska novels "O Pioneers" and "My Antonia."

Duggin's residency in McCook was sponsored by the Nebraska Arts Council Artists in Schools and Communities Program and the McCook Arts Council.