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Articles Conference Reviews |
2008D38GlennonRewriting the Institutional Reality through a Common Reading Program Chair: Matthew Levy, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA Laurie Porter, University of Texas at Arlington, “Launching a Shared Reading Experience” Porter introduced the session by explaining that each speaker would talk for about 15 minutes on one aspect of the Common Reading Program, which is now in its second year at University of Texas at Arlington. Porter co-chairs the program along with a staff member from the university’s first-year program. Before beginning this program, she and her co-chair were fortunate to be able to attend a workshop on common reading programs at a First-Year Experience Conference. They found this to be extremely helpful. There are different kinds of shared reading programs, which generally require all first-year students to read the same book and discuss it in some way. The simplest programs ask students to read the same book before coming to campus, and the book is then discussed during initial new-student orientation. Other schools have more elaborate programs, where the book is often integrated into a course. Some schools incorporate campus events, essay contests, and a live appearance by the book’s author. The benefits of such a program are many: an introduction to university-level discourse and an intellectual community, a way to teach and model critical thinking, an opportunity to build a sense of identity as a class (“We’re the class that read The Kite Runner”), and the social component of having this shared experience with others on campus. Such programs can help students to forge a sense of belonging to their college. Studies have shown that retention and GPA’s go up with such programs in place. University of Texas’ program is more extensive than most. They have two linked programs: the freshman reading program and a cross-disciplinary themed program called “Conversations” that runs throughout the academic year. The university provides all first-years with a free copy of the chosen book (over 2000 copies). This is a symbolic gesture but an important one, in Porter’s opinion. Students are actually handed a copy personally by the President or Dean, and the book is embedded into the Freshman English and FY courses. In the first three years the books chosen have been:
Some of the co-curricular events that are a part of this program include
The theme for the “Conversations” element of the program needs to be broad enough to apply to all departments. One goal for this element is to bring faculty together across disciplines. This has had many positive and powerful effects on the faculty. They have a wine and cheese kick-off event for faculty and a brown bag luncheon/lecture series. Some advice on implementing your own program: Selecting the right book is a critical part of this process, and Porter shared the 8 criteria they use (of which I only remember 7):
It is important to have both faculty and administrative buy-in and faculty and staff cooperation for this program to be successful. Getting the library involved early on helped, as did release time for the faculty coordinator. The team coordinating the “Conversations” program included representatives from students, faculty and staff, deans and department chairs, first-year programming, academic programming, curriculum, and student affairs and housing programming: all the relevant stake-holders. The free book was symbolic but important. The program should also have a clear mission statement that links to the mission of the institution. Margaret Lowry, University of Texas at Arlington,“Integrating the One Book into First-semester Composition” Lowry is the director of the First-Year Composition Program. She talked about their first-year composition program and how the common reading book fit in with the ongoing debate about literature vs. composition in FY comp. Their FYC program has 850 students in 85 sections, taught mostly by GTA’s and adjuncts. Literature is not usually a part of this required class. Lowry referenced the 1993 Tate-Lindemann debate about the role of literature in a FYC course. Incorporating the common reading book into this course obviously raised this question and related ones: What is the purpose of FYC? How will this fit into existing syllabi? Why are we adding one more thing? She made reference to Michael Gamer’s article “Fictionalizing the Disciplines” (College English 57:3, 281-286) in which Gamer argues that literary works are suitable for these courses because they hold multiple points of view and are by nature multidisciplinary. Although it was met with some resistance from FYC instructors, it was clear from the beginning that integration of the common reading book into FYC courses was essential to the success of the program. Instructor concerns were primarily twofold: the fact that the use of the book was mandated and that each year it was a different book, requiring new preparation. There was a GTA on the book selection committee, and this person created a unit that was available for all instructors to use. There were two workshops for instructors in advance of the semester. Surveys were also administered to faculty, first-years, and the whole campus to assess the program and its effectiveness. Piper Davis, University of Texas at Arlington, “Negotiating Powerful Change through Common Reading: The Kite Runner Experience” Davis began by mentioning one particular strand of comments that emerged from the end-of-semester assessment of the Common Reading Program. Many students positively discussed the social benefits this program provided since there were so many opportunities to discuss the book in the dorms and outside of classes. Bringing up the topic of the common book could be used as an ice-breaker in social settings and created a bond even between students who were in different classes or social circles. Davis’ remarks focused on the framework she developed for using the common book in her composition class and, in particular, the things that worked, across two years, with different common reading books. Davis sees one of the pedagogical purposes of this reading program to be helping students to join an “academic discourse community” (Bartholomae, “Inventing the University”). Freshmen in college often have no confidence in their own authority. They are not sure what is expected of them, and the Common Reading Program was one way to bring this mysterious thing called academic discourse out of the shadows and into their own lives. Students did need help to see the benefits of entering such a community. In the early weeks of Davis’ course, students study literacy communities as a concept and consider what communities they already belong to. Students write a literacy autobiography and are asked to describe a community to which they belong, including the values and discourse conventions of the group. She helps students to understand that they are “readers” already and are skilled in “reading” a community to try to understand its mores. Early readings in her course include Frederick Douglass’ “Learning to Read and Write,” Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria,” and Lars Eighner’s “On Dumpster Diving.” Students also read Paulo Freire’s “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” and Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University.” At the end of the semester students are asked to write a synthesis essay, and they have the option to ignore the common reading book if they wish. Davis believes strongly that the Common Reading Program has added to her course and has helped her students to develop their critical thinking skills. Matthew Levy, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA, “Maus as Common Reading Selection: Practice and Reflection” Levy was the WPA at UT Arlington before Margaret Lowry. He spoke of his interest in Maus, and other graphic novels he has used in his teaching. He read an essay that he had written about his own personal experience connected to Maus. This essay held great emotional power for him, and he had difficulty reading it to the group. He quoted Elie Wiesel who, speaking of the difficulty of writing about the Holocaust by saying essentially “It cannot be portrayed…it must be portrayed.” Levy’s essay was one example of how students may respond to the themes of the common reading book. Questions and Answer Session What were some ways you dealt with resistance from GTA and instructors of FYC? Workshops were provided for GTA’s and they were given flexibility about how to incorporate the book into their courses. A common essay-writing prompt was provided but was optional. Could a common reading program work on a commuter campus? Absolutely. UT Arlington has a high percentage of commuters. The local public library was brought on board. UT Austin has had a one book program for 10 years, but it is only integrated into FYC classes. Only about one-third of students take this course, and, as a result, the program’s success has been very modest. The best programs target all first-years and the whole college community. How does this program help you to teach reading? One version of FYC does have a reading skills component, including critical reading, thinking and writing and summary/response assignments. For many students this is the first book they have actually read, and the Common Reading Program models particular ways of talking about literature and reading. The point is not to “teach” literature, but to use the themes of the book to teach writing and thinking. It is important to have goals for the program that are assessable. Piper Davis believes that using The Kite Runner in her discussion-based classes had a powerful impact on her students. She used The Blair Reader in her course and felt that many of the essays in the reader complemented the common book well. This session (D.38) was very well-organized and presented highly-useful information for anyone interested in implementing a common reading program. The program described at UT Arlington is clearly highly effective, not by chance, but because of the careful and thoughtful way it has been implemented. For more information on the University of Texas at Arlington’s Common Reading Program, visit http://www.uta.edu/conversations/ and http://www.uta.edu/onebook/. |