Book Groups
The University Writing Program is excited to continue hosting our book group discussion this semester for faculty, staff, and administrators interested in exploring fresh ideas about teaching and learning. This fall, Dr. Nicole Caswell will be leading our exploration of Carlo Rotello’s What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics.
Book Group Meetings:
October 8 and October 22 online via Microsoft Teams from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Register using this Qualtrics form.
From the publisher’s website:
At a time when college students and their parents often question the “return on investment” from humanities courses, accomplished feature writer and English professor Carlo Rotella invites us into the minds of a group of skeptical first-year students who are ultimately transformed by a required literature class.
In What Can I Get Out of This? he follows thirty-three students through his class to provide an intimate look at teaching and learning from their perspectives as well as his own. The students’ reluctance—”How does this get me a job?”—transforms into insight as they wrestle with challenging books, share ideas, discover how to think critically, and form a community.
In all these ways, they learn how to extract meaning from the world around them, an essential life skill. Confronting skeptics of higher education, this compassionate and inspiring book reveals the truth of what students actually experience in college.
Reviewers write:
“Documents the small victories when one student starts to see value in reading a book he expects to hate, or when another finds the courage to speak up in class. In the process, Rotella tells us how education actually works — it’s a long evolution, not a cinematic moment — and how the in-person classroom is an engine for that process.” — The Chronicle of Higher Education
“I won’t rehearse the many things threatening higher education right now. It’s easy to despair, but [this book] gives some grounds for optimism. . . . offer[s] defense of literary studies as well as practical advice for those of us who teach it.” — Commonweal’s “Year in Books”
“Takes readers inside the classroom to show how timeless skills—including problem-solving, critical thinking, and strong communication—pay off for students in the end.” — Boston College Magazine
“Carlo Rotella has written a book about the art of teaching that doubles as a guide to being part of any community: a team, a company, a classroom. I wish I had this book when I was a student.” — Reeves Wiedeman, author of Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork
This book group is sponsored by the University Writing Program. For additional information, please contact Will Banks (banksw@ecu.edu).