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[changinggears]

for a core curriculum, writing service course.  The book will serve as a springboard for the writing assignments during the first part of the semester.  Maybe I've just been prepping for too long this week, but I'm at a loss here.  Nothing that I've looked into so far suits me.  My wish list: 

I need something that I can make relevant for them (in the past, they've mentioned education and the economy as things that are relevant to them and I had a huge success last semester with Reading Lolita in Tehran because of everything that was going on in Egypt). 

Nonfiction is preferred, but I'm considering fiction as well (shortlist so far: Persepolis and Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian). 

I'd like to teach something edgy and with some current events and/or pop culture connection. 

For some, this may be the first book they've actually read (I know, scary, but true) and for others it may be the first book they've read other than Harry Potter or Twilight, so it needs to be well-written, not too difficult without a broad reading background, and engaging.

Books with proven success are valued, but so are untried gems. 

Please help me with this!  All of these health issues I've been having (heart spasms, which I've ranted about on the venting thread) have eaten up my summer and left me with no energy to search out and read enough to find something that will win my freshpeeps over.  So, thanks for any suggestions you can offer.

[tuxedo_cat]

Ok, first of all:  do you have *have* to use something new?  If Reading Lolita has worked so well in the past, why not do it again, especially given the current stresses on your life.

If you really do need to switch up the syllabus, I personally have been tempted to teach Persepolis (it's a memoir, btw, not fiction).  I have seen the film (very moving and visually compelling) but not read the graphic novel, fwiw.  However, I can see how it would be very handy for generating a series of writing assignments, since you could teach the graphic autobiography first, then watch and analyze the film, then perhaps listen to the author's commentary.  I'm also greatly in favor of teaching students anything at all that will invite them to understand Muslims with greater complexity, and especially countries like Iran which have been so deeply stereotyped in our culture.  So that would be my vote.  And if you do it, I'd love to know how it went.  I might use it next semester or next year.

[dr_alcott]

Recently I've taught Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation in a second semester, first year writing course. It pisses students off, which has its advantages. I don't always agree with the conclusions Bauerlein draws (and I almost never like anything else I've read by him), but he makes a few compelling points in the book, and students will definitely find it relevant. And I like making students do some research to help them refute or support his arguments.

Ok, first of all:  do you have *have* to use something new?  If Reading Lolita has worked so well in the past, why not do it again, especially given the current stresses on your life.

Chime to this!

[betterslac]

If you want something edgy but not necessarily new that will blow their minds with a different way of looking at the world, Zamyatin's We will do the trick. Use Natasha Randall's translation.

[ufo_tofu]

You could do something like Zeitoun and there are all sorts of supplementary materials like Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke (which I think you can get a teacher's guidebook for) and Trouble the Water.  You could also show episodes of Treme. 

Perhaps something like:
Working in the Shadows: A Year Doing the Jobs Most Americans Won't Do (regular joe spends a year picking lettuce, slaughtering chickens, etc to find out how these jobs really are - very compelling read)
Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy (a bit tougher of a read but more substantive than Working and still relatively easy to read)
Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives (short vignettes representing the lives of all sorts of undocumented workers)
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (lots of research opportunities here and easy to read, if a bit depressing if taken in large chunks)

[hegemony]

What about Tracy Kidder's book about Paul Farmer's attempts to bring health care to the poor (livelier and a lot less didactic than it sounds), Mountains Beyond Mountains?  A bonus is that Roald Dahl's daughter figures heavily in it -- kids who haven't finished a book might still have seen the film of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[changinggears]

Wow, these are awesome suggestions so far.  I didn't know there was a film version of Persepolis, so I really like tuxedo_cat's idea of teaching the book, the film, and analyzing the author's commentary.

The reason I'm thinking of not teaching Reading Lolita again is because I don't know that it will have the punch and the relevance that it did when my students were reading it right in the middle of the Egyptian revolution.  It just took on such an immediacy and the students would come in and start talking about the latest news before class would even start and they were constantly drawing comparisons between Iran and Egypt (many expressed the hope that the Iranian people would take inspiration from the Egyptians and start their own uprising).  I guess I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed if  I try to teach it again and the students don't get as excited about it.  Although, I recently saw a piece in the New Yorker that represented the revolution via photographs of graffitti.  Maybe I could bring that into play somehow.

I like ufo_tofu's list.  There's definitely some interesting stuff there.  I've taught Nickel and Dimed in the past and students responded to it well (though some found it extremely insulting, since I live/teach in the South and her snooty attitude towards "trailer trash" and Christians really turned some of them off to her). 

I actually have to pick two books and I like to try to find two that have some kind of common theme, though not necessarily the exact same topic.  So, I'll probably use something I've had success with in the past and then draw somethiing new from the suggestions that I get here.

Please keep them coming; the more the better.  I can always use new ideas for next year.

[history_grrrl]

I've got a copy of Michael Lewis' book Liar's Poker sitting on my desk here, waiting to be read so I can decide whether to use an excerpt in a class this fall. By all accounts, it's very accessible and, of course, relevant given the state of the U.S. economy. Might it, or something like it, work for your purposes? It could be interesting to pair it with something on low-wage workers from ubo_tofu's list.

[beccalynn2010]

The first year they did a all campus read here, they did Luis Alberto Urrea's The Devil's Highway, which framed a wider debate about immigration through one stark and heartrending tragedy.  It was very well receive, but is a disturbing read.

We recently did The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, which it raised interesting ethic questions about consent in medical research, profit, and who actually pays for furthering medical discoveries.

[anthroid]

How about Fast Food Nation?

[changinggears]

I've heard of Devil's Highway and see that a lot of colleges are making it the freshman read this year.  It sounds interesting and I'm adding it to possibilities.

beccalynn 2010:
I read Immortal Life over the summer and couldn't put it down.  I'm not sure how relevant my students would find it or if they would enjoy it half as much as I did.  I'm afraid that far too many of them would get hung up on the fact that Henrietta married her cousin and the fact that they started sleeping together at such young ages (I live and teach in the deep south and these sorts of things are really difficult for my student pop. to get past).  Still, I've got it on my shortlist.  How did the students respond to it?  Did they actually enjoy it and want to talk about it?

[beccalynn2010]

I've heard of Devil's Highway and see that a lot of colleges are making it the freshman read this year.  It sounds interesting and I'm adding it to possibilities.

beccalynn 2010:
I read Immortal Life over the summer and couldn't put it down.  I'm not sure how relevant my students would find it or if they would enjoy it half as much as I did.  I'm afraid that far too many of them would get hung up on the fact that Henrietta married her cousin and the fact that they started sleeping together at such young ages (I live and teach in the deep south and these sorts of things are really difficult for my student pop. to get past).  Still, I've got it on my shortlist.  How did the students respond to it?  Did they actually enjoy it and want to talk about it?

They seemed to, but then we do a campus wide book program, so they actually have a lot of related programming (presentations on Medical Ethics, sociologists talking about the role of poverty and race in early medical experimentation, related movies) all culminating with bringing the author to campus.  I have had students comment that they appreciated being asked to read these types of books, because it made them feel like they were being asked to think about "adult" things.  As one of them put it, no one ever expected them to think about things like this in HS.

[juvenal]

Ann Lamotte: Bird by Bird

[kaysixteen]

For a real challenge, how about Mortimer Adler's 'How to Read a Book'?

[onthefringe]

I've heard of Devil's Highway and see that a lot of colleges are making it the freshman read this year.  It sounds interesting and I'm adding it to possibilities.

beccalynn 2010:
I read Immortal Life over the summer and couldn't put it down.  I'm not sure how relevant my students would find it or if they would enjoy it half as much as I did.  I'm afraid that far too many of them would get hung up on the fact that Henrietta married her cousin and the fact that they started sleeping together at such young ages (I live and teach in the deep south and these sorts of things are really difficult for my student pop. to get past).  Still, I've got it on my shortlist.  How did the students respond to it?  Did they actually enjoy it and want to talk about it?

Although I personally didn't like this book as much as many people, I've seen students respond well to it. For what it's worth, there's actually an episode of Law and Order (Immortal, from Season 20) that is loosely based on the controversy surrounding HeLa cells. This coming Autumn, I'm planning to use that TV episode and some excerpts from Immortal Life in a freshman seminar. But I'm coming at it from the side of biology, scientific ethics and informed consent, not from any literary background.