Mary Isbell recently launched Searching for Wonder, an openly licensed book designed to help educators create courses where students choose their own texts, priming them to have more personal, powerful, and transformative encounters with literature. Developed over the past year and refined through an open peer review process last spring, the book offers practical strategies to move beyond traditional accountability techniques and give students greater autonomy in their reading.
Mary is planning another revision for next summer to incorporate courses, assignments, and student projects from colleagues who pilot these methods in their own classrooms. Educators are invited to explore the strategies, adapt them for their own teaching, and share their experiences by emailing Mary at misbell@newhaven.edu.
Summary:
Students aren't reading what we assign despite quizzes, collaborative annotation assignments, and other accountability techniques. But students will read if we give them more autonomy. The resources gathered in this book will help you do that. They'll help you create a course where your students select their own texts, priming them to have more personal, powerful, and transformative encounters with literature.
University of Northern Iowa's Rod Library has published a new OER edition, 