Book Discussions

Book discussion groups are a fun and powerful way to build your knowledge of the world and your skill with language. Some research and teaching experience even suggest that improvements in vocabulary and grammar can be made more effectively through reading and discussion of texts than through drills and exercises divorced from a larger context. Additionally, book discussion groups help us to more fully understand a text as we compare our readings with those of others.

Unlike a formal classroom setting, book discussion groups are more relaxed and invite greater participation from members. Rather than being focused on a single "teacher" and a single interpretation, group discussion expands everyone's understanding of the text as members share what they have noticed, often pointing out interesting ideas, passages and connections that other members may have overlooked but that enhance their own interpretation. For some suggestions about how to organize a reading group, check out the American Library Association's Book Discussion Group page.

Our Current Selection

The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker by Mike Rose

To learn more, check out Mike Rose's Blog.

The pdf document below is the introduction to Mike Rose's important study The Mind at Work where he reviews the various and complex intelligences that are involved in "ordinary" labor-intensive jobs. Download the introduction by clicking on "WORK.pdf" below and take a look at what this book offers.

If you're interested and would like to be part of a small, informal book discussion group, contact Kathy Carmody at 287-6017 or by e-mail.

WORK.pdf  "Introduction" from The Mind at Work

A few questions for reflection or discussion

1. Notice how Rose opens his introduction with stories about growing up in a family of workers. What similar stories might you have?
2. On p. xiii, why might Rose find it interesting that we celebrate hard work for the "values such work exhibits rather than the thought it requires?"
3. What conversational slogans do we often use that reveal our hidden assumptions about various kinds of work and intelligence? (One example might be the cliched criticism of teachers: "Those who can, do and those who can't, teach.")
4. What ideas about work and intelligence do we get from the media? (music, TV, movies etc.)
5. Review pages xx-xxii. What does Rose mean when he writes, on page xxi, that "intelligence is such a loaded term"?
6. How does intelligence get defined? Who does the defining and in what context do they decide?