June Seminar 2009:  Reading Critically, Writing Analytically

What Can We Do With a Common Reading? 

For Fall 2009, the University of New Mexico has adopted a common text to launch its freshman summer reading program, the Lobo Reading Experience.  We are strongly encouraging incoming freshman to read the book Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream, by Sam Quinones, before arriving on campus for their first semester at UNM. The idea is to provide students with a common academic undertaking that parallels all the shared rituals and social events they will experience together as UNM freshmen.

How can teachers, in high schools and at the university, use a common text to help students develop the skills of reading, writing, analysis, and problem-solving that will serve them through and beyond their student careers?

Informed by readings from the fields of adolescent literacy and composition studies, we’ll work in detail with Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream to devise strategies for teaching the skills of critical reading and analytic writing, which provide the basis for learning across the disciplines. 

Together, we’ll draft progressive assignment sequences that will help students to

• Gather and report information and arguments;
• Interpret, evaluate, and respond to information and arguments
• Analyze a rhetorical situation and respond appropriately
• Communicate clearly and logically in a variety of written forms.

Seminar Leader:  Wanda Martin, Associate Professor of English
Director, UNM Core Writing Program

The seminar will meet for 8 days over 2 weeks:

• June 15-18 and June 29-July 3

Days and Hours: 
      Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon and 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. 

• The Teachers’ Institute will pay a $600 stipend to each participant.
• The Teachers’ Institute will provide all needed books and materials.
• Participants may choose to register for 1-3 hours of graduate credit at their own expense.

Register Here