1. 2-2-16
Work & Pleasure,
continued

2. From Chapter 4 of Reading Unbound:
When we were working on Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys, we were pretty confident that we were collecting good data. But we worried because none of the books and articles we were reading seemed to be useful in explaining those data. But when we read Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi’s (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, we knew we had found what we were looking for. An excited from Michael to Jeff: “You have to read this book.” An excited response from Jeff: “This is it!” We took enormous pleasure in that reading because the book was so useful in helping us think about something important to us.
What we experienced was what we are calling the pleasure of work, a kind of pleasure that’s distinct from the immersive pleasure of play that our readers experienced by entering a story world. Work pleasure is the pleasure one takes from using a text as a tool to accomplish something. As you’ll see, the ends that our readers were seeking to accomplish were not those instrumental ends discuss by policy makers. For the most part, our readers weren’t thinking about college and career. They had much more immediate and personally compelling goals. (48)

3. Two kinds of pleasurable work:
1. Work that accomplishes practical ends
(Reading a text that helps you understand something or someone, or maybe reading a text that will help you build or create something)
2. Work that addresses deeply personal issues; inner work
(Reading a text that helps you make sense of some aspect of your life, that helps you grow, or maybe that helps you claim your identity)

4. Two kinds of pleasurable work:
1. Work that accomplishes practical ends:
Reading to develop as a writer; to learn craft
Reading to develop as a speaker or talker
Reading to develop as a thinker
Picking up content knowledge
Picking up thinking skills
Reading to develop as a doer (such as to improve gaming skills)

5. Two kinds of pleasurable work:
2. Inner work
Reading to “try on” different roles vicariously
Reading to play out various moral choices
Reading to discover one’s identity
Reading to “imaginatively rehearse” life situations
…and besides pleasurable work, there’s plain old pleasure:

6. Intellectual Pleasure
The pleasure of solving problems
The pleasure of considering what happens next
(Series books extend the pleasure to the next book)
The pleasure of thinking about characters
The pleasure of thinking about themes
The pleasure of thinking about the author’s craft
Sound like the work teachers encourage?
make predictions
make inferences
attend to themes
attend to craft

7. Social Pleasure
Using reading to connect to others
Using reading to name and identify oneself
Observation:
Teachers recommend because “it’s good for you”
Students recommend because it’s pleasurable
In a culture of reading, students share books the way they share jokes. (“Have you heard/read this one yet?”)

8. Book Trailers / Commercials
Code Name Verity
Salt to the Sea
War Brothers
Deadly
Book Trailers / Commercials

9. From last week: Next week we’ll discuss Rose Under Fire
Make a list of questions/issues you’d like to address during class next week
Consider: How might you use this book as a whole-class novel?

10. Why Use a Whole-Class Book?
Every teacher, regardless of discipline, should teach…
Reading (in that discipline)
Writing (in that discipline)
Speaking (in that discipline)
Critical thinking (in that discipline)
A book can be a springboard for any of these skills.

11. Decisions a writer makes…
Why begin with notes for an accident report?
What other options were available?
What do we learn about Rose?
What’s the effect of getting this information through a report rather than some other way?
Decisions a reader makes…
How is reading an accident report different from reading a first-person narrative?
What expectations do you have for an accident report compared to a “regular” story?

13. Speaking:
Book talk or book review
Voiceover for a book trailer or research project
Oral presentation of research project
First-person account of part of the story
Rose
One of the “rabbits”
Commandant, lawyer, or other character
Oral interpretation: readaloud of a key passage

14. Looking ahead: Final Exam
Write a proposal for a $500 grant (or a $1000 grant, if you're feeling adventurous) with which to create a classroom library (or enhance your existing library, if you already have one). Include a detailed budget, as well as a rationale for each purchase.
Who’s the audience?
What do they need to know?
What’s your narrative – yours story? (Why choose to help YOU?)
What, specifically, ask you requesting? Why?
Some places to start your search:

15. Next week:
Multicultural books