Including the 2007 Campus Reading Program Book -
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
in Your Classes

Suggestions from the Campus Reading Committee

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Why? The Campus Reading Program has the following objectives:

1. To help build a Culture of Reading at SJSU as recommended by a fall 2004 Academic Senate resolution.
2. To encourage SJSU students to read more by finding ways to get them more engaged and focused on reading and its resulting enjoyment and intellectual benefits.
3. To help build community on campus among students and employees.

The members of the Campus Reading Program Committee urge faculty to help support reading and this program by finding ways to incorporate the selected book into their courses. Some ideas are listed below.

Will students have read the book? The Campus Reading Committee publicizes the book to all current students before the end of the spring semester and new students will learn about it at their summer orientation. All incoming frosh will receive a copy of the book at Orientation, as a gift from the President, and they are strongly encouraged to read it as an important “first assignment.” But, reading the book is not mandatory so you may find that students have not read it (even new frosh). If you’ve got frosh students, you can assume they read the book.  For other students, you might want to give them a few weeks to read it at the start of the fall before discussing it in class or including any assignment on it (but encourage them to read the 2008 book in summer).

How? Here are a variety of suggestions for how you might incorporate the reading in your courses.  Hopefully one or more will make sense for your particular course or lead you to think of other ideas.

1.       Review the list of activities posted at the reading website and have your students attend any event or a specific one relevant to your course and write a reflective paper about it. There is a wide range of activities including discussion groups, discussion of writing styles, and more.

http://www.sjsu.edu/reading/calendar.htm

2.       Partner with another class (any subject) that meets at the same time and hold a book discussion where your students also get an opportunity to hear what other students think of the book.

3.       Diversity – Use stories from the book as an entry to discuss diversity. 

4.       Relate some of the stories to “coming of age” stories students might have read or seen a movie about (here are a few, but this is certainly not a complete list).

§         Have students identify their own list of coming of age novels and movies they have read or seen and share a favorite with classmates.

§         Have students discuss the life transitions of Dina in the title story – “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.”  Can students relate to portions of her start of college? What does the title mean to Dina?

§         Have students consider their own coming of age story and the types of transitions they have had, their significance, and how they think their college experience will change their life.

5.       Tie a theme from the story into a course topic.

§         Religion

§         Social class

§         Cultural differences

§         Self-determination

6.       Use specific questions about the story to engage students in a discussion.

a.       There are questions available from the publisher at http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/drinking_coffee_elsewhere.html.

b.       There are some questions in the Reading Guide provided by the Campus Reading Committee – see the link on the reading website.

c.       Ask students whether they enjoyed the stories and why or why not.

d.       What do you think you’ve learned about the author based on the stories?  What do you think her views are on life, friendship, family and religion?

e.       What social issues does the author raise through the stories?

f.        What themes does the author use?

g.       What conflicts exist in the stories and how do the characters create or resolve the conflicts? Would they have resolved it differently? Why or why not? Are any of the conflicts similar to ones they may have been through?

h.       What might be another title for this book?  Why?

7.       Writing practice – Here are some ideas for student writing using the book:

a.       An analysis of one of the characters that describes their attributes, attitudes, strengths, weaknesses and why they might be in the situation they are in.

b.       Compare characters from two different stories noting their similarities and differences and whether they think the author may have based one on the other.

c.       A story about their own life and a conflict they have been through. You may want to have a class discussion beforehand that includes a focus on the conflicts in the stories.

d.       Write another story that uses the voice and attitude of one of the characters. You might want to give students a choice of fact patterns to use in developing and telling that story.  

e.    Compare Packer's writing to that of contemporary authors she was influenced by - Toni Morrison and James Alan McPherson.

8.       Research – Have students use the library to find information on a location or event from one of the stories, in order to practice their research and analysis skills.

9.       Provide students with a copy of SJSU’s Shared Values (http://www.sjsu.edu/strategicplan/docs/values.pdf). Discuss what the values mean and how the book might help SJSU readers to understand these values better.

10.   See examples of what professors from various colleges have done to incorporate prior campus reading books into their courses.  (See Information for Faculty at www.sjsu.edu/reading.)

Questions or comments? Please contact 

sjsureads@sjsu.edu

Questions or comments? Please contact us
at sjsureads@sjsu.edu