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CRC Common Read

The CRC Common Read program is one of the first opportunities each fall for our entire community to have a shared intellectual experience. The programs and events associated with our book serve as catalysts for us to experience interdisciplinary scholarship and community engagement as an integral part of CRC and the UW.
Each year, a new book is selected by a committee of students, staff, and faculty partners. For First-Year students, the CRC Common Read is the primary text in our First-Year Seminar, ILS 138: Exploring the Foundations of a Liberal Arts Education.
CRC also participates in UW’s campus-wide Common Read program: Go Big Read.

Reasons to Participate

• Shared experience with roommates, neighbors, faculty, staff, and friends
• Assist with transition to a new CRC community - whether as a returning or new student - by creating a foundation to explore beliefs, values, and ideas
• Enjoyable reading which will lends itself to being involved outside the classroom
• Assist with the transition to a new learning environment by reinforcing communication skills and demonstrating the import and role of intellectual engagement with CRC and at UW-Madison

CRC 2012 Common Read Selection:

2012 Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman

Past Common Read Selections

2011 Feed by M.T. Anderson

	2010 New Orleans: After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
	2009 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
	2008 The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle
	2007 On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Book Selection Criteria

Our Common Read book will:

• Help us ask questions, of ourselves and others
• Encourage us to examine our assumptions and understandings
• Avoid "providing all of the answers" but instead remain open to analysis
• Be inclusive such that it is not purposefully offensive to anyone; controversy is acceptable, however
• Have content we want to talk about and explore with each other
• Be relevant to a contemporary issue
• Be accessible to all CRC populations
• Have a "hook" in the beginning
• Be approximately 200 to 300 pages long

Common Read Creative Works Contest

Open to any current CRC resident! Consider responding to Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago in any creative format you'd like. Your submission can address any element, theme, or issues in the text, whether identified here, in a discussion, or on your own. Your work's connection to this year's text should be clear to most audiences.

A starting list of themes from Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago

• Sense of place
• Socio-Economic Status
• White Privilege
• Race
• American History
• Community
• Education
• Family Relationships

Guidelines

1. Submissions can be in any creative format: poems, spoken word, paintings, essays, photography, multimedia, film and collage are all possible.
2. Please submit the following on a cover sheet with your project: name, student ID number, campus address, phone number, and email address. Please include the title of your creative works and a short statement (no more than 100 words) on how your work relates to the themes in Our America.

Deadline

Submission deadline is 12:00pm, Monday, September 10, 2012 in the CRC Office.

Prizes

At least three project winners will be announced at the Common Read What Matters to Me and why on Tuesday, September 18th.  Prizes will range from 425 gift cards, up to a grand prize winner chosen by Our America auther LeAlan Jones receiving a $150 credit to your student tuition account through the Bursar's office.

Questions?

Connect with CRC's Assistant Director, Jasmine Clay at clay2@wisc.edu or stop by the CRC Main Office.