2025 Reviewer Comments

Please comment on the clarity of language in the text. Given the audience, we are looking for lucid, accessible prose that provides adequate context for any jargon/technical terminology used.

Not only is the book clear for fellow educators, the assignments are very clear for students. The idea of education here could have a wider audience than higher education teachers. Perhaps this could be extended to high school teachers who are working with disengaged passenger students. The idea of cultivating wonder and autonomy could also be attractive to alternative forms of education like the unschooling and deschooling movements.  -Dr. Christopher Adamson; Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

The language used throughout was clear and would be clear to students. The one exception is in the glossaries/lists of technologies. This is understandable given that these are the terms students will need to learn to assess and categorize the narratives they have read. But I had some trouble recognizing or understanding some of them from their descriptions, so I don’t know that students would understand them. They seemed to prioritize interesting names rather than names or descriptions that would be more readily understandable to first- or second-year gen-ed students. I don’t know if many students at my urban commuter public college will know what bank tubes are! -Dr. Jody R. Rosen, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology

Searching for Wonder is a book that is easy to skim—due to the straightforward, clear prose. Isbell’s engaging voice makes this book also a joy to read slowly and recurringly. The author shows enthusiasm, curiosity, humor, tenacity, and, of course, wonder in every word.

The student-facing language of the assignments and introductory guided imagery is carefully crafted to be welcoming, kind, and open. Borrowing language from other instructors is always something I’m wary of since, in this era of the LMS and hybrid and fully online courses, much of our teaching personas comes across through written text we’ve published online. My desired persona aligns closely with Isbell’s, so I’d feel comfortable using her text (with attribution of course) without it clashing with my other content. Although Isbell offers her resources to use in full, I imagine that many will want to either adjust the phrasing for their own teaching personas or, perhaps, utilize “Dr. Isbell” or “Station Master” as a guide. -Dr. Lauren R. Beck, Lecturer, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

The text is accessibly- and engagingly-written. -Dr. Amanda Auerbach, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America

The language here is clear, especially for anyone who teaches literature at a university level and teaches not just in their specialities but also in general education courses. That said, some further definitions of the terms adopted from Angus Fletcher’s Wonderworks could be helpful. The terms I’m thinking of are “narrative technologies” and “story experiences”; it is not that these terms are foreign, but rather that I think it would be helpful to have a description of how they are being used specifically in this context. This description could perhaps come from more insight into how Isbell explains these concepts to students. -Dr. Laura Elizabeth Rotunno, Associate Professor of English, Penn State Altoona

Please comment on this text’s potential usefulness in your literature courses. Based on your experience, what could the strategies, assignments, examples, and glossaries in this book make possible in literature courses?

My upcoming religion and literature course is already set as an exploration of the Catholic literary revival, so I have a limited canon related to the values of my institution. At the same time, I will be able to better engage students with the readings through adopting strategies outlined in this book. The assignments that promote experiential readings of literature with a glossary that enables to speak about their reading with both authenticity and a shared lexicon will improve my commonplace book assignments where they share texts that most affected them. Likewise the presentation of literature as technology will meld perfectly with our discussion of virtuous uses of technology (especially AI). As an educator, I have to reflect more on this because I teach Tools for Conviviality in this course, especially the idea that we should not be shaped by tools, but at the same time, I present literature as a shared experience that shapes us. If literature is a tool, and human dignity resists being shaped by a tool, then I am grateful for the way this books calls me to think more deeply on the relationship between the techne of the writer’s craft and the techne of modern technology. -Dr. Christopher Adamson; Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

Literature courses at my college are mostly gen-ed offerings, with a few meeting requirements for specific majors, and some minors including a range of literature course offerings in the requirements. So an approach that doesn’t emphasize coverage of literature would work for all or most literature courses we offer.
As the book proposes an approach that asks students to observe, detail, and describe, categorize, and reflect on their experiences with narrative and provides tools to do so. These are important techniques for students in any of the majors our college offers, from health fields to engineering, design, and business, etc.
The approach presented in the book also emphasizes the experiences and skills students bring into the course and integrates it into collaborative co-creation of knowledge with each other and the instructor.
The course de-emphasizes grades, focusing on student learning rather than evaluation. It would be useful to understand both the affordances of this approach and what difficulties that creates. Do students all finish with the same A grade? What keeps them from an A if not? What does it mean to give 100% for an assignment if a student didn’t do all parts, or didn’t get things right? And if those projects don’t get 100%, what do they get instead?^[1]
A course schedule would be helpful to understand pacing. This could also include what happens during class time for each of the classes during a project.^[2]
Revision is one of the expectations of writing-intensive courses, so it’s great that the projects include a revision step. That said, I didn’t understand what work students were supposed to do in the revision, nor why it was supposed to be done in a google doc rather than in a post or the initial post. A bit more explanation in the “How Does This Work?” section would help instructors considering adopting the approach–putting greater explanation in the assignments themselves could benefit instructors and students. -Dr. Jody R. Rosen, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology

This book is both highly specific—I feel as if I could replicate this exactly in my own class with very little alteration—and deeply flexible. I find myself thinking of ways to adapt Isbell’s concepts and tools for similar applications. Although I do teach literature in some of my courses (as well as film and theatrical performance, which have their own set of similar technologies), I more often teach non-fiction essays. When I teach essays, I draw comparisons between their techniques and those of short stories, films, or other fictional pieces. For example, I ask: How do authors turn the scholars they cite into characters within their essays? How do authors take readers on a journey? Do they set up some exposition before setting off an inciting argument? Do they begin in media res without any explanation to hook readers? I guide students through this process while we all read the same essays, but typically I find myself hoping that they’ll do the same with essays that they encounter on their own, for pleasure (Oh, I hope they read essays for pleasure!) or for citation. Searching for Wonder provides me with a potential framework for guiding my students through a process of reading essays of their choosing and working through and sharing their experiences of reading, classifying, and identifying the technologies used by the authors. This process provides students with agency, the ability to help other students, and also allows us as instructors more opportunities for assessment. –Dr. Lauren R. Beck, Lecturer, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

I think this approach would be particularly useful for me in the creative writing classroom, where I find the most students who don’t necessarily complete the reading. I often teach literature in the creative writing classroom, so Isbell’s approach could help me show the applicability of closely engaging with literature to improving as a creative writer. -Dr. Amanda Auerbach, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America

This text will be highly useful for my literature courses. I am especially taken by the way that this text faces, head on, the problem of students’ not reading and balances that disheartening recognition with an energy to help students discover the joys of reading by tapping into (and guiding them to discover) the emotions and experiences that they already enjoy. I love this move–that asks students to reflect on their experiences with texts–not just because it seems a perfect way to reading, but also because it gifts the professor insight into their students personally. I have become an even firmer believer in the necessity of learning about my students on an individual level, and Isbell’s work integrates that goal into the courses’ goals with aplomb. One of the best examples of this arises for me in the first assignment that asks students to reflect carefully on one of their favorite texts. This assignment also, at least implicitly, targets another central goal of mine: stressing to students the personal and contemporary relevance of the texts with which we engage.
Considering further assignments: on reading the “plot summary” assignment, I wanted to rush into any classroom and try it out. This assignment gets students to think about why and how a story works–a goal in all my classes–and does it on so many different levels or through different modes that, I think, would both engage students and challenge them.
The glossaries of both narrative technologies and story experiences would be something I would quickly integrate in class too, if only to help students and myself come to a shared language by which to speak of the texts we explore. That shared language is another “thing” that I see this text making possible in literature courses in which it’s often difficult to get students all to the “same page.” Importantly, this is not to say that students would feel restricted by this language or the glossaries. One of the advantages I see of these glossaries is that ALL are invited to add to it and that power/possibility alone would generate productive class discussion. -Dr. Laura Elizabeth Rotunno, Associate Professor of English, Penn State Altoona

Please comment on the appropriateness of this text for the curriculum at your institution. How thoroughly do you think you can accomplish the goals and learning outcomes of the literature courses you teach with the strategies and assignments included in this book? Is there something that could be added to address any gaps you anticipate?

Since I teach at a small religious university where the liberal arts are practically non-existent but we still try to remain in the tradition of liberal education, I resonate with the author’s work to make literature accessible for non-majors. This would work well for our first-year
experience courses that focus on literature and could possibly be adapted for our medical humanities program. Since we have a character education initiative, there are ways that the ideas here could work very well for us. The emphasis on autonomy (an intellectual virtue in the Jubilee Centre framework), goal-setting (necessary for students to grow into the kind of persons they want to be rather than just skill acquisition), the role of the teacher as a model (virtue is caught), and the turn toward drawing out love for the practice of reading by that model (love is the motivating virtue after all) all fit very well in our educational culture. At the same time, there are ways that there would be a tension with our curriculum, which could tease out interested aspects about this approach. In cases when education is seen as a way to point to what is worthy of our attention, then what do we lose if we stop pointing to specific literary artifacts? If education is inherently relational, then do we risk atomizing our work further by having students fully select their own texts? I mean these questions as someone who is very open to this project and grateful for the way it allows us to think through more what it means to teach literature. -Dr. Christopher Adamson; Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

It’s great that students can study their experiences with narrative and map those onto narrative technologies. I like the flexibility to incorporate non-written narratives. But I don’t know that a course called literature but in which someone could read no literature would work at my college. I thought the courses that asked students to read different types of narratives for different assignments could mean that students could be ensured to experience different formats of narratives.
There is a useful emphasis on students directing their choices, and mention of the difficulty of making choices sometimes, but no clear solution for overcoming the obstacle when it threatens to slow a student down to the point of not progressing, which I find relatively often when students face a choice rather than being told what to work on. Since there is nothing to get started without a text, I would need to have a way to move students into making a choice so they don’t fall behind from the start.^[3]
I don’t have a clear sense of how much writing students will produce for the four posts and the final project/revision. I would need to be specific about that to meet the requirements for a writing-intensive course, which all of our literature courses are.
The book addresses the situation of students not finishing the readings they begin, but it doesn’t make reference to how much reading to expect of students or that students should expect of themselves, or what taking on too much or too little reading can do to the outcome of the projects.
These variables–which texts, how much to write, and how much to read (or consume)–leave so much choice for students that they might not know if they’re on the right track, or how much more they need to do. When assignments offer the option for reading one narrative or more, I don’t know what would motivate a student to choose three instead of one without them understanding what having more data offers them (like in the example of categorizing like biologists do).^[4] -Dr. Jody R. Rosen, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology

I could use or adapt the assignments in this text for any of the courses I teach in our English Department. I don’t see the need for this text to address every learning outcome for every course. One of the Learning Goals in our department is to “sustain a life-long engagement with and delight in literature, art, and culture.” I don’t think I’ve encountered a course design before Isbell’s that prioritizes delight above all else. If we can teach students how to approach texts with wonder and delight, perhaps we can better help our students meet our other learning goals. –Dr. Lauren R. Beck, Lecturer, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Since the literature curriculum at my institution is very based in transmitting a shared knowledge of canonical works in a long literary tradition, I don’t think this approach would apply as well there. -Dr. Amanda Auerbach, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America

At this point, there is still freedom for professors at my institution in terms of accomplishing courses’ goals and learning outcomes. In short, we still are designing our courses, assignments, reading lists. So simply in terms of the freedom of texts encouraged here, this text would be appropriate for my use.

I do believe that this text will need to be more explicit about how a professor can use WONDERCAT to direct students to texts in the specific time period, genre, issue, etc. that would be the focus of the course. I see that step as something Isbell has navigated well already considering especially the Nineteenth-Century Literature and Representations of Nature courses. I don’t however see that yet explained in this text.^[5] -Dr. Laura Elizabeth Rotunno, Associate Professor of English, Penn State Altoona

Please comment on the approach to literature with examples, if possible. Please comment on any theoretical approaches to literature contradicted by the way literature is framed in this text.

As an educator and a deschooler in the tradition of Ivan Illich, dedicated to promoting autonomy and respecting the student’s ability to grow to maturity in a field, I am very attracted to this way of opening up literature to student choice. I see also where it can be an essential strategy for changing institutions.
At the same time, I have two concerns about this approach that if addressed could help potential adopters. 1) I am not sure if literature should be reduced to experience with a focus on emotional experience. I think the way this method unpacks that important aspect of literature is compelling, but I want my students to have something more. I want them to see that literature is a form of shared reasoning through story. I have a relational view of literature and technology that I would like to see in an approach to literature. I see where this method accomplished that by emphasizing discussion of shared techniques, but I’m curious how this technique could interface with other views of literature. 2) I am convinced by Gert Biesta that the primary function of teaching is to point at what’s worthy of our attention, and to attend to it together with students. I can see where this class method does that so well by facilitating discussions with various student-selected texts, but I would like to see more discussion of what we might lose without assigning texts or how the curation through WonderCat offers another way to attend together as a learning community.^[6] -Dr. Christopher Adamson; Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

As I read this book, I thought about how I would spend class time with students, and what they would need from me to make this approach work. I think students would need to learn about the different narrative technologies. They might know many–and if they did, they might want to start a list early that they add to all semester. But there are many they don’t know, and I don’t know how they would complete the assignments without learning what the different technologies are. Is there time devoted to perusing the glossaries or WonderCat?^[7] Although students can identify experiences using whatever descriptive language they can find, and can then revise based on consensus among the class about how to describe their experiences, I don’t know that the same works for narrative technologies. I might want to ask students to read something that explains, say, elements of fiction, or that describes, for example, order, duration, and frequency. Asking students to read about reading literature seems a useful addition, supporting their efforts to understand the metacognitive moves we make when experiencing narratives.

I also wonder if short examples could be shared during class time to have some shared experiences that would motivate the terminology they need to develop and revise throughout the semester. -Dr. Jody R. Rosen, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology

This is a user-centered approach to teaching literature. The focus is on students’ choices, identifications, and experiences. This aligns with the author’s purpose in developing this curriculum, which is, crucially, to get students to read. Isbell convincingly argues that learning and wonder cannot occur until students take the indispensable step of reading.
As Isbell notes, students are used to being asked to interpret texts. This book foregrounds, instead, embodied experiences of reading. It asks students to reflect not just on what they thought or felt about a text, but on what drew them to it. What were they doing while reading? Where was their body in space? Reading Isbell’s example posts demonstrates an entire physical, mental, and individual experience, one that’s framed as meaningful to others, especially through the sharing of blog posts and commenting.
Blog posts remain a format that privileges long-form writing. Isbell states adamantly that they are not English essays—and they clearly aren’t—but are they reflections? Blog posts? Content? I can’t help but feel that categorizing these responses could be important to the mission of the book.^[8] The courses may not be so meta as to ask students to assign or ascribe technologies to their own responses, but this kind of attention to genre, purpose, and audience impact seems worth emphasizing. It could encourage a stronger sense of curiosity and wonder as students approach all kinds of texts.
Although the students spend time focusing inwardly on their own experiences, they are also asked to connect their experiences to those of others in Wondercat. By classifying their experiences into existing or new categories, students are building experiential communities that demonstrate the ways that texts work in identifiable and repeatable ways. This reinforces Angus Fletcher’s claims about narrative technologies and the way they work on the human brain.
When reading through the content about the nineteenth-century literature course, I wasn’t sure if the focus stayed entirely on the twenty-first-century experiences of the text or if Isbell or her students were inputting into Wondercat readers’ reactions recorded in nineteenth-century diaries (for example). I wondered if the class discussed how narrative technologies worked across time and in different cultural contexts.^[9] -Dr. Lauren R. Beck, Lecturer, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

One thing I would wonder about is how this approach might sideline an appreciation of how texts emerge in literary history alongside similar texts. I anticipate that Isbell would propose that that important goal be served in later literature courses attended by only motivated students.^[10] -Dr. Amanda Auerbach, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America

I see the approach to literature here as through a “craft” angle. When I focus on the concerns I see as central to a “craft” angle, I explain to my students that we will be looking at how and why a text “works” and what it “does” to us as its audience. That approach to texts is key to my pedagogy; however, also important is introducing students to the sociohistorical context of the texts with which we engage. This text–most notably in its timeline assignments–convinces me that this approach to teaching attends to sociohistorical concerns. I would, however, like to see more explicit discussion of if/how/when such explorations enter class discussions. I am not expecting (or wanting) to see lectures but wondering if/how such concerns arise in the assignments (and if I missed that in my reading–apologies!). -Dr. Laura Elizabeth Rotunno, Associate Professor of English, Penn State Altoona

Please comment on the internal consistency of the text in terms of terminology and framework.

As a reader, I have not noticed any inconsistencies. The rethinking of literary techniques as technology is fascinating and clear. My suggestion in this way would not be for increased consistency but for more room to be given to the implications of this shift. -Dr. Christopher Adamson; Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

I appreciated seeing the consistent approach to assignments, including the patterning and repetition of instructions. There is a reference to returning to the first assignment for instructions, rather than including that information again–which would be too long to include in its entirety. However, a link back to it and perhaps a list of the different steps but with no explanation would be useful there.^[11]

I wondered, though, if this level of repetition, which I value for its consistency, would instead mean that students would overlook what was said, that it would be extra and not internalized. If that were the case, would it make more sense to have a document that addresses, for example, revision, or grading, and then each project’s instructions would link to that one document about revision, or grading, rather than repeat all of that information each time.

It was not clear to me when to use the glossaries versus WonderCat. -Dr. Jody R. Rosen, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology

The terminology and philosophy of Angus Fletcher’s Wonderworks is clear without the reader having read that text. Isbell takes Fletcher’s work into her own specific direction. The terminology surrounding the narrative technologies and the processes students move through while reading are clear and consistent across the assignments and their explanations. –Dr. Lauren R. Beck, Lecturer, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

I think the work is internally consistent in its terminology and framework. -Dr. Amanda Auerbach, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America

I saw internal consistency of terms and framework throughout this text. However, sometimes that consistency introduces little errors–that I fear students would catch–in assignments. For instance, in the Algorithms and the Arts course (LOVE the idea behind this course), the assignments for film and music include some errors, specifically references to story/reading terminology, etc.. Also I wonder if the FAQs for those assignments need to be shifted to film or music specific as well.^[12] -Dr. Laura Elizabeth Rotunno, Associate Professor of English, Penn State Altoona

Please comment on the organization of this text. A pdf edition will be made available upon launch, but this review is focused on the digital edition. Our goal is for the topics of the text to be presented in a logical, clear fashion.

The text is readable, and the opening sections set the stage well with the explanation of literary technologies and the detailed explanation of the typical class session followed by assignments offered generously in modular design on Pressbooks, and concluding with a searchable glossary. This organization makes excellent use of the digital structure of writing in Pressbooks. At the same time, as a reader, I found myself wanting a formal conclusion after the example projects and before the appendices with the two glossaries. It might be that I missed the rhetorical moves that accomplish this in the opening sections, but I would like to see something that returns all the generous course information in how this way of teaching changes our view of literature, the classroom, and the profession.^[13] -Dr. Christopher Adamson; Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

The expandable parts of the later sections were helpful to see the overall subtopics before expanding individual sections. It would be easier to navigate if there were a way to collapse the expanded sections from the bottom. More helpful would be a way to move from one chapter to the next without going back to the top, since when each section is expanded, the page is quite lengthy.
It would be helpful to have additional linking within the text. I mentioned earlier linking to the first project when later projects refer to that project’s instructions. Additionally, linking to the glossaries and/or to WonderCat at each mention would be useful.
I would find it helpful to read a brief description of each of these courses in the “How Does This Work?” section, perhaps starting with the course description and then explaining what each does differently. That would mean that I could better understand the rationale for the differences across the four courses. It could also establish an expectation for anyone else modding this book to do something similar for whatever they add to the approach. These could be added to the book in future editions if social annotation were turned on for commenting from anyone adopting the book’s approach.

In the section detailing a typical class, it would be useful to know how long a class period is, and how many class sessions there are per semester. Also, if this course has been designed for fully on-site learning in a semester, what considerations or adjustments might someone make when teaching this as a hybrid, online synchronous, online asynchronous, trimester, quarter, summer session, once-per-week, etc. This might be as simple as acknowledging the timing and modality of these examples, and could additionally benefit from a list of suggestions to shift the course into a different timing or modality. I would not expect a different version of any of these courses, but as instructors implement this approach, they might share their experiences teaching in these different situations.^[14]

I love the idea of inviting students to have a shared imaginative experience, but I don’t think my students would read “Welcome to the Station”–and I don’t know that I wouldn’t lose them reading it aloud in class. I might need to shorten it to keep their attention. -Dr. Jody R. Rosen, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology

The book was organized logically into meaningful and accessible sections. I found it easy to navigate. –Dr. Lauren R. Beck, Lecturer, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

The text is well-organized, though it does seem less like a book that makes an academic argument (as I’m accustomed to encountering) and more like a pedagogy guide that includes useful materials for teachers who find themselves drawn to Isbell’s approach. -Dr. Amanda Auerbach, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America

I found this digital edition both exciting and overwhelming. It’s exciting to see all the opportunities made possible and seized because of the digital platform. I loved the fact that there is a link to a workshop led by Isbell and Fletcher (and free!!); this sort of offering could make this text even more inviting to any professors who might consider undertaking this approach to teaching. The links out to assignments within the more global discussions of this pedagogical approach were great too. WONDERCAT itself is fascinating–a real invitation into a rabbit hole!! All that said, there is an overwhelming nature to it. I worried at points that I was perhaps missing sections and other times I felt that I was given too much repetition. Rather than picking up on my reference to “repetition” there, however, I would suggest offering a little more explanation of how to use this digital edition. Some of that explanation could simply be a more explicit identification of what all people can find in the text. I know the TOC does that, but something short could be helpful. More importantly, suggestions about how a user (interested in different goals, like just exploring assignments or just looking at terminology, etc.) might most efficiently use the text could be helpful. Beyond such explanation of the text as a whole, I needed more explanation of how to navigate WONDERCAT. -Dr. Laura Elizabeth Rotunno, Associate Professor of English, Penn State Altoona

Please select how likely you are to use some aspect of this book in future literature courses. What do you think about this book overall?

Extremely Likely; As a reader, I am grateful for the innovative approach to literature in Searching for Wonder. The refreshing way it approaches student disengagement will become increasingly important as we encourage students to love literature and reading. I am especially grateful for how this book has called me to reconsider my own stance toward literature and my students. I now need to think more deeply about what it means to be formed by a book if literary techniques are kinds of technology. My main question is “What do we do after experiencing wonder?” Once we’ve had that experience alone while reading or together in the flow of a classroom discussion, where do we point students next? The assignments in this book and the public-facing examples of student work begin to answer that question, but I think it’s something for all of us who adopt these strategies to consider further. -Dr. Christopher Adamson; Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

Extremely Likely; The book offers an exciting way to approach teaching literature to students in a way that gives them more agency, strengthening their observation and description skills, while asking them to consider categories of experiences and tools that can connect different narratives and different readers.

The approach, with its emphasis on student interest and de-emphasis on grading, will help motivate student engagement and confidence.

In addition to wanting to try these techniques to collaborate with students on gathering content for WonderCat, I am especially interested in the variety of approaches to the culmination of the semester, which asks students to display their semester-long learning for a larger audience either physically on campus or virtually as an OpenLab installation.

Although I can see the hesitation some instructors would have with the lack of coverage of the literary canon, I can see the value of this approach in gen-ed courses that do not need to include an exhaustive list of texts from a given period or movement. -Dr. Jody R. Rosen, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology

Extremely Likely; Searching for Wonder is framed as a gift rather than a mandate. It is an answer to a question that many instructors, not just Isbell, have had: How can we get our students to read? This book does not just provide a gimmick, a carrot, a software, or a philosophy, but rather an entire set of materials, tools, and instruction manuals.

The book privileges two concepts of learning that are important to me and that I have been thinking about recently.

The first is play. How can we make learning more like play for our students? For those of us who have always found joy in our educational institutions, each course, each text was an adventure. In this book, Isbell intentionally builds a playful and imaginative framing device around the course to help her students experience the sense of adventure she feels when reading and learning.

The second concept I have been reflecting on appears in Isbell’s opening narrative about the train station. She states, “Nobody is in a hurry.” This is what our students need to hear. Learning isn’t about efficiency. Isbell gives her students, who have been conditioned to produce “deliverables,” permission to not finish the book, to slow down, to focus on their experiences and their connections to the experiences of others.

I look forward to using the content in this book as soon as I can. –Dr. Lauren R. Beck, Lecturer, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Moderately likely; Isbell’s book reflects the immense labor and creative work that she has put in to developing a new way of teaching literature to students who don’t necessarily do the reading. This book will help undergraduate instructors give students the sense of autonomy and self-motivation that they need to become committed readers. -Dr. Amanda Auerbach, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America

Extremely likely; This book is inspiring. It speaks with the voice of an amazing professor who is open, realistic, daring, and genuinely interested in their students. The Preface alone embodies those qualities and thus perfectly invites other professors into Isbell’s work. As I explored the class and assignment descriptions, the commitment to students as active and engaged became increasingly apparent. It exudes most from the assignments that give students (and professors, who, in this pedagogical design, get to become students alongside their “official” students) agency to create and expand the discussion of literature. Many of those assignments were designed in ways to engage people beyond the classroom and thereby foster what, I see, as a goal of any professor and/or any academic institution: inspiring curiosity.

This book is also helpful in very practical ways. It offers example upon example of assignments (and/or introductions to assignments and class “philosophies” and goals) that any professor could adapt for themselves (even if they were not ready/willing to yet move away from their assigned reading list). It explicitly invites that adaptation, and while the voice is unique in all of the explanations and assignments, they are composed in a way that I see them as inherently malleable.

As this text is inspired by Angus Fletcher’s work (perhaps written in tandem with Fletcher), it could be helpful to have an overview of his work/theories early in the text. There is some discussion there but for those new to it or with just a thumbnail knowledge of it, a little more background could be a helpful foundation. Full disclosure: I am one with a thumbnail knowledge and found myself wanting more to ground me. -Dr. Laura Elizabeth Rotunno, Associate Professor of English, Penn State Altoona