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The Runner Reader
A Common Reader Program
at California State University, Bakersfield

The Runner Reader Common Reader Program seeks to engage first-year freshman students and transfer/re-entry students "in transition" in an academic discourse through the shared experiences of reading a "common reader" throughout the first academic term of the year. The selected reading will be linked to specific classes, especially CSUB 101 and English 110.

Program Philosophy

The Runner Reader Common Reading Program seeks to:

• Place, at its core, an emphasis on reading as an intellectual skill central to student achievement and will promote learning with and from others.

• Reinforce the notion that learning occurs both inside and outside the classroom, encouraging students to participate and recognize the educational value of their involvement.

• Balance academic and social activities.

• Promote peer engagement by helping students understand the value of talking about academic matters outside the classroom.

• Enhance critical thinking skills.

• The program will engage students in higher-order, integrative, and reflective learning.

• Help students learn to make judgments about the validity of what they read, discuss these ideas with others whose views may differ from their own, and consider alternative perspectives.

• Help students connect what they read to previously acquired knowledge and to the new knowledge they are acquiring in college.

• Focus on sending the message - early in a student's transition - that reading and discourse are expected in college.

• Emphasize the involvement of all members of the university, as well as surrounding community members.

Goals

Primary Goals - The purpose of The Runner Reader Common Reading Program is to enhance students' transition to college and to increase student success by:

• Providing a common academic experience for all first-year and transfer students
• Strengthening the academic atmosphere of CSUB
• Connecting students to their peers and teachers
• Getting students involved in campus activities
• Involving students, teachers, staff, and members of the campus community in a shared learning experience

Secondary Goals – In addition, The Runner Reader Common Reading Program will strive to:

• Develop intellectual competence
• Establish and maintain interpersonal relationships
• Explore identity development
• Develop multicultural awareness
• Develop civic responsibility

The Runner Reader Common Reading Program will also strive to model academic behaviors by:

• Enhancing students' abilities to read for understanding, raise questions, and listen to diverse points of view
• Emphasizing critical analysis of a text
• Helping students formulate written arguments and support claims about the text
• Allowing students to draw parallels between what they read and personal experiences

The Runner Reader Common Reading Program will also help set expectations for students by highlighting important intellectual skills and abilities, including:

• Effective oral, visual, and written communication skills
• The ability to interpret and evaluate information from a variety of sources
• The ability to understand and work within complex systems and with diverse groups
• The ability to transform information into knowledge and knowledge into judgment and action
   

(Adapted from: Common Reading Programs: Going Beyond the Book, J. L. Laufgraben, (author and editor). The First-Year Experience Monograph Series No. 44: National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, University of South Carolina, 2006. )