Common Read 2024

What is a "Common Read?"

Good question!

Every year, the college selects a book that features important themes or perspectives to be the "Common Read." That book is then read by a large portion of the Mount Holyoke community, especially first year students, and provides the basis for a variety of classroom discussions and campus events over the course of the year. This year, the book selected is I Never Thought of It That Way by Mónica Guzmán.

From the information page about the Common Read (which also features a list of past Common Reads): 

The Common Read is designed to give students new to Mount Holyoke College their first intellectual dialogue based on a shared text. These students start to explore the selected text during Orientation and continue the discussion into their fall classes and throughout the year.

Open to the entire College community to read and discuss — staff on campus and alumnae groups across the country discuss the book, for instance — the Common Read sets the tone for the community. It helps collectively frame discussions for the upcoming academic year.

Current and prospective students, faculty, staff, alumnae and trustees are invited to participate.

About I Never Thought of It That Way

Book Description

We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions. Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we're not using: our own built-in curiosity.​

Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we're right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding one another is hurting our relationships and our society. In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt—broken conversations among confounded people.

She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.

Drawing from cross-partisan conversations she's had, organized, or witnessed everywhere from the echo chambers on social media to the wheat fields in Oregon to raw, unfiltered fights with her own family on election night, Mónica shows how you can put your natural sense of wonder to work for you immediately, finding the answers you need by talking with people—rather than about them—and asking the questions you want, curiously.

Availability

• 10 physical copies are available for checkout at the Circulation Desk in LITS.
• 5 ebook copies are available for one user at a time (MHC login required).
• An audiobook version (and another ebook version) is available on the Libby App through the Boston Public Library (requires a Boston Public Library eCard, which is free to anyone who lives, works, or goes to school in Massachusetts). For assistance or more information, contact Research Services. 

About the Author, Mónica Guzmán

Bio and image from the author's website: 

Mónica Guzmán is Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America; host of A Braver Way, a podcast that equips people with the tools they need to bridge the political divide in their everyday lives; founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world; and author of I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

Moni is the inaugural McGurn Fellow at the University of Florida, working with researchers at the UF College of Journalism and Communications and beyond to better understand ways to employ techniques described in her book to boost understanding. She was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how journalists can better meet the needs of a participatory public.

Her work has been featured in The New York Times, the Glenn Beck Podcast, Reader's Digest, BookTV, and EconTalk, and she is an advisor for Starts With Us and the Generations Over Dinner project.

Before committing to the project of helping people understand each other across the political divide, Mónica cofounded the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey and led a national network of groundbreaking local newsletters as VP of Local for WhereBy.Us.

She was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle, served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties' Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Guided Reading Questions

Introduction

• Think about a conversation you've had with someone close to you that didn't go well. Do you feel you understood each other fully? 

Part 1: SOS (Sorting, Othering, Siloing)

• Do you feel like you have an easier time getting along with people who are like you? Does this also apply to understanding ideas you are comfortable with?
• How have you witnessed othering in the world? How have you participated in it?
• What story does your social media bubble tell you about the world? Is it telling the same story over and over again? What other stories exist that you aren't seeing?

Part 2: Curiosity

• Was there ever a time you put a lot of effort into truly understanding someone else's perspective and felt like you succeeded? What did you (or they) do that enabled that success? 
• Have you ever had your perspective profoundly changed by something someone else said? 
• What connections do you see between the skills involved in fostering curiosity and the skills involved in being a good learner and scholar?

Part 3: People

• When was a time you assumed something that turned out to be wrong? What questions could you have asked to avoid making the assumption?
• If there's an extent to which it isn't someone's fault that they hold the views they do, what does that suggest for how we engage with them, both the people and the views?
• What does this statement mean to you: "Uncertainty that searches for truth gets there faster than certainty that asserts it." 

Part 4: Paths

• What path has led you to your own views? How could a different path have led to different conclusions?
• What is a story that helped you understand an issue in a way that reason alone couldn't?
• Apply this question to a contentious issue that you feel strongly about: "What's your most generous interpretation of why they disagree with you?"

Part 5: Honesty

• "Paraphrasing" is a technique central to most scholarship. How is the paraphrasing you use when writing a paper similar to the paraphrasing the author describes as a feature of strong conversations?
• "We don't see with our eyes but with our whole biographies." What does this mean for how we can effectively communicate a difficult idea with someone who doesn't agree with us?
• What CARE questions could you ask about an issue that's important to you?

Epilogue

• What "INTOIT" ("I Never Thought Of It That way") moments did this book spark for you?
• What are some new steps that you might take to imbue your relationships - especially the ones that challenge you - with more "honesty, curiosity, respect?"

Additional Resources

In this part of the guide, we have made note of several resources that we think are useful companion pieces to the content of the book, offering additional context and information.

However, it should be noted that no list like this is ever complete, and we encourage you to continue seeking out information on your own if you are curious about the subject. If you would like assistance with that, contact Research Services in LITS!

Books

• Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square: Civic Dialogue by Lauren Swayne Barthold
  • "This book describes how civic dialogue can serve as an antidote to a polarized public square. It argues that when pervasive polarization renders rational and fact-based argumentation ineffective, we first need to engage in a way that builds trust."
• A Decent Meal: The Search for Empathy in a Divided America by Michael Carolan
  • "A poignant look at empathetic encounters between staunch ideological rivals, all centered around our common need for food."

Articles

• "Screw those guys: Polarization, empathy, and attitudes about out‐partisans" by Maxwell Allamong and David Peterson
  • Empathic ability is the ability to interpret the emotional state of others. In today's highly partisan and polarized environment, empathic ability may play a key role in determining how partisans respond emotionally to changes in public policy and those helped or harmed by the policy.
• "The Bipartisan Group That’s Not Afraid of Partisanship" by David A. Graham
  • An article looking at Better Angels (the original name for the Braver Angels organization) in the wake of the 2016 election.

Videos

• How Curiosity Will Save Us | Mónica Guzmán | TEDxSeattle
  • "Mónica shares examples of curiosity-driven conversations that make it possible for even the most opposed liberals and conservatives to see and hear one another, despite the misperceptions from their news feeds."

Websites

• Mónica Guzmán
  • Official website for Mónica Guzmán, the author of the book I Never Thought of It That Way.
• Braver Angels
  • Official website for Braver Angels, who are "leading the nation’s largest cross-partisan, volunteer-led movement to bridge the partisan divide for the good of our democratic republic."

Podcasts

• A Braver Way
  • "A podcast about how you – yes YOU – can disagree about politics without losing heart."

Campus Events

The most prominent Common Read event this fall will be Mónica Guzmán's visit to campus the week of November 18. Information about that and other events will be shared through the usual college channels (Embark and the Events Calendar) as they become available!