madgerdes's Reviews (970)

I decided I didn’t need to read this cover to cover rn! I’ll refer to it when I need 

Spartan prose, beauty in the mundane, to be loved is to be known and to willingly watch b-westerns. 

Helpful enough - I appreciated that this book included numerous concrete strategies! For example, rather than just saying something like “have students assess their study habits at the beginning of the semester,” the book provided example activities and worksheets for this purpose. I’m not sure how well the chapter on specific learning styles holds up (I feel like I read an article about how OG learning style research tended to view learning styles through a deterministic lens, but maybe I’m imagining that), but the information in that chapter regarding ways to diversify activities to involve different types of learning still felt useful. The major flaw of this book wasn’t the content, but rather the fact that I’m reading it 17 years after it was published. Higher education classrooms have changed a lot in that time (especially post COVID and with the rise of generative AI), and maybe this is pessimistic of me but some of the strategies suggested in this book just don’t seem relevant anymore. I’m glad I read this though! I wish my graduate education contained more direct instruction on teaching and pedagogy, but this book did teach me a lot. 

The writing style was a bit disjointed and angry - the anger didn’t feel unjustified, necessarily, I just found it difficult to grasp onto the texture of the author’s actual emotional experience? Maybe that’s the point! 

The narrative wasn’t linear, and I would have liked to read more about the author’s decision to start visiting the zone, how he’s built community with other “stalkers, and how he ends up bringing foreigners into the zone. The logistics seemed a bit muddy to me but again – maybe that’s the point! 

This was a quick and mysterious read; I’m glad I picked it up. 

I learned a lot from this book in an existential and epistemological sense! I was hoping to get more advice for specific strategies, which this book didn’t really provide. It focused more on perspectives, approaches, and attitudes towards teaching. This was helpful info and I’m glad I read it, but I was looking for something a bit more applicable

I’m never able to find the words to describe books like this one. Stories are sparse on the surface but able to cut through to essential questions of humanity that I often forget to ponder mostly because they’re hard to word without sounding excessively vague and pretentious - what does it mean to be human? I love that this book is a mystery without an answer that also tries to answer so many questions. Hannah and MB pls read!!!!!

I wanted to like this more than I did. Rambling prose, and the obvious similarity between Harun and Mersault felt heavy handed. The parts I enjoyed the most were descriptions of post-independence Algeria