What We Do

Our Program

The New Commons is modeled on the Socratic method, where the Instructor brings an open-ended question (i.e. an Opening Question), along with a set of tailored learning objectives, to each session.
At The New Commons, our pacing and style encourages you to slow down and practice observing, as well as communicating, your ideas, individually and collectively.
In sessions, we encourage bringing our identities and sense of selves, while closely observing the text — all as we work through challenges and questions with our peers.
Slowing down allows for literary dialogue to happen in a spacious, intentional, and embodied way.
Magic happens when we are present to each other, and the discussion is most interesting when we bring our full selves (see our Participation Guide and Group Agreements).

We believe that the joy of reading comes when we seek to generously and closely understand the text.
This is why we read one book over the course of many sessions — so we can linger on certain passages and let a thread of inquiry run its course.
Our goal is to teach each reader to go from “visitor” to “guide” of the book, gaining a strong topographical understanding of the text to know how to access it for future use, citation, and curiosity.
In your own reading time, we encourage you to be as fully present with the book as possible (see our Reading Guide for all our tips).
The sessions enable us to reap the rewards of that experience by making the text come alive within community!

Everyone who fully participates will be able to come away with a practical sense of how to apply what they learned to their current academic, creative, or personal goals.
We provide prompts and chat spaces for creative writing, art-making, and academic interests, reading hours, and a community member space to connect.
Each track is tailored to help you process their reading experience based on age level and stage of life.

How We Do It

Book cohorts are always capped at seven students.
Our cohorts are designed to be small to make sure the space is truly inclusive for everyone who enrolls.
This kind of small learning environment is necessary for building trust and relationships with each other. It’s our goal that each student feels free to express their thoughts, participate multiple times, take risks, and work collaboratively — with dignity, respect, and curiosity.

Cohorts are led by instructors who have studied literature, with experience being at the front of the classroom.
While no two cohorts or dialogues will be the same, our instructors spend many hours designing the curriculum and key learning objectives for each book we read.
It’s more than a “facilitator” role — Instructors are there to expertly guide students through key themes, questions, and contexts within the book — and through the art of dialogue with each other.
You can meet our team of Instructors here — and you can see who is teaching each book on the cohort page!

When you sign up for a book cohort, you gain access to our online Circle community, a centralized platform for our students and alumni.
Our Circle community holds a space to continue the conversation via response to discussion prompts, memorization hours, and reading hours.

To create a shared culture and ethos within our learning community, we have created several guidance documents to provide shared frameworks.
We prepare students for reading, discussion, and participation each step of the way. Read more here:

Why We Were Founded

We care about teaching books that have stood the test of time, but we also teach contemporary and non-western books considered culturally significant.
Books stand the test of time because people keep coming back to them, across decades and centuries.
For some books, The New Commons is our way of continuing the conversation; for others, it’s our way of starting it.
This inclusivity is also reflected in our curricular choice to always put a book in conversation with another text or a work of art in the final session.
Ultimately, we do not claim to know the “value” of any given text or work of art; but we do value trusting the human community to keep looking at a text to ask that question together.

The New Commons was founded to create many ongoing new commons — spaces that bring together intellectual rigor, equal voices, and human connection.
The goal is to closely read the book; if you’ve done that, you have done an amazing job.
From there, we co-create a space that is intellectually inspiring, i.e., a space for ideas to be voiced, deepened, and challenged in a supported and personal way.
It’s not about “knowing the answer;” it’s about being able to practice speaking with authority about your own expertise with support from your instructor and cohort.
The New Commons is not a lecture series or a place where you will be told what the answer is; rather, it is a place to have critical discussion with collective passion, curiosity, and connection.

Community and human connection play a big role in how we process and retain information.
In our fast and fragmented world, this program is our way of creating small, committed spaces that ask us to go beyond the lecture-style way of learning or one-time conversations.
A single book cohort will foster a short-term familiar place for members to dig into a book together, but we hope that our online platform cultivates an ongoing sense of connection for members who want to stay in conversation with each other, or join additional book cohorts.
In sum, you won’t just be a face on a Zoom call — we actually can’t wait to meet you, talk with you, and understand what you’re hoping for as a reader and learner.

Spacious and Supportive Dialogue