What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics - Hardcover

by Carlo Rotella (Author)

A Forbes Best Higher Education Book Of 2025

A moving story from a formidable teacher that doubles as a guide to teaching the humanities today.

At a time when college students and their parents often question the "return on investment" from humanities courses, accomplished feature writer and English professor Carlo Rotella invites us into the minds of a group of skeptical first-year students who are ultimately transformed by a required literature class.

In What Can I Get Out of This? he follows thirty-three students through his class to provide an intimate look at teaching and learning from their perspectives as well as his own. The students' reluctance--"How does this get me a job?"--transforms into insight as they wrestle with challenging books, share ideas, discover how to think critically, and form a community. In all these ways, they learn how to extract meaning from the world around them, an essential life skill. Confronting skeptics of higher education, this compassionate and inspiring book reveals the truth of what students actually experience in college.

Back Jacket

Carlo Rotella has written a book about the art of teaching that doubles as a guide to being part of any community: a team, a company, a classroom. I wish I had this book when I was a student.--Reeves Wiedeman, author of Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork

"What Can I Get Out of This? is a lively story told by a superb writer and master storyteller. It's also the best guide to discussion-based teaching that I've ever encountered, a friendly and also precise primer on how to create and guide a collaborative learning community."--Leonard Cassuto, author of Academic Writing as If Readers Matter

"Rotella creates a feel for the classroom without disciplinary jargon. He shows how to teach the humanities in college today."--Michael S. Roth, author of The Student: A Short History

"This book is a gem. To my knowledge there is no book like it, even as the field of literary study--I might even say the culture at large--has been in need of such a volume for a long time."--Mark Edmundson, author of The Age of Guilt: The Super-Ego in the Online World

"Readers of Rotella know him as a strong and sensitive critic. This book makes clear that he is also a formidable teacher. A refreshing departure from the current trend of bashing students for their supposed inattention, indifference, or ideological certainty, it's the best kind of defense of the humanities: it shows--not tells--how a demanding yet generous teacher can make literature come alive for students as they embark on their adult lives."--Andrew Delbanco, author of College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be

Author Biography

Carlo Rotella is Professor of English at Boston College. A regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine, he has written books about cities, boxing, music, and literature.