The Rules

The challenge begins January 1st, 2009 and ends December 31st, 2009. However, you can join any time before the challenge ends.

You do not have to have a blog to participate; you can either e-mail your reviews/thoughts to me, or I can make a participant on this blog and you can post here.

You do not have to make a reading list ahead of time.

There will be monthly mini-challenges that you can choose whether or not to participate in.

There will be prizes.

There are six categories of books: politics, economics, history, culture or anthropology/sociology, worldwide issues, and memoirs/autobiographies. You can learn more about each category, and see a suggested reading list, but clicking on its tab.

There are six levels of participation to choose from:

The Prospie Level So, you’re a prospective high school student trying to decide if this is the right college for you, and you happen to sit in on a world citizenship class. This is for those of you with no time to read another book, but who still want to do something. I’ll be running a different mini-challenge each month of the challenge, and all you have to do to be a prospie is say you want to participate in at least one of them. I promise they’ll be fun, and there will be prizes involved!

The Auditor Level You thought the class sounded interesting, but you didn’t really want to have to worry about attendence or grades or stuff like that. Good thing you can audit. For this level, you just need to declare your interest in the challenge. Anything else you might want to do: the mini-challenges, making a list of potential books, participating in the discussions, etc. is completely up to you. Maybe you want to commit to reading a newspaper or magazine instead of a book-go for it. Also, if you want to choose a different number of books than what I’ve offered in the other levels, come here!

The World Citizenship 101 Level Maybe you’re a freshman trying to decide what to major in, maybe you’re an upperclassman in need of a distribution credit. Either way, you end up in the intro class. For this level, you need to commit to one book.

The Minor Level You’ve taken a couple classes in World Citizenship and decide to go ahead and get the minor. After all, you’ll learn more stuff and you can still have a practical major! For this level, you need to commit to three books, from at least two different categories.

The Major Level Despite the occasional, impertinent “And what are you going to do with a degree in that?!” question, you’ve realised that World Citizenship is where your passion really lies, so you declare your major. For this level, you need to commit to five books, from at least three different categories.

The Postgraduate Level Four years just wasn’t enough for you! You’ve decided to continue your education in World Citizenship, since you’re a bit obsessive about the whole thing. For this level, you need to commit to seven books, including one book from each category.