Book Clubs

 

Book Clubs

 

Daniels—Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles

Calkins, Ehrenworth, & Lehman—Pathways to Common Core

Scharber—“Online Book Clubs”

Edmondson—“Wiki Literature Circles”

Lapp & Fisher—“It’s All About the Book”

            Overall, I really enjoyed the reading for this week.  Personally, I have always wanted to join a book club because I think it would be fun to talk about fun books with others that share the same interest.  When you’re reading a good book, you want to share what you’re experiencing with others; book clubs allow for you to do that.  So if book clubs seem so fun outside of the classroom, why not make them fun inside the classroom?

            Daniels and Steineke give a very convincing argument on how book clubs can work in the classroom.  In the first chapter, the two authors give a great general overview of what books club are, and how they can function in the classroom.  “Tens of thousands of teachers, from kindergarten through college, are now setting aside a regular potion of the week, the month, and the whole school year for genuine “lifelong reader” experiences.  These activities are not hybrids of compromises, but chunks of time that embody all the habits of true grown-up reading” (3). Altogether, book clubs are supposed to be implemented into the classroom for students to see reading as a fun way to interact with text together.  These should be implemented like a real book club that adults immerse themselves in. 

            Book Clubs also help foster community in the classroom. Because students are essentially allowed to choose what they want to read, they see it as the teachers are treating them like adults.  Moreover, community is being fostered because students are talking with on another about the text in a small group setting.  This helps students connect with one another before asking them to talk in front of the whole group.  Essentially, students are still being heard, no matter how big the class is. Each group is going to have a very a different range of readers, so it is important to try to prepare and challenge each student evenly.  Some reading strategies that Daniels and Steineke say we can implement are: visualize, connect, question, infer, evaluate, analyze, recall, and self-monitor (9-10).  By showing students these different types of skills, it will help foster their education and make them feel more comfortable in their community.  Making sure that students feel comfortable with the text is also very important with the community. 

            After reading the first chapter, I thought “okay, okay.  This seems like a good idea, but how difficult will it be to implement?”  It was as if Daniels and Steineke read my mind.  The rest of the book informs teachers on the nitty-gritty of immersing students into book clubs. They gave copious amounts of lesson ideas and explained how to organize student groups.  One of my favorite organization tips is how each student in each group should be given a specific role. Some of those roles include: discussion director, connector, illustrator, vocabulary enricher, literary luminary (75-76). This gives each student a specific task while reading.  Because each students has a specific role, it will be much harder for students to get lost in the group or become voiceless.   

            Each chapter went into detail about different aspects that need to be addressed and included in reading circles.  Though I did think each chapter had an important role, my two favorite chapters were “Refining Discussion Skills and “Performance Projects that Rock.”  Refining discussion skills is important because “the quality and depth of student book club meetings is high on a teacher’s list of concerns” (126).  Teachers have to make sure they giving students the right tools to make the most of their book club and discussions.  Some of the key skills students need to obtain meaningful discussions are: asking good questions, asking follow-up questions, getting everyone involved, grounding arguments in the book, practicing individual discussion skills, and using notes more effectively to feed discussion (127).  The most eye opening aspect of this chapter is how much I have taken for granted as a proficient reader.  Though this may seem like common sense to all of us who just earned a BA in English, these skills do not come as easily to students who are not use to analyzing literature this way.  Teachers needs to frontload students with these strategies. 

            The second chapter that I really enjoyed was Performance Projects that Rock. “Performance projects offer a way for students to hone their presentation skills as well as celebrate the conclusion of their literature circle books” (246).  Essentially, these projects are the grand finale when finishing a book.  This gives students time to think of the text as a whole with their group at the conclusion of the novel.  Some of the project examples given are: tableaux, readers’ theater, skit with narration, talk show, and brief the president.  All of the projects involves students thinking about the text as whole critically and creatively. 

            Along with Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles, the other articles we had to read this week gave a lot of interesting insight as well. “Online Book Clubs” gave a great deal of information about how to implement these book clubs on the internet.  Though I do not know if I would really like to solely converse and read on the internet, we live in a day and age where students are doing this more and more.  If the ultimate goal is to get students to read, why not show them book clubs in a way that they all relate to through technology?  It discusses how we should “compliment” the same reading strategies one would use in a tangible book club, but it gives us more options of how to actually implement them. 

            The next article I read was “Wiki Literature Circles,” and this article had many of the same ideologies as “Online Book Clubs”.  Edmondson discusses how communicating about books through wiki is a way to make book clubs more accessible and appealing to a more tech suave generation.  The article discusses how we are now social media at technological creatures, and we should acknowledge that when working with our students. This article also argues that book clubs through wiki challenge students even more. “In the classroom, wikis can be used as a source for obtaining information and knowledge as a platform of virtual collaboration” (45).  Essentially, wiki allows students to write for more audiences and they are able to collaborate with a much greater audience than they would have before.  Though this may be true, I think that there is something to be said for face to face communication.  Though I do understand and like the concept, I think I would prefer to try a face to face book club first. 

 

         In the last article we read for this week, “It’s All About the Book: Motivating Teens to Read,” it discusses book clubs as an outlet to show students the fun side of reading.  I really enjoyed Lapp and Fisher's article because reading becomes much more than just an assignment students get in English class.  Lapp and Fisher state, “Importantly, each student could enter the conversation, presenting evidence from a text, because they were all reading books they chose to read and were able to read” (559).  Essentially, this is the basis of book clubs altogether.  If teachers ran their English classrooms from the beginning of the year like this, students would probably be more comfortable with discussions.  Therefore, a better sense of community will be established early on. 

            Altogether, book clubs seem like a great way to foster community.  They will also add in speaking and listening skills into the classroom while still engaged in literature (Calkins, Ehrenworth, & Lehman 162).  Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles gave a great deal of insight on how book clubs can work in the classroom.  Along with showing us how they work, the authors also showed us how frontload students and how to assess students.  Book clubs can be a fun way to let students choose literature that they want to studying, while still engaging with classmates in meaningful discussion.  Altogether, book clubs seem like something I will definitely implement in my classroom. 

 

DO:
You will find my "do" for this week in the link below.  It is in the tab labeled "Say/Do 10 Oct 2014."

https://sites.google.com/site/saydodocuments/home