Book Clubs - I love them!

I'm doing literature circles with my seventh graders for the first time since I've started at Heritage and they're going so well! On a survey I gave them the other day, one student told me he really looked forward to meeting with his book club each day. Lots of other kids noted that they were having fun and enjoying themselves!

When students arrive in class, they have all read the agreed upon amount of pages. In class, they have their discussions. I do not prompt them with anything for their discussions and they don't have those assigned roles like the connector and word wizard like some researchers suggest. Instead, I model my book clubs around the kitchen table - where people who enjoy one another's company get together to talk about things that are important to them. The following are comments that were recorded during the last two days of book club.

"What power would you guys want?" (from Witch and Wizard)

"I wish James Patterson would have told us more about where they lived in the beginning. I couldn't really picture the setting that good until now, and we're almost done with the book!" (from Witch and Wizard) 

"I figured out that they must be taking Angel's blood to make the others stronger." (from Maximum Ride)

"You can tell she totally trusts Gale or else she wouldn't ask him to take care of Prim." (from The Hunger Games)

Student 1: "Maybe Stargirl is at home each night crying. We don't know."
Student 2: "Yeah, I wish she was the narrator instead of Leo."
Teacher: "Don't you see how having a first person narrator limits what we know? Wouldn't an omniscient narrator make this story better?" (from Stargirl)

Student 1: "Stargirl keeps changing her name."
Student 2: "Yeah, it's cool how her parents are cool with it."
Student 3: "I think she changes her name according to her age - Mud Pie, and then Hully Gully, and Stargirl."
Student 2: "Well, what do you think her name will be when she's in college?" (from Stargirl)

"What's the deal with the roses? Do they have some other meaning?" (from Beastly)

"Oh, this lesson - this doesn't work anymore. We don't have enough evidence to support it. I think we should change it." (from The Name of this Book is Secret)

Student 1 - "Hey, I found this word I don't know. It's pre-juice. What's pre-juice?" (ELL)
Student 2 - "Let's use context clues. (I swear, they said that!) Where did you see it?" 
<all four kids in group look up word>
Student 3 - "That's prejudice!!!!" (from Scorpions)

Student 1 - "What's a hoverboard?"
Student 2 - "Oh, I'm guessing it's like a surfboard, that's how I pictured it anyways."
Student 1 - "Yeah, that makes sense." (from Uglies)

"I wanna read Pretties now!" (Student reading Uglies, and referring to the next book in the series.)

So, if you're thinking about doing some literature circles in your classroom, here are a few tips to prepare the kids for success:

1. You'll need to make sure the kids are ready for book clubs. Here's what I mean: All year long, my kids have been reading EVERY NIGHT for homework - 20 pages. It's meticulously monitored - each day I take "Status of the Class" where I call each child's name and ask what page they are on. When they finish a book, they write a blog, and then they check out a new book. So, because of status, I'm able to check in with their reading.

I also call this "fake-reading."

I also allocate one day a week for them to read in my classroom with me. I do this for a few reasons: from a teacher's point of view, I need to see who is learning to sustain their reading. Kids who are don't notice the door opening and closing or me conferring with the kids sitting around them. Kids who can't sustain reading are looking everywhere but their book and are asking to go to the bathroom or get a drink.


The other reason I do this is because I cannot expect my students to invest in reading unless I show them that I'm invested in their reading by giving them time, in class, to read. Yes, they only get one day a week with me in reading class, but they get 20 minutes a day in their homeroom at the end of the day as well. However, since they are divided up between five teachers in homeroom, I can't monitor all of them every day, so I have to see them at least once a week.

Also, there has to be a consequence for not reading. I'm lucky to work on an amazing team who will do what we call Prime Time - where kids who don't finish their homework have to stay at school until 4:00. More than they care about finishing their homework, they care whether or not they have to stay after school.  If reading is to be mandatory, there has to be a consequence -- which means by this time in the year, most kids are reading every night, no questions, no big deal. (Just like it should be...)

2. Make your book club groups of three or four people max. Most of my groups have this many kids but a couple of them have six or seven. That is WAAAY too many. When there are three or four, participation equals out and all the kids will discuss and get involved on a pretty equal basis. In my clubs of 6 or 7, there's at least one shy kid who never talks because of the big mouths that can't stop! And I say that lovingly, my big mouths are some of my best kids, but they still need to work on having the conversation go around fairly through the group.


3. Picking books - We luckily had a bunch of money at the end of last year and I got to select a bunch of books to be ordered for our clubs! I selected class sets that were organized by genre. I ordered four or five titles of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Cultures. I selected these books because I knew lots of my kids read Realistic Fiction and they needed good experiences with books of different genres. I also knew that although SciFi is hard, they would help each other along throughout the discussions.

It is also a good idea that there be a common thread through the books so that you can have a few whole group discussions - you could discuss samples from each book that make the book fit the genre it is. You don't have to do this, but one of Marzano's high yield strategies is identifying similarities and differences, so it's a way to do that!

So, are you thinking about trying book clubs with your class? If you need any ideas or help, please let me know! Also, if you have any suggestions for improving mine, please share!

Too funny to not share - apologies for the F bomb!