The Book Club
The purpose of this blog is to discuss the way in which book clubs can be encouraged by teachers, tutors, homeschooling teachers, and parents to participate in independent reading outside the classroom. A book club can be comprised of neighbors, friends, homeschooling groups, private tutoring groups, and classmates.
So what is a book club? A book club is a small group collectively coming together to “dive deep” into focused examination of a specific text, typically an age appropriate novel. Sometimes teachers may refer to this reading group as a literature study. I find that literature studies within the classroom are a bit more formal, specific in their purpose, offer more assignments and ways of collective formative assessment, and extension projects. I believe book clubs are more informal, and truly for the fun of reading and meeting with others to create conversation around a chosen book outside of school.
A great and effective book club immerses children into reading independently and thinking about their chosen literature. Children will determine assigned reading and meet with the purpose of discussing the reading’s events, plot, and characters. Thoughts and opinions about the assigned reading are shared at the meeting as well. The true purpose is for deep and meaningful conversations where all members feel comfortable to participate.
Here are the necessary steps to begin a book club:
Select members for your club.
Come up with a unique name, meeting place, and specific time for your book discussions.
Appoint rotating roles within your book club. For example, one member can be the discussion facilitator to keep everyone on track, one can be the recorder to take notes about what was discussed, another the question maker who creates meaningful discussion questions. A member of the group can be the chef to prepare a delicious and healthy snack and drink to offer and one can be an artifact collector to bring to the meeting a symbolic artifact representative of the assigned reading. The book club members can create their own roles, appoint them, and put them on rotation. Creating these roles can be super fun!
Book club members can each bring a copy of a book and conduct a book talk, summarizing what its about. Then the members can vote on which book they will begin with.
Assign a specific amount of chapters or pages for the book, and confirm the meeting place, date, and time for the first book discussion.
At the first meeting, all members will assume his or her roles, with the facilitator leading the meeting. These roles will have to be modeled by parents, caregivers, and teachers so that they can release the responsibility onto the children independently. It takes time and practice. Model. Model. Model.
One of my favorite things to do, is have the question creator develop 20 critical thinking questions using question prompts. Print them on paper, cut them in strips, and place them in a basket or decorated can. Then during the discussion time, each member can draw a question and respond to them. This assists in keeping that conversation flowing and its just fun for all to participate.
The recorder can take pictures of the group, write down notes, draw images in a book club journal so students keep a record of what they read and discussed. This can be used for future book talks, activities, and projects.
Book clubs can meet weekly, every other week, or monthly. It depends on how much discussion and interaction all members are willing and able to do. Students might enjoy meeting up at a local coffee shop or book shop for the full effect.
While a literature study in school my be more purposeful and offer more experiences to collect formative and summative assessment, the overall purpose of a book club is for kids to read independently, immerse themselves in the literature for fun, and engage in meaningful conversation and think critically with peers.
Extensions can certainly extend beyond the weekly meetings….and into group field trips, projects, writing extensions, among other fun and creative activities. But it certainly can just be the ten steps described above. Setting goals for how many books the group members will read in a year or quarter is great. They can then monitor their progress and be rewarded if they meet their group expectations and/or exceed them!