Book Clubs: Vital to Every Reader’s Life
Book Clubs are a social and vital part of every reader’s life--or at least they should be. This led us, Carol Frow and Amy Bouch, to start book clubs for WPCTE members.
For our October pick, we chose Lesley’s Roessing book Talking Texts: A Teachers’ Guide to Book Clubs Across the Curriculum. Lesley is a frequent poster in the Facebook Groups for both NCTE Reads and NCTE Writes. Due to her fantastic ideas, we knew that we needed to read her book, and she was wonderful enough to join in on the conversation! Talking Texts is a great guide for teachers starting or updating book clubs in their classrooms. Lesley includes many ideas and resources for teachers to implement book (or text) clubs in a variety of ways.
Not only do we host book clubs for WPCTE, but we both also use book clubs within our classrooms.
Carol Frow at Belle Vernon Area Middle School
Recently, my students began a new book club! Inspired by Lesley’s plan in her book, I provided samples of three Monica Hesse novels. Students independently read the samples and completed a Google form ranking their choices. From that, our “clubs” were formed. Students met to create and share their timeline of meeting responsibilities. We planned to meet four Tuesdays and Thursdays in class along with our virtual students via zoom breakout rooms for twenty minutes of class. Lesley’s book club modernizes literature circles. No more jobs are assigned, but instead members’ discussion is equally valued.
Each student received a Reader Response notebook, and we practiced how to respond. Several faculty members created a video with me to demonstrate a book club meeting. We demonstrated how we responded to the text and held a viable discussion. My students were then provided with a slide show to see examples of what “connections” could be made.
During our meetings, students share their main question from the section along with any pertinent connections they made through their reader response notebooks. I move in and out of the breakout rooms joining in with the discussions. Should students need more to discuss, they refer to their connections made as they read. I am reading the novels also; their questions are pertinent and hearing their thoughts in the discussion shows me that they are truly thinking while they read! They are not memorizing facts for a quiz, copying monotonous study guide questions, or writing lengthy essays. They are having genuine conversations with people who are sharing the same novel, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!
Amy Bouch at Chartiers Valley Middle School
Each school year during the four-ish weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks, my English 8 students engage in a Holocaust/WWII Unit that includes writing a research essay and reading a novel in Literature Circles. During this time, each student also reads Hotel on the Corner of BItter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and the drama adaptation The Diary of Anne Frank by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich in their Literature 8 classes.
For the Literature Circles, students have over 20 novels to choose from. The books are sorted into below grade level, grade level, and above grade level offerings, and many of the books span two lists. Students are offered a list of books based on STAR data and information learned about the students during the first several months of school. I give book talks for each book, students can further investigate the options, and then they rank their top three choices. Students are placed into groups of 2-6 students although the ideal group size is 4. Students then work together to create their group reading schedule and determine their Literature Circle roles in their Literature Circles Packet. The packet specifically focuses on the content they are learning about the Holocaust/WWII and the roles of Comprehension, Analysis of Craft, Interpretation, and Connections. After reading Lesley’s book Talking Texts, I included a section for a discussion question. I really like the idea of each student bringing a discussion question to the group because it aligns with what real readers do--we like to bring up topics of discussion and hear other readers’ thoughts about it. Students report that they greatly enjoy the Literature Circles because they are able to choose their book, they like discussing it with their peers, and they get to learn more about the Holocaust/WWII than just through articles and videos. This activity is one of my favorites as well because it is amazing to witness the excitement of the students during their discussions!
NCTE Annual Convention
Book Clubs are just one part of our Holocaust/WWII Units. We will be presenting our units in fuller detail for the 2020 Virtual NCTE Annual Convention. The live portion of our session “Revamping the Typical Holocaust Unit” is on Friday, November 20 at 4:30-5:45pm. Author Monica Hesse will be joining us! There is an hour-long recording of our session, and then a 15 minute Q&A portion. We hope you participate in the conference!
Author Bios:
Amy Bouch is a reading-obsessed 8th grade English teacher at Chartiers Valley Middle School. She is also the Vice President of the Western Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE) and a Teacher-Consultant for the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP). When she isn’t teaching, she is making her way through all of the U.S. National Parks and overall traveling the world with her husband. Connect with her at abouch@cvsd.net.
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