Both of these chapters resonated really deeply with me. I think even in ELA classes, we can sometimes overlook the power of student choice and using book clubs or literature circles as part of our lessons. When I was in ninth grade, my teacher modeled a really great example of this in our class. She had us do two rounds of "book clubs." For one book, she chose the book we would all read as a class and she also asked parents and any other adults we wanted to invite to join us. They read the book with us then after certain sections, we would come together during class time and have the adults come to the school to have discussions based on the book. This reminded me of and article I read about literature circles in my middle school class. One of the things that stood out the most for one of the students in that article was having adults involved. That's something that stood out in my experience as well. It makes the students feel respected, brings different aspects to the conversation, and feels more like a real-life setting. The second time we had a book club she let us bring in some choices of books we really loved and then as a class we chose amongst a few. Again, it was a more real-life setting when we were able to choose the book we enjoyed and had adults read the same books with us, even ones that wouldn't be considered "great literature" in adults' eyes. One of the books we chose was:
But having our choices respected and being able to read any selection we chose for one lesson then being able to have discussions in school about these book brought more validity to our literacy in and English classroom and connected learning to what we were already involved in outside of school.
One thing these chapters and my own experience has left me thinking about is the questions of a balanced reading diet in both independent reading and group reading activities. Why not do a literature circle using an article from National Geographic? Or each literature circle could have an article from a different content area which all relate to the same larger topic. Also, why not have students bring in their own idea daily or weekly of articles they've seen online, books they've read, magazines, graphic novels etc. Teaching is a career built on connection, why not use the materials our students are accessing to tap into their journey towards life-long reading?
That was a really great idea from your teacher to get adults involved in the book club as well. This seems like it would be really useful in the middle or early high school ages to keep them motivated to read. I also agree with you about bringing content area reading to the book circles instead of strictly pleasure reading. We have to read many different kinds of literature as adults and it's important that the students get ready for this. It would be cool to read all sorts of documents for an English class: medical reports, case summaries, scientific articles, etc. Some of the kids might even find their future passion and I think that would be awesome to be the teacher that led someone to something they want to do for the rest of their life.
ReplyDeleteHey Michela,
ReplyDeleteI was having similar thoughts about the delineation between book clubs and reading workshops. I've been thinking about kind of flipping them around- having the book clubs serve more of a jigsaw purpose, like you suggest.
I also think that including outside adults at any level would definitely resonate with kids in class. It's cool! And you feel older! And I'm sure there are some helicopter parents who would love to get involved. I'm just playing with the characterization, but I think that if it was structured well this could be a win win win.
Hey Michela,
ReplyDeleteI think you are right. Book clubs have always been a great way for students to connect their reading with the outside world. When the student gets to choose his own book to read due to his interests, he is more likely to engage with the text on a deeper level. I remember that my teacher let us choose our books in 7th and 8th grade, and I really enjoyed the Series Of Unfortunate Events books because they really caught my attention. I was also a fan of the Pendragon series. My teacher would have us write in our journals about what we had read, and I always loved doing so. Allowing students to work together and choose their reading material is really something that is very beneficial to the classroom in terms of increasing literacy.