What We Can Learn From Book Club

By Author: allan
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Their conversations included the identification of Thomas Sabo Pendant favorite characters and behaviors and comparisons across characters and with previously read books and movies. While these factors are often part of an effective book share, we were most intrigued by our students' level of analysis of the decisions made by the characters as well as their acceptance or rejection of these behaviors as ones they would add to their personal repertoires.

For example, when Dursa offered that he thought that being bullied either physically or mentally made people stronger the conversation that ensued ended with a shared conclusion: Being bullied causes great inner rage, and unless someone you trust helps you to redirect it you can become similar to a Columbine killer or end up bullying your own kids or family members. This conclusion was arrived at after students shared their own experiences as bullies or being the prey of a bully. They compared the actions of the bully and the bullied to examples of the actions of the predators and prey they had seen on Animal ...
... Kingdom and also to an article they had read in U.S. Weekly about Michael Phelps. Michael's mother had helped him to redirect the rage he felt—from being bullied because of his "big ears" and from being deserted by his dad— Thomas Sabo Necklaces into swimming. The students concluded this conversation by deciding that they would make themselves available to younger students who were being bullied or who were acting as bullies. They also agreed that if they again found themselves in the prey or predator roles they would seek help from a trusted teacher.

Through this experience they exhibited all of the comprehension skills we so desire to see in our students. They analyzed, debated, compared across texts, synthesized multiple pieces of information, transferred the information to a unique situation, self-evaluated, and made a plan for action. To say it simply, they were very engaged and active readers. Parenthetically, they learned a lot of vocabulary along the way and developed increased sophistication with persuasive writing.

We learned a great deal about operating book clubs with adolescents from our colleague James Flood. For example, he taught us that each book club needed a moderator. The moderator could be a teacher or a student. Jim favored student moderators and encouraged us to meet with the moderators in advance and to teach them the structure of the club and how to function in their role. He also reminded us that every student could learn to be a moderator, and he wanted to be sure that the job of moderator was shared so that every student experienced a leadership role within the classroom. Jim's guidelines for moderators are provided in Figure 2.

In addition, Jim believed that student book clubs needed to operate within specific guidelines to be effective. Starting in the beginning of the year, we provided students with guidelines for participating in weekly book club discussions based on the work Jim did many years ago. Each student received a copy and we created a classroom poster of the guidelines (see Figure 3).

These developments in the publishing industry are paralleled by robust activity in the area of adolescent literacy. Since the International Reading Association issued its position statement detailing a "deepening crises in adolescent literacy" (Moore, Bean, Birdyshaw, & Rycik, 1999, p. 1), adolescent literacy has become one of the hottest areas in the field of literacy education (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004; Cassidy & Cassidy, 2008). In the process of increasing awareness and understanding of literacy learning and teaching during the teenage years, an appreciation has developed for the significance of the wide range of "texts" adolescent literacy practices encompass, including websites, text messages, and blogs, in addition to trade books and school texts (Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1998; Moore et al, 1999; Reeves, 2004; Worthy, Moorman, & Turner, 1999). Yet, "traditional" print texts known as YA literature continue to maintain a central role in the literacy development of teenagers.