Book Clubs

The Book Club Companion by Cindy O'Donnell-Allen

Book Clubs

Let’s face it—book clubs aren’t anything that we haven’t seen done before in the classroom. Many teachers know that when you put students together in small groups, sometimes the discussions that they have can be limitless.  What is different however about book clubs, as Cindy O’Donnell- Allen puts it, “Obviously, I’m not the first person to suggest that discussing books in small groups is a good idea. But the small groups I’ve just described are not identical to other familiar configurations like reading groups complete with round-robin reading, small-group discussions, and literature circles.”  So what is it? What is it that makes book club so different than any other group discussions we have in the classroom?  The fact that they are so student centered not only excites me, but scares me as well.

 For starters, a book club is exactly as it sounds. Your students choose the book, they choose how the discussions flow, and they choose when they want to meet with each other. I like to think that book clubs are essential within the English classroom—not only do book clubs help promote dynamic conversations among students, they’re also used as a fantastic diagnostic technique for teachers. The way I see it, you cannot just create a book club and tell students that they’re going to have conversations. You will get blank stares.  I believe that students have to be scaffolded into how you have a successful book club meeting. One of the first things you need to understand about how to have a book club is the fact that you will need to show your students how to communicate, more specifically how to make sound arguments. This is very important, in fact the reason in why we read Smith, Wilhelm and Frederickson’s book on arguments. The trio concluded that arguments are in fact an essential part of our curriculum yet we do not teach our students how to make them. I believe that I would take their book as the theory, and use book clubs in my classroom as the practice with their theory. Once my students are able to learn that there is a right way in how to take a piece of literature and engage with it, I believe they would be set up to have the types of conversations around literature that we wish we saw everyday.

SO what is the purpose of book clubs then? Sure they are a way to show our students how to have conversations with each other through textual support and analysis, but can’t we do that with Socratic Circles? Absolutely. What I found to be the most distinguishing difference which argues for the need of book clubs was in Lapp & Fishers article, “It’s All About the Books”. They said, “Our students often select the “coming-of-age” novel, in which a trusting, narcissistic adolescent encounters some of life’s realities about topics like sex, sexuality, relationships, death, crime, family, work, or travel. Through the personal, life-transforming experiences of the characters, our students find the inner windows to their voices. As we listened to their book club ex- changes, we saw Rosenblatt’s (1946, 1985) and Gee’s (1996) theories in action.” This is what we should strive for and this is why book clubs are needed. It would be great if everyday our students took the literature that we gave them and fell so deeply in love with them that they cant help but relate and converse about it—ha! That would never happen. Understand that we are in a society where all of our students are coming from different walks of life with a different mentality. As a teacher, it would be impossible for you to find one core text and have each student like it. We want those rich discussions and we want those efferent conversations, the way to do that is by fostering student centered groups where they are able to choose what they want to read. Believe it or not, they may resist it, but never have I found a student who disliked reading a book that they chose and didn’t enjoy discussing it. Rosenblatt says it best, “Without an understanding of the reader, once cannot predict what particular text may be significant to him, or what may be the special quality of his experience.” The power in allowing our students to engage with a text that promotes personal connections is dynamic.

One of the things that I believe I struggle with as a pre-service teacher is how to set up book clubs. How do I choose a selection of books for my students to work with? What do I do before and after? O’Donnell offers a variety of suggestions for me. She informs that teachers need to set up their book clubs around systemic discussions. This will eliminate a lot of confusion and unawareness during book clubs. “I found that individual book clubs inevitably establish their own routines, but students appreciate a system that outlines the before, during, and after. In other words, they want to know how to prepare for book club, what will happen when they get there, and what will come after they’ve finished the book, as far as final projects and evaluation go.” Even though students are ideally the ones who will identify what they will discuss in their book clubs, we need to provide a structured support system that helps them keep track of basically everything. In other words, show students how to keep track of comments, how to set meeting times, as well as how to act during the meetings. It is so important that we identify and talk about the structure of the clubs before we let students go—they need to know that they are going to be held accountable. I love the ide that Kayla presented a few weeks ago where she has students record their conversations and send it to her. This promotes healthy discussion but also individual accountability. O’Donnell also talks about how you match your students—something I know I would struggle with. Do I let them choose their own groups? I happen to know that some students are going to discuss and work with their friends—they’re comfortable around them! Do I create groups myself? Rosenblatt did say I needed to understand each of my students—so theoretically I should know who would work best with who and who has similar interests. O’Donnell offers support on this issue, and I believe her stance on creating a classroom environment in which students are free to share with each other will definitely cut down on the “awkwardness” that may come about when I place students in groups. Also, I believe that letting students know that they will not be in the same group all year is important—their group will constantly switch up based on the genre that we read.

I must say that the Grading Literature Circles pdf was a great read. I often struggle with knowing how exactly to create rubrics for certain things—this offered great support for myself. It also talked about my role during meetings. I should be actively listening, jumping in and out of groups, and always assessing students as they are meeting. I believe will set students up to again be accountable for themselves. The part I loved the most about this article is when it stated to have student’s grader themselves. What? You can do that? I love it. This allows ownership over your own grades and allows me to meet with students so I can get active feedback.
Book clubs are amazing. Period. O’Donnell offers great support on why they are needed and how to conduct them correctly. Although I have never done one, I feel a lot more confident in my skills as a pre-service teacher in having one in my classroom. Those same strategies we learned over the summer in EDRD 600 can be used as a way to start book clubs—getting students interested in the books, and from there, you scaffold them, and it’s smooth sailing.

My do for the week happens to be a sample of a rubric that can be used for book clubs with my future middle school students. Having them responsible for assessing one other student is a fantastic way for them to be honest and also aware of their own participation in the book club.

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson1163/rubric.pdf