Book Clubs

Do NOT Google
Literature Circles

If you are teaching Upper Elementary and looking for ways to nurture that love of reading that all teachers hope to see in their students, do yourself a favor and do not read anything about Literature Circles with "roles" or "jobs". I have tried many versions of Literature Circles and Book Clubs and the best place to start instead is with these two books:
1. Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Stephanie Harvey & Anne Goudvis
2. Comprehension and Collaboration- Inquiry Circles in Action by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels

Tips
for a great start!

Choose Books You Love

Book Clubs are way more fun when you have actually read and ENJOYED the books that your students are reading. It creates more organic sharing and excitement when you can discuss books you love with your students and genuinely get excited for them during their reading adventures.

Expand Your Options with e-Books

Since my students have 1:1 iPad access, I have been able to use the Kindle app to access more copies of books and more currently published books. Living and teaching in an International School in Thailand makes it difficult to get six copies of a new book quickly. With digital copies, I no longer have to wait for international shipping or run around the school searching for enough copies of the same book to be able to include all the students who want to read that title. I find a mixture of print and electronic books to work just fine in my classroom. Students enjoy the option and choose according to their preference when both are available. The dictionary feature on the Kindle app is great for vocabulary building too!

Introduce Books with "Book Walks"

Give a brief introduction of each book option so that students have a better idea of what they might like to commit to reading. I usually introduce a range of genres and themes, as well as a range of accessibility. I love to include graphic novels, stories based on true events and books related to concepts being explored in other areas of learning. Sharing your excitement about these great books is key here!

Students Choose Three

I have had a lot of success in the past when I let students choose their first, second and third choice books for Book Clubs. I use a Google Form and rarely have to ask students to read their second or third choice. The most common reason I come across for asking a student to go with something other than their first choice is to help them as a reader. For example, I will move a child to a second or third choice if the first is far beyond his/her independent reading ability or if he/she previously mentioned a goal to read more novels and chose a graphic novel first.

How to Make it Work

After spending months recording Inner Thinking (credit to Strategies that Work) while reading all kinds of texts as a class, in pairs, with groups and individually AND practicing discussing these great texts in all kinds of fun ways, we were finally ready to tackle some "REAL" BOOK CLUBS!

Examples from my Year 5 Class:
Preparation: We already introduced the book options, had students select their top three choices with a quick Google Form, assigned students to a book and group, and organized all the books for them to begin (mix of both print and electronic texts).

Day 1: Read Aloud and Introduction
Book: What Do You Do with an Idea? by Kobi Yamada
Note: Any picture book, excerpt, article or poem that leads to many questions, connections and inferences would work.
Lesson

Model a book walk to introduce the read aloud.
Pass our post-it notes to students and prepare some for yourself.
Read the story aloud, modeling inner thinking: label questions, connections and inferences on post-it notes while students do the same with their own inner thinking. Prompt with questions like: What are you wondering right now? What connections are you making to your own life, other texts or the world? What do you think the author is inferring/hinting at right now?
After story, give students a chance to read over their thinking and add additional ideas.
As a class, sort their inner thinking post-its into categories on a chart with labels for Questions, Connections and Inferences.

Visualization practice

Then, individually students draw a picture of what they visualize in their heads from the story. (This will be shared on day 2.) Teachers need to do this too if they plan to share on Day 2.
When finished, students get their physical book club books or download the Amazon Kindle app and log into the class account (teachers type log-in and password so that students can’t buy books on Amazon at home through teacher account!).
For electronic books, students download their book so that it is on their device and not in the cloud (only allowed to download their own book club books for now otherwise the maximum of 10 devices will be reached before others get their book club book).
Students do a book walk through their book to check it out!

Day 2: Sharing thinking by talking and writing

Teacher models sharing our visualization drawings from day 1.
Students meet in the book club groups they will be in and do the same.
After sharing, students read aloud the beginning of their book together, by taking turns or with a teacher reading in some groups.
Group members pause to record their inner thinking in their Reading is Thinking notebooks when necessary. The group can decide to pause after each page, interesting point in the story or other place.
After a designated amount of time (short this time- maybe only 10 minutes), students stop to identify their own connections, questions and inferences. The shared reading time is meant to support fluency when reading aloud. Volunteers read and no one who offers to read is ever turned down.
Each group has their own chart of Questions, Connections and Inferences that they can add to at any time. Teacher prompting is likely necessary at first.

Original Plan:
Day 3 and Beyond: Share thinking by talking and writing.

Students begin lesson by first each choosing one their thoughts from their Reading is Thinking journals that they would like to share. They star, circle or highlight it.
Talk about what you read: Each person shares their chosen Inner Thinking (5 minutes). New Questions, Connections and Inferences are recorded on the group's paper.
Students read more of their book together for about 10 minutes, by taking turns or with the teacher reading.
Group members pause to record their inner thinking in their Reading is Thinking notebooks when necessary. The group can decide to pause after each page, interesting point in the story or other place.
Groups decide how far to read before the next scheduled meeting.

After a few meetings, it became clear that students were not really listening to each other when they shared their Inner Thinking. As a result, we experimented with a Sharing Protocol called Final Word. This proved very successful!

Revised Plan for Better Discussions: Final Word Discussion Protocol

Students take turns reading a short piece of text they have selected to their group.
Each group member takes turns reacting to that piece of text. They might share a connection, question, inference or other reaction.
After all other members of the group share, the student who shared that piece of text get the “final word” opportunity to share his/her thinking about that selection.
Continue until all members have had an opportunity to share a selection of text.
After sharing, write any new and important questions, connections or inferences on the group poster.

Benefits Observed:

listeners have to pay attention in order to contribute their own thinking
discussion is anchored in text

When groups finish books: Do something!
1. Discuss how good books change us- give examples of books that changed me by either giving me deeper understanding of a topic or by helping me develop empathy for others in tough situations.
2. Students brainstorm what they might do after finishing books that change them.
3. My class decided that they want to tell others to read the book. Students suggested to write a summary and share with friends.
4. Another student suggested that a summary might not be the best idea because it would spoil the book. A blurb or review were decided upon as preferable. We read some blurbs from the back of their books and viewed some reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for a book they were reading.
5. When asked who they will share these summaries, blurbs or reviews with, students decided that they could post them on the class blog, tweet them to the authors, and/or publish review on Amazon.
6. Students will work in book club groups to share their books in the way they most connect with.
7. I also went around to groups and had them go back over their group posters. We realized that we were able to answer pretty much all of our questions! We reviewed inferences and connections too. These posters, as well as their inner thinking, might help in the writing of their selected reviews, blurbs or summaries.

Other ideas my students have come up with:

We had a blast writing, revising, editing and publishing book reviews to post on Amazon!

In our third round of book clubs (all biographies), students decided to make short presentations to share about the people's lives they learned so much about. It has been fun to see all of the powerpoints and skits they have enjoyed collaborating on!