Book Club Wrap Up

I wanted to revisit how I conducted book clubs this year. In a previous blog I talked about the importance of giving students the time and opportunity to find a book they are excited about reading! However, I found that changing up the jobs was also helpful in making this year's book clubs a huge success.

First of all, I gave students choices! For example, the character captain (aka person who finds passages that show character) could select from several activities such as: character report card, character cell phone, or character keyhole.

Students Must Think Abstractly to Come up with Symbols for Their Character

Character Report Card-Students Provide Textual Evidence and Analysis of the Selected Trait

Students like choices! Also, for the traditional literary luminary (aka person who finds meaningful, important passages), I required students to post their passages on a Google slide show that was shared with me. Rather than have students just talk about the passages, I required each group member to respond to the passages on the Google slide. As a result, I received thoughtful responses, everyone participated, and I could actually read their responses. Instead of a summarizer for each meeting, I had students create a "matchbook" with a summary on the inside and a picture on the outside. Students glued this onto a piece of card stock at the end. I will use these with next year's book clubs as examples, as well as a way to get students interested in different books!

Outside of Matchbook

Inside of Matchbook

Finally, for the Lexicon Lieutenant (aka person who finds new vocabulary words), I required that the student create a Google Doc to share with me, as well as the group. The student had to post the word and definition, as well as the sentence from the book. During book club, the group had to create new sentences using the words. Again, everyone had to participate, and I could see what they had written and provide feedback! These are just a few of the things I did this year to change it up.

And...what book club would not be complete without food? So, on the last day, I allowed students to bring food and drinks. I encouraged them to bring something that went along with their book. Overall, we had a great time with book clubs this year! The final assignment was to write a book review. They will post it to our Kid Blog, and I will also encourage them to post it to Good Reads!