(Classroom Support Material) Say/Do 5: Book Clubs

Daniels and Steineke - Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles
Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman - Pathways to the Common Core
Scharber - "Online Book Clubs"
Edmondson - "Wiki Literature Circles"

Say

Way back before the dawn of man, I remember having a book club in my high school English III class.  I recall the books being mostly regarded as classics or literary on some level.  Stuff like Catcher in the Rye and Confederacy of Dunces stuck out to me, but as I had already read them on my own, I went with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, mostly based off the title.  My group and I expected a witty, comedy somehow related to Buddhism and motorcycles (monks on motorcycles what's not to like?), but what we ended up with was a fairly difficult book on philosophy wrapped around a weak plot.  Needless to say, I gave up on it about halfway through.

Despite that slightly negative experience, I like the idea of using book clubs as a way to bring in non-canonical or risque canonical texts.  The options involved with book clubs allow less experienced readers to pick books that they feel comfortable with, and enable experienced readers the opportunity to expand their horizons. The two digital book club articles were helpful for me seeing how I could give gradable, accountability for the work students do in their clubs.  I particularly liked the idea of using a Wiki for book clubs.  The different roles for each club seemed a bit much, however.  I doubt that students would spend much of their time browsing the work of other students' wiki pages unless there was a grade attached to responding.  I also found it odd that daily (daily? really?) wiki contributions were only weighted 20 points, while the final literary analysis essay is weighted 100 points. 

  Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles's begins with a solid overview of all the various components that go into book clubs/literature circles.  I found this to be a good refresher for me, as well as moderate confirmation that I am doing at least somethings right in the classroom.  At Ridge View I feel like I did particularly well with reading strategy instructions.  I focused mostly on helping students with visualizing, connecting, inferring, and analyzing with their reading, but I covered most of the others, albeit less explicitly.   The authors also include "What can go wrong sections" for each mini-lesson.  My planning process has lately involved a pick of this type of thinking.  Being prepared for the worse and maintaining flexibility never hurts.

Do

I thought I would select some books that could be used together as part of a book club someday.  The novels are centered around World War II and feature multiple perspectives on the various locations of the conflict.  No-No Boy covers the struggles of a Japanese-American who's wish to serve the U.S. military is denied.  Catch-22 details the surreal and absurdity of war on the Italian front from the perspective of U.S. airmen.  A Stranger to Myself is the memoir from the perspective of a German soldier fighting in Russia, and tells of his realizations about his country's duplicitous nature before his death on his 5th tour.  Mother Night tells the story of an American spy working for the Nazis who did too good of a job in his time with his country's enemy.