Book Clubs in the Classroom

As an adult I love being apart of a book club. I love reading a variety of books and having someone to share my thoughts with. More than that I love the excuse of meeting up with friends drinking coffee! That same excitement comes to my classroom when students are broken up into Book Clubs. 

I love Book Clubs in the classroom and believe they are very beneficial for students for 3 main reasons:

1. RESPONSIBILITY and ACCOUNTABILITY: Students must meet and plan with their group to know when they are going to meet and must have read the book and/or chapter(s) ahead of time. They must use their time wisely and be prepared for meeting with their group.

2. SOCIALIZATION: Book clubs allow students the chance to TALK. They get to learn how to share their thoughts, go deeper about a topic, and have meaningful conversation about books. I love the different thoughts and viewpoints each student brings to the group. 

3.  LOVE of reading: Book clubs build EXCITEMENT, and I always feel students leave book clubs loving to read even more. They often go find more books by the same author or topic. It also encourages students to read a variety of books. 

Here are a few resources I like to use with my groups to help keep them focused and push them to tracking character development. 

1. CHARACTER NOTEBOOK: Each student gets a copy and fills in as they read independently and is then able to share ideas with the group. Click the photo to make a copy for your students.

2. QUESTIONS to guide their conversations if they get stuck and ways to add on to each other's thinking. Click the photo to make a copy for yourself.

3. COLLABORATIVE tracking templates: I give each group a tracking sheet in Google Docs to track their thinking from each meeting. They can collaboratively work on the document, and I can easily check in on each group each day and leave them comments back. Click the photos to make a copy of the following docs. 

This one focuses on chapter summaries, Signposts from Kylene Beers, and group reflections. 

This one focuses on key vocabulary, characters, ideas from the books. The goal is for students to find one for each letter and explain the importance of the word to the book. Students love filling this one out!

I hope these resources help you get started with your fiction book clubs! If you have any questions on getting started or implementing book clubs please leave a comment or email me at kyndra.hartzler@cfisd.net

Happy Reading!