Collaborative Book Clubs Grant

I'm so excited to annouce that I received a Donor's Choose grant this year for my book clubs. I was able to obtain five books each of 13 different novels. I can't wait for my books to arrive! My students are going to be so excited.

Collaborative Book Clubs

Last year I ran across a blog entry about hosting a book tasting in your classroom. Check out the blog entry here. I was so excited to do this in my classroom. I was able grab some books from our book room. I bought table cloths, put together a "menu" of books, set up after dinner mints, and their recording journal. My students really enjoyed this activity. They were able to choose their top 3 choices of books they wanted to read. One of the downfalls was that the books were outdated, they were in rough shape, and that posed an issue for my students.

Over the last year I've been working very hard to try and update my classroom novels. I've been blessed by so many different people this school year. My home flooded in Hurricane Harvey and much of my classroom library flooded with it. I can't begin to tell you how many people poured out on me. They sent me books from their bookshelves, gift cards, money, etc... I've been able to update my classroom library. I still wanted to obtain some novels for the book clubs.

In February, I decided to submit a Donor's Choose grant in hopes of obtaining books. My grant was funded towards the end of February. With this grant, I was able to get 13 different novels for my book clubs. Once the novels come in, I'll sketch out the days for our book clubs. This is one of my favorite activities. I absolutely LOVE the group discussions that come from the book clubs. I hope my students will have the chance to partner up and work with students they may not normally work with.

After last year, I learned a few things that should make this round run well. I divided the groups into an A group and a B group. That way I was conferencing with half of the groups each day. It was difficult to get to the groups and have meaningful discussions. I think I'll do it differently this year. Honestly it would be good to have 1-2 groups to conference with on an given day. That may make the rotation for reading the books and conferencing much better. The students will have lesson meeting days, but there can be more quality conversations. Each student will have a role to participate in during the book club discussion day. That's just one of the things I'll do differently. I also plan to help the students map out when they will read the books and how to divide up the pages. It was tough on Pre-AP last year trying to get it all in. I know the pitfalls to avoid with that. Here were a few of the resources I found helpful last year.

Depth and Complexity Literature Circles
Literature Circles for Middle School
Book Tasting
Because Sometimes You Just Need a Worksheet

I look forward to incorporating a more Workshop style for my upcoming book clubs. I'll post more after I formulate my 2018 Collaborative Book Clubs - Book Tasting.