Over the course of the semester, I’ve been in multiple book clubs. Here’s some of what I’ve learned about myself as a reader based on the work I’ve done in collaboration with peers and that has some implications for my classroom:
My book club consists of myself and three other women from class who teach or have taught a range of elementary grades. We read The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo and So B. It by Sarah Weeks. After spring break, we will begin to discuss From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson. Each meeting takes about thirty minutes, and we have met once in the middle of the book and again after each book is finished. We decided to extend our discussion of So B. It for a third meeting after we had finished reading as an experiment to test how much we could extend conversation about a text. I am including my ongoing book club log in which I wrote at a variety of times throughout the process: as I read, in preparation for each meeting, during each meeting, and in reflection of each meeting. Throughout the process of establishing, experimenting with, and maintaining our book club, I have learned a great deal about what it means to have an effective book club in terms of both structure and content. This learning, synthesized below, will have huge implications for my classroom.
In preparation for our first meeting, we only planned to read halfway through The Tiger Rising and come prepared to discuss. One of us had recently reread Calkins’ chapter on book clubs in The Art of Teaching Reading and suggested that we each lay our ideas on the table. We spent the next twenty minutes reading our notes to the group and oohing and awing over the novelty of one another’s ideas. When our time ran out, we recognized that we hadn’t had a true discussion that aimed to develop ideas. For the next meeting, we planned to come prepared with one quick idea to share and to then spend the remaining time analyzing it. This conversation was amazing in that ideas were developed through our talk. At one point, in our discussion that originally focused Willie May, one of us noticed the Christ metaphor at play with the tiger. This was an idea borne out of the discussion of how Willie May wanted to protect Rob from the tiger but also seemed to know that its “rising” was inevitable. We excitedly shifted our focus from Willie May to the Christ metaphor at play in the book, and ended by celebrating the work we had done through talk. The lessoned we learned in this meeting has profound implications in the classroom. So often, we give students prompts for digging in deeply to one topic and repeatedly encourage them not to shift focus. My book club work has taught me that the purpose of digging deep is to make connections between other ideas in and beyond the book. We have to teach students how to dig deeply to a topic and almost move through it to connect other ideas.
While reading So B. It, our mid-book meeting served to engage me in a book that I had previously been uninterested in. One participant shared her knowledge of the author based on her book talk at a February Calendar Day, and others spoke of their interests in particular themes in the story. This discussion offered me context and helped sway me to consider aspects of the book I had previously ignored. I was also able to voice my initial dislike of the book and move forward through the second half of the book with new eyes. Up until that meeting, I had questioned the purpose of meeting mid-book; none of my adult book clubs had ever done that before, and it was forcing my new club into a slow pace. I recognize now that the purpose of a book club is to understand books better based on interactions with others, and meeting midway through a book allows us time reconsider our initial ideas and redirect our reading. I have never explicitly taught my students about the differences between a mid-book meeting and a post-book meeting, and now I have access to these new realizations for my curriculum.
When we finished So B. It, one of us decided to start the meeting by writing on the chosen topic for the day. After spending our customary first few minutes laying our cards on the table, we took 5 minutes to gather and develop our ideas independently. This process allowed us to be more efficient with our talking time because we had already prioritized our trains of thought independently so our conversation was clearer. On the other hand, I wonder what ideas we sacrificed; could we have pushed one another more deeply had we not edited out ideas through our independent writing? In my classroom, students might try this strategy if a club is having difficulty getting going, or taking turns sharing, but I would be hesitant to name it as a rule because of risk of losing some of the productiveness of oral exploration.
In the middle of our second meeting on So B. It, one of posed a question that we recognized for its significance, and we decided to “table it” for a third So B. It meeting. This gave each of us a week to think over the question. (Why did Weeks say that the central message of book is one of hope?) When we came together the following week, we spent about fifteen minutes in discussion and were able to come to somewhat of a consensus. This flexibility of our structure allowed us to pursue outstanding questions that were of genuine interest with us, and I realized how much we as teachers need to encourage our students to experiment with their structure to adjust to the content they are discussing. When accountable talk, book club timers, or meetings per book become regimented and required, we risk stifling the creation of ideas with unhelpful frameworks.
One outstanding question my book club will certainly continue to address is the role of a facilitator. We have not currently formalized any roles. We decided to read So B. It and From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun through informal group emails during which those of us with a burning desire to read a particular book suggested something and others agreed. I worry that we need to adopt a more democratic process that would ensure we are all involved in both the selection of texts and the production of ideas. It might help us get each meeting off the ground quickly if we had a designated (and perhaps rotating) facilitator. This designation might also encourage us to continue to experiment with structures because an official facilitator might feel more responsibility to ensuring productive talk. Rotating jobs is not a structure that I have seen successfully play out in a classroom setting, but my hunch is that this is because of flaws in the specifics of its planning and execution—not in the idea itself.
