There is no doubt that people get interested in things when
“everybody’s doing it” – that is the basis for going viral…everyone is watching
OR those hard to come by toys that become a craze at the holidays (I am hearing
that the rainbow loom bracelets are going to be hot this holiday…I feel driven
to purchase them even though I have no one to give them too!). Harry Potter is a great example of “viral”
reading –all ages got in on the reading because we wanted to know what the
hubbub was about. That’s the idea of
community book reads – get people talking, making connections, and
reading!
I have joined an adult book club, that is, a book club made
up of adults, not reading adult books, well, we are, but not that kind, but,
well, I digress. Anyway, we are a
diverse group (except that many of us have been in education in one form or
another), different interests and experiences which makes our discussions very rich. I can attest to the fact that having just one
book in common, we have indeed become a community, we have a built-in connection,
camaraderie, relationships, because we have something to talk about, something
in common, something to connect with. And we are forced to think outside the box
(that is the TV box).
Going beyond the
Language Arts Classroom
Extending a common book choice beyond the classroom walls,
to the entire school community and beyond can help students, teachers and other
adults connect. Whether they like the
book or not is immaterial (some of our best book club discussions are the books
that we do not all love!). Building a community is easy when you all start out
with similar interests, ideals or experiences, and building a community is
essential in the classrooms!
Going beyond the
School Building
Extending a community book choice beyond the school to
parents and community has great relationship-building potential. The Black Rive Middle School in Chester, NJ
has selected Wednesday Wars by Gary
Schmidt as a community read. They will
be using it as one of the foundations for advisory discussions – a great way to
connect kids to kids and kids to adults.
Parents, too can benefit from having read the same book as their child –
gives them a topic beyond “what did you do in school today?”.
So how do you get
started?
Looking for a good book?
The Library of Congress has resources for the “One Book” program. It lists books that have been used by state
or community over the last years. The
lists go by state – apparently it is no longer active, but there are some great
ideas and reads listed there.
Want to start a
formal discussion?
Just type in the title of your book and “book club
discussions” and you will get a set of standard questions to get you
started. I use little sticky note tabs
to make places in the books that I am reading that catch my attention to share
with the group. In my book club, some
question-types make you glaze over (more appropriate for that language arts
classroom), however, everyone seems to like the questions that ask you to
connect the book to your own life – making the book relevant works with all
ages. Litlovers.com
is an excellent resource for questions, etc.
Need something to get kids interested?
Get kids hooked by looking at the Banned
books list. Here is a list of activities that you can get kids reading and
thinking about around banned books: Banned
Books: The Forbidden Fruit
Want to start a
virtual discussion? Try these tools:
Collaborizeclassroom.com is another great platform for
discussions, check out this great facilitators
guide to get you started.
Google hangouts can be used for real time book discussions
AND you can often get authors to “hang out” with you there! Mary Beth Hertz suggests this and other ideas
for Google hangouts in her blog
on Edutopia.
Google
groups can also be used to form a group for discussion outside the
classroom.
Connected Educators
Why not try out getting connected to other educators by
joining a nationwide book discussion.
Sign up at njamle.wikispaces.com to join us. We will start a discussion on Dave Burgess’s
book “Teach Like a Pirate” on October 15th. We’ll even get Dave to join us!
What books would you recommend for community reads? What tools would you use to facilitate them?
