THE 5 STEPS of FACILITATING BOOK CLUBS

In a gradual-release-of-responsibility model of teaching reading, this would be about the time of the school year that teachers are moving from whole-class short stories (to teach or review reading strategies, literary elements, and author’s craft [see Reading Strategy #­­6]) and whole-class novel(s) [see Reading Strategy #9] to reading in BOOK CLUBS in the move toward independent reading [see “Losing the Fear of Sharing Control”].
 
I have facilitated BOOK CLUBS in Grade 3 though university classes in English-Language Arts and content area classes. I have written extensively about the benefits of reading in BOOK CLUBS. And I have written about holding TEXT CLUBS to read poetry, short stories, folktales, nonfiction books, articles, and textbook chapters in collaborative small groups. For strategies, lessons, assessments, models, and reproducible forms, see TALKING TEXTS: A Teacher’s Guide to Book Clubs across the Curriculum.

These are my 5 basic steps for facilitating any type of BOOK CLUB (or TEXT CLUB).

1. SETTING UP BOOK CLUBS

1. Choose novels for Book Clubs [see link to blog] by a common topic, author, theme, genre, form. When Book Clubs have a commonality, readers can also meet in Inter-Book Club groups to compare and contrast their novels, meeting even more standards.
2. Presenting the Book/Text Choices:

• Book Talk: The teacher presents a brief 3-4 minute Book Talk [see Reading Strategy #4] of each of the choices.
• Book Pass: A book is put on each student’s desk; a different book choice is placed on 4-5 contiguous desks, then repeated around the room (so students can peruse a different book each pass). Students are given directions to look at the front cover, read the back cover, and read 1-2 pages to determine if they like the author’s writing and if the book is challenging enough, too challenging, or “just right.” After 2-3 minutes the students pass to the next student.
• Students write down their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices. Book Club membership is based on student choice (and any other variables the teacher needs to keep in mind, such as students who do or don’t work well together).

2. TEACHING SOCIAL/DISCUSSION SKILLS

• Teacher presents a lesson on what a successful discussion looks like/sounds like.
• Teacher presents Focus Lessons on Discussion Strategies [see Reading Strategy #10], techniques for extending a conversation and for respectfully disagreeing while supporting comments with text evidence
• Teacher presents a lesson on creating effective Discussion Questions for Book Club meetings.
• Teacher presents a lesson on reader response strategies and the importance for Club members to use their reader response journals to aid meeting discussions. Reader Response journals are also collected for a grade—or reading points.

3. TEACHING BOOK CLUB PROCEDURES

• Planning Book Club Reading: Students are given the meetings dates (2-3 times per week) and the ending date, and Clubs plan their reading schedule. Some Clubs divide the novels by the number of meetings; some like to read more over the weekend while others would rather read less as they get used to the novel and then more for each meeting. Five meetings is generally enough for a novel; readers need a big enough "chunk" to hold a discussion.

• Students are to prepare for meetings by reading, jotting responses to the text read, and preparing a discussion question.
  

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• Reading the Book Club novel: This can be accomplished as a mixture of in- class reading on Reading Workshop days and reading as homework at night or in study hall. Generally, my students had time to read after the meetings (see Time Chart above), and we held Writing Workshop the in-between days; they read at home on those days. If teachers have classes who will or can not read at home, days in-between Book Club meetings can be used for in-class reading, and meetings can be held twice a week rather than every other day.
• Reflecting on Reading: Students write 5-minute Reader Response journalings, as or after they read each section, to aid meeting discussions .
• Creating Discussion Questions: Each Book Club member creates and brings one discussion question to each meeting.
• Discussions: I kept discussions to 20 minutes. It is better that they run out of time than run out of conversation. Teachers should explain their general expectations for the meetings while keeping them student run.
• Reflecting on meetings & discussions: At the end of each meeting, as an Exit Slip, members individually evaluate themselves and their Club on their discussions—product (content) and process (eye contact, taking turns, piggybacking ideas, etc.) See Talking Texts for student samples and reproducible forms.
• Presenting novel to classmates: After reading and holding a final meeting, each Book Club prepares an After-Reading Presentation to their classmates; the teacher discusses the rubric, common to all presentation formats, and ideas for choices.
  

4. FACILITATING BOOK CLUB MEETINGS
This is one class sample directions; the day's Focus Lesson centered on character traits)

5. ASSESSMENT
a. READING: I assessed reading based on their Reader Response journals which they used for their discussions (see TALKING TEXTS and THE WRITE TO READ for my lessons and reproducible forms).
b. MEETINGS: I assessed meetings by observations and by student self-assessments
c. PRESENTATIONS:
     My GUIDELINES:

• Book Club members should demonstrate that they have read and thought about the entire book and how it would most effectively be presented.
• Include all major characters, setting, and plot elements: inciting incident, conflict, climax, resolution.
• All Book Club members must have an active part in the presentation.
• Presentation should be about 8-10 minutes.
• Presentation must be practiced.
• Introduce the presentation with the title, author(s), and genre.
• Conclude your presentation with a short review, including author’s writing craft; for which readers this would be a good match; etc.
• After the conclusion, tell the audience what your club members learned from your novel.
• Reminder: your audience has not read the novel.

    My PRESENTATION RUBRIC (sample):
    A percentage of the grade was based on the content of the group presentation and a percentage was based on individual speaking points.

My typical BOOK CLUB Schedule, a sample:
WEEK 1--
Monday: discuss Book Club expectations, Social Skills Focus Lesson, Book Talks and Book Passes
Tuesday: Discussion Lesson (Strategy #10); distribute novels; Book Cubs meet to plan reading
Wednesday: Creating Discussion Questions Lesson; Reading Time
Thursday: Lesson on Book Club Procedures; Reading Time
Friday: review Discussion or Social Skills Focus Lesson; Book Club Meeting #1
WEEK 2--
Monday: Literary Focus Lesson; Reading Time
Tuesday: Literary Focus Lesson; Book Club Meeting #2
Wednesday: Literary Focus Lesson; Reading Time
Thursday: Literary Focus Lesson; Reading Time
Friday: Literary Focus Lesson; Book Club Meeting #3
WEEK 3--
Monday: Literary Focus Lesson; Reading Time
Tuesday: Book Club Meeting #4 and Reading Time
Wednesday: Literary Focus Lesson; Reading Time
Thursday: Book Club Meeting #5
Friday: Lesson on Presentation Choices and Expectations; Public Speaking Lesson
WEEK 4--
Monday and Tuesday: Book Clubs works on Presentations
Wednesday; Class Presentations

And strategies for LIBRARIANS who wish to start or work with Book Clubs: