I’ll begin again by speaking of my real life book club. To keep our book club going, we always need ideas for a new book. Typically, someone has a suggestion and we take an informal vote. With 10 members, we are not usually short on suggestions. During our book club, we discuss the book and in between filling ourselves up with wine and cheese, we decide what we should read for the next meeting and plan when and where it will take place. As adults, these are naturally simple tasks for us to do, however, for your students you are going to need to put some management in place.
By now, you have your book clubs already set up and ready to go, but now you need to figure out how this is going to go. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my blog on Book Clubs Part 1: The Setup, to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success here. When you are thinking of management, there are a few things to consider.
Time
When will book clubs take place in your room? I highly suggest setting timers so that you and your students know when transitions should happen. You still need to allow time for students to read independently each day. This gives them time to apply the skill or strategy you just taught in the minilesson and also gives them some time to do work for their book club. The amount of time you can dedicate to book clubs depends on how long you are allotted for your literacy block.
Book Club Minilessons
Even if your students have participated in book clubs before, it is probably going to be helpful if you insert a few lessons on how you’d like book clubs to look and sound in your room. Consider conducting a “fishbowl” book club. This is where you have a model book club meet while the others watch. As the teacher you can voice over by saying things like, “Notice how they’re sitting in a circle.” or “See how everyone speaks at a volume so that the other book club members can all hear?” to point out some behaviors you’d like to see globally.
Give Book Clubs a Tracking System
How will your students know what to read before their next book club meeting? Or how will they know what to come prepared with? These are decisions that should be made by the book club members, but your students will likely need some guidance in making them. You could use a sheet like the one pictured below to help students track their book club assignments.
If you have other management tips, please share with us!
