Blog #7

As we work each week on our book clubs, I see more and more how we could be able to use these in our classrooms. Going back to an earlier post I made, I really enjoy having discussions with students about topics, subjects and issues that are brought up in class and I feel a book club with book talks included in them are a great tool for generating discussions about the book in general, the issues raised within the book, and also discussions on more abstract ideas that have deeper thinking involved with them. I would not expect this to come up with all ages, but I do feel it is an important aspect of a book club too consider when doing discussions with older students. There are so many issues to discuss in a book club that the possibilities and endless as far as good discussion is concerned. Ideas such as themes can be discussed and what the significance of the themes are as they relate to the content of the story. One can look at the characters and look at the development of each character. Character studies are often times more complex than originally anticipated and can stir great conversation. Discussions about the author and their intent behind writing the story can also be a good conversation to have. Even talking about the time in which the story and what effects this may have had on the story could be a topic to pursue. Either way it is important to have discussions where there is not only factual questions but also a lot of questions that are open ended and can be left up to interpretation. This allows opinions to be formed and can allow students to relate themselves to the story in their own unique way.
Another positive attribute of book clubs is they allow for teachers to assign roles to students. Having jobs such as the facilitator or the question generator can be a way to get every student involved with the book club and also a way to keep a discussion going. If each person has a role, they can feel more a part of the club knowing that the others in the group rely on the information they may give and how they relate it to the book. Each person has unique aspects to bring to the club and the discussions generated and assigning roles is a great way to teach student responsibility for their roles. If each member pulls their own weight, I feel students will see the benefits as far as their conversations are concerned. They will be longer, more in depth and always engaging if each member is able to contribute.