Book Clubs

This year I wanted to start the year in a different way. I love the idea of literature circles and have tried them in so many different ways. One thing I've discovered over the years is that I really don't like using role sheets. I think that they take the joy and meaning away from the true spirit of a book club discussion.
So this year, we began by choosing books. I had about ten titles that I could loan out, but I told students if they really wanted to read something else and we could get a handful of students interested in reading the book, then we could include other titles as well. I wanted to give choice to students and I wanted to get them excited about reading. My hope was that they would not only enjoy reading, but they would be more motivated to read, and would engage in deeper discussions.

I had three objectives for this unit:
1. Students would enjoy and actually read their book.
2. Students would learn literary terms like inference and characterization through their novels and with their groups.
3. Students would participate in engaging and meaningful discussions about their books.

Read the Book: This was pretty easy. Just giving students choice empowered them to read and engage in their assignments.

Learn the Lit. Terms: Each week, I focused on three literary terms/devices. I would do mini-lessons and videos to teach the term and they would find examples and passages from their books to reinforce their learning. Students really seemed to enjoy learning terms in this way.

Great Discussions: This was probably the best part of this project. I created this hyperdoc to crowd source information. Students added their own thoughts and questions. I added my own questions. Here is an example of a completed one. My primary focus for students was for them to to hold an engaging end of unit discussion.
I have 6 Blue Snowball (microphones) that I plopped into the center of each group. This alone really up'ed their game, and I was able to get a recording of each group, so that I could really listen to all of the discussions.
I was really happy with the results of this discussion and the unit as a whole.