Book Clubs Continued

Online Book Clubs

It's All About the Book: Motivating Teens to Read Diane Lapp and Douglas Fisher
Wiki Literature Circles: Creating Digital Learning Communities Elizabeth Edmonson
Digital Literacies Cassandra Scharber
Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles Harvey Daniels and Nancy Steiner

Say: 
Lapp and Fisher give the basis for the reasoning behind book clubs...it motivates and gets students reading what THEY like and learn how to interact with a text by making person connection. The basis of book clubs is founded upon reflecting on reader response and teaching students how to become life long readers. They note that the participation will come when students take ownership in their choice, which I think is really important and powerful for high school students to understand they hold a lot of power as a reader who can play a part in what they decide to read. I thought the idea of a moderator was interesting because in previous readings, they strayed away from possible roles in the book clubs, but I do think there needs to be a level of accountability for the group, which could be in the form of a moderator. 

Well as we know, bridging technology and teaching is one of my personal struggles; however, the past few months have definitely opened me up to at least the familiarity with being creative and engaging with technology. The Edmonson article talked about using wikis and I have to disagree with this because during our technology course, I did a tutorial on Wikispaces and found it to be in no way user friendly. (Even Ms. Byrd agreed with me) I wouldn't recommend wikispaces because I think there are better ways to utilize the various technological advancements out there in todays world for book clubs. I do agree with her premise and I think online book clubs can answer the question that so many teachers worry about, which is finding the time to fit in book clubs. I also like the idea of digital learning communities and even though I don't like wikis, I definitely realized how blogs or other digital spaces can do the same thing. Even though it is hard for me to understand, most of my students use technology for social media purposes. I've realized that students do not necessarily associate school and technology or at least using technology as a true source of endless possibilities and power for learning about so many things. I think book clubs can be a fun and social way for students to use the medium they are familiar with. Also, I think students do not know how to conduct themselves appropriately on the internet due to social media so just as we teach them to listen and speak inside the classrooms, it is important for us to ensure that we teach them the way in which we speak to each other online. 

In Scharber's article, she continues the search in bridging old and new literary practices. Even though I haven't worked with Moodle, it seems a lot more user friendly compared to wikispaces as well as providing a space that can do a lot more than just simple discussions. For someone who struggles with technology, I feel like I would try to use Moodle due to her detailed explanation of its uses for literature circles. 

I really enjoyed the mini lesson book because its practicality and I could see myself using several of these mini-lessons. I also appreciate how they consider all aspects of book clubs even from what could go wrong in the lesson. Also, I think mini lessons bridge that essential gap between just solely using Reader Response method and going into more critical analysis and close readings. Literature circles and book clubs are a space where teachers and students can find the right balance between reader response and New Criticism. Also, the books structure was really engaging because it scaffolded the reader by introducing the scenario and then developing different strategies, which I found helpful because it allowed me to visualize some of the step by step processes that I would need to go through to get my kids into the literature circles. The book's strategies also reiterated the strategies we have touched on in previous articles such as visualization, decoding, predicting, and questioning. One of the sections that made me think was dealing with the slackers and unprepared students. I feel like grading should be individualized, yet also include participating with the whole group because that really is one of the major purposes of these activities. I liked the suggestion that the book made for students who came unprepared because it gave the group the responsibility to figure it out; however, the suggestions were not necessarily excluding that member because they could listen or silently participate. Also we have been talking a lot about the importance of giving the students choice, including their choice to drop the book that they are reading. Honestly, I didn't think about this before, but I can definitely see this happening and I liked the solution that the book offered. This book was great because all of the mini-lessons are so adaptable for any teacher to use for their own purpose. I really loved the ending because of the fun little projects that the students could do. I felt like I could use them for their book clubs, but also translate it to our canonical text. The video and tableaux skits were great because I feel like they wouldn't take a whole week for students to complete! 



Do:

I really liked the Tableaux activity because you can adapt this for various mini-lessons. I could see myself doing a mini lesson for the week that focuses on teaching students rising, falling action, climax and resolution. Just as the book suggest, I would have students talk about in their book clubs some different topics of their choice; however, I would include that they have to distinguish the rising, falling action, climax, and resolution of their books. If the students haven't read far enough to answer the climax, falling action or resolution then I want them to use some predicting and inferring. Based on what they have read they can come up with there own ideas as to what the climax might be and what might happen at the end. Once students have finished their book club meeting, I want them to take their answers and re-create the scenes for the class. Each group would go as the rest of the class watched. I'll ask the students to get into the scene that shows the rising action, after a minute in those positions, the students will go into the climax, falling, and resolution. At the end the group will explain the scenes and their choices as to why they represent the rising, falling action, climax, and resolution.