Book Clubs

The Book Club Companion- Cindy O'Donnell Allen


Say:

I really enjoyed Allen’s book because of its readability and practicality. I haven’t experienced book club as defined by Allen, but my AP literature course in high school did more literature circles. Before reading, my thought about book clubs was okay they are great in theory, but how do we fit or set aside that kind of time for book clubs without disregarding standards. Now I realize how book clubs can absolutely fit into anything related to standards and going beyond the standards. I was really pleased how Allen showed how to utilize book clubs that incorporated multiple perspectives and theories. The “theoretical flexibility of book clubs” really intrigued me because it was rooted in reader response, yet continually building into other perspectives such as New Criticism, Interpretive Community, and formal analysis. I really liked that she wasn’t using only reader response, but showed how starting with book clubs, which is based in reader response, grows into show much more for both the teachers and the students.

I believe students need to have time in class to read because we all know that there are some students who will not read outside of class due to several different factors. I know Allen had them read their books outside of class so I’m wondering if she had any issues with students who simple came to book clubs unprepared. I do think students can be scaffolded into reading outside of class and perhaps book clubs are great incentive for students to read outside of class. We have talked about how crucial it is for students to voice their opinions and make personal connections to books so giving students the opportunity to read a book of their choice is crucial. It’s important for students to get pleasure or enjoy reading those books. Even though students have a choice, I do think it’s important for teachers to think about the bigger picture as Allen talks about perhaps choosing books that go with a unit or connect with each other in relation to the canonical text. This also leads into building upon reader response into critical analysis. I was pleased to find a lot of her activities could be specified to a particular reading strategy that allows the students to analyze the text as they would any canonical text. The variety or flexibility does give teachers the ability to teach students visualization, questioning, inferencing, predictions, formal analysis, and critical synthesis. This kind of practice and scaffolding is really effective in my opinion because students get the practice from a non canonical text that also scaffolds them into developing those same skills that they'll use on their canonical text; therefore, it is a little less daunting to a high school school student when they start reading the classics. 

As I read this book, I also thought that Book Clubs can coexist with Socratic Seminars in the way they teach students to interact with literature by talking and listening. Book Clubs already set the stage for helping students develop those skills and I feel like it would allow for an easier transition into doing Socratic Seminars with the students. Book clubs teach them how to discuss the unknown of their selected books and come to some insights along with their peers.  

Do:
I am going to continue using Night as a book of reference because I really liked the Mind Map activity for characterization. If the canonical text was Night, then I would try to select a group of texts that surrounded with Holocaust narratives, genocide from other regions(Rwanda, etc) and possible open it even further into diaspora/the immigrant story. I know that sounds steep to find YA about those topics, but I think there are definitely some out there! Since these stories have alot going on mentally such as survival instincts, I think Mind Map could get the kids talking about their protagonist's mind and then how the author is characterizes them. This activity would be before they get into their book clubs!