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Logistics: Meet over Zoom once a week for one hour throughout the summer. The book club will be held every week and it is no problem if you have to miss a few (just let Michelle or the book club leader know at least 48 hours in advance)! Depending on the group’s progress, either 1 to 3 books will be read and discussed and friendships will be formed.

Start Date: third week of June, date and time TBD

End Date: third week of August, date and time TBD

Group Size: 3-6 students, rising 8th-11th graders (will be grouped on age and personality)

Benefits of Book Clubs:

  • Promote a love for literature and a positive attitude towards reading

  • Reflect a student-centered model of literacy 

  • Encourage extensive and intensive reading

  • Promote student inquiry and critical thinking

  • Support diverse responses to text

  • Foster interaction, cooperation and collaboration

  • Provide choice and encourage responsibility

  • Expose students to literature from multiple perspectives

  • Nurture reflection and self-evaluation

 

Session 1 Lesson Plan:

  • Introductions

    • Name and favorite book, board game, video game, or computer game

  • Ice Breaker Games

  • Review Book Club Rules

    • Only book club members allowed (ie. no parents or siblings listening in)

    • Go on mute when you are not speaking

    • You can speak whenever you want or you may be called on by the tutor

    • Agree to disagree with one another in a respectful manner

    • Always be kind and have fun!

    • No homework EVER except reading the book (3-6 chapters per week)

  • Group Decision Book Selection (options to be provided by the tutor)

    • Tutor to present and describe different book genres

      • Have the group vote on a genre

    • Tutor to present preselected 3-5 books within the genre

      • Each group member to read one summary aloud

      • Students vote on final book selection

  • Read the first few pages of the first chapters aloud (use the popcorn game to decide who reads next)

  • Discuss predictions

  • Assign HW

    • Have parents buy book and have students read the first 3-6 chapters

Possible Future Discussion Topics about Comprehension and Writer’s Craft:

  • Predicting

  • Inferring

  • Confusions and questions (how to bring these to the group)

  • Compare setting to that in other novels

  • Compare characters within the novel to those from other books

  • Compare the plot to other novels’ plots

  • Writer’s craft/Author’s style: Powerful words or phrases, run on sentences, sensory images, symbolism, metaphors, similes, etc.

  • Use of evidence from the text to defend thinking

  • Which character do you think you might be friends with?

  • Which character do you think you’re most like?

  • Would you like to live in the story’s setting? Why?

  • What are you learning from the story?

  • Connections

  • Imagery

  • Determining importance: What is worth remembering?

  • Author’s purpose

  • Theme

  • Plot: What is the conflict? How do you predict it will be resolved?

  • Describe the setting: How is it important to the story?

  • Powerful language

  • Characters: How are they developing or changing?

  • Great passages or phrases: explain why you liked them

  • Author’s use of time: consecutive, flashbacks, foreshadowing, etc.

  • Tense the author uses: Is it past, present or future, or a combination? How would the novel change if it were told in a different tense?

  • Author’s use of point of view: How would it change the book to be written from a different point of view?