Book Clubs in the Classroom
Considering book clubs to help your students rediscover the joy of reading? Here’s how to start.
If you’re like me, then your experience in English classes looked something like this:
- Read a book assigned by the teacher.
- Answer questions about the book created by the teacher.
- Write an essay about the book to be assessed (and quickly forgotten) by the teacher.
Although I was the type of kid that liked reading, I often found myself trudging through the books I was required to read at school (not to mention the tedious assignments that accompanied them). By the time I reached high school, reading was no longer a mesmerizing escape into worlds old and new, but a task-based performance, something I did in almost complete isolation with little incentive to connect what I was learning to my life or community. I wasn’t pushed to imagine myself standing at the end of the dock, grasping at dreams that seemed just out of reach — I was simply expected to know that the green light symbolized the American dream (and preferably, to demonstrate that understanding in a five-paragraph essay).
Now that I’ve stepped into the role of teaching English, my goal is to empower all students to rediscover the joy of reading — especially students who, like me, quickly learned that reading in school is something to get through rather than experience. And so far in my teaching journey, one of the best ways I’ve found to do this is through book clubs, where students not only choose what they read, but with whom they read, providing them with the sense of agency they desperately crave but rarely get to enjoy in the classroom.
Here’s what to do if you’d like to try book clubs with your students.
Prep
My students engage in book club activities over a period of six weeks each quarter. Before diving in, students choose their books and groups, develop a reading schedule, review the elements of “unGoogleable” questions, and create performance criteria.
Books and Groups
The first step is for students to choose from any of the sets of books available in our classroom or school library, whether fiction or nonfiction. Some of the most popular titles for my eleventh-grade students have included:
- All American Boys by Jason Reynolds (2015)
- Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron (2020)
- Educated by Tara Westover (2018)
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (2018)
Next, I ask students to form groups of 4–5. While many students choose to read with their friends, others opt to read with peers who have similar interests in genres or authors — what ultimately matters is that students are excited to start reading. Students also determine the structure of and roles within their groups, thus building the communication and collaboration skills they’ll need to flex in college and beyond.
Schedule
Once they’ve chosen their books, students meet with their book club members to develop a six-week reading schedule unique to the length and complexity of their texts. During this time, they also create a group name to help establish rapport (for example, one of my student groups reading The Book Thief decided to call themselves “The Literature Burglars”).
UnGoogleable Questions
Because the quality of a book club discussion is directly correlated with the quality of discussion questions, we review the process of creating what we call “unGoogleable” questions: those that are unique, meaningful, open-ended, and research-driven. This practice empowers students to drive their own learning by asking (and seeking to answer) meaningful questions.
Performance Criteria
At the start of the first quarter, students and I collaborate to develop performance criteria for book club discussions. These criteria involve reading skills (e.g., demonstrating relevant, insightful analysis and interpretation), writing skills (e.g., providing relevant, sufficient evidence and commentary to support insightful analysis and interpretation), and speaking and listening skills (e.g., contributing to a relevant, meaningful discussion that provides many key insights). The co-creation process serves to promote student agency and collaboration while simultaneously reviving enthusiasm for reading.
Plans
Here’s an example of my plans for book clubs during one week of instructional time.
Monday
Students check in with their book club members to review their reading schedule. Students then have the choice to read their books aloud as a group or silently on their own for the next 10 minutes of class.
Tuesday
Students read their books in the library for the entire class period (which allows students to check out/renew books and provides them with a quiet, relaxed space to read outside the routine of the classroom). During this time, students also jot down unGoogleable questions to discuss in their book clubs on Friday.
Wednesday
After reading individually or as a group for the first 10 minutes of class, students use Canva to create infographics about aspects of their books they find important and/or intriguing. Students will share these infographics in their book clubs on Friday. If you’re interested in learning more, check out Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher’s 4 Essential Studies: Beliefs and Practices to Reclaim Student Agency, which emphasizes importance of incorporating digital composition skills into the English Language Arts curriculum.
Thursday
Once again, students start class by reading their books. Students then independently journal about their texts, choosing from a list of prompts or creating their own. During this time, I hold informal conferences with students to ask them about their reading progress and enjoyment. After students finish journaling and conferencing, they exchange their responses with peers to provide each other with feedback on their writing (e.g., purpose, organization, evidence, creativity). Students then revise their journal entries based on peer feedback.
Friday
Students meet in their book clubs to share their digital infographics and discuss their unGoogleable questions. During this time, students collaborate to design their own Google Doc templates in which they record the highlights of their conversations. Because students are encouraged to be creative in how they demonstrate understanding of their texts, students’ Google Docs have included infographics and other forms of digital media (e.g., gifs, photos, videos). Before students wrap up their conversations, they assess themselves on the quality of their discussions using the co-created performance criteria.
While I’m thrilled with the reading, writing, speaking and listening, communication, and collaboration skills students are gaining through the book club experience, what I’m most excited about is their rediscovery of the meaning books can bring to their lives and the lives of those around them. I’ll leave with an excerpt from a student’s book club reflection.
Before [book clubs]…I had my head in the clouds…reading the assigned books to maintain my grade. Now, the mindset I’ve applied in our [book clubs] seeped into my daily life and I just can’t shake it. I can no longer live half-awake when I’m constantly asking the questions, “what does this experience teach me?”, “is this a character-defining moment in my life?”, and “how does this shape who I am?” I’ve applied the questions I ask about the autobiographies I’ve read to the life I’m writing. I make a deeper impact in my classroom as I share this way of thinking with my peers.
