Beginning Book Clubs

Our historical fiction book clubs have just recently gotten underway.  These clubs were organized by student choice and each group has created its own constitution by which it will operate.  I have been so impressed by their enthusiasm for their clubs and the way they are really seizing ownership of this learning opportunity.  All students in the room are participating in a small book club as well as a whole-class club.  Our whole class club is serving as the model for our work in the smaller groups.  As a class we are reading a novel by Scott O'Dell called My Name Is Not Angelica.  This novel documents the life of an African princess who was sold into slavery and brought to an island in the Bahamas to work on a plantation.  The class has done a great job of empathizing with this main character, and finding connections between this story and our study of American history.  As they read, they mark their thinking using sticky notes.  You can see they are doing some "close reading" and digging into this novel. 

 I hope this enthusiasm will carry over into the reading they are doing on their own and perhaps some of the conversations they have at home about what they are learning.  Happy reading!