Thursday, October 28, 2010

My Book Club

Like many junior high schools, ours is set up so we teach our core classes in the morning. Bible is first and then all the history, math, English, and science follows. The afternoons begin with an enrichment class, one of four: Spanish, Pacific Northwest History, Writers' Workshop, and Applied Science. All student take each of these as a one-semester class at some time during the two years of junior high. Grade levels are not an issue and the seventh graders love being in class with the eighth graders. We used to have enrichment classes three days a week (MWF) with fun classes called electives on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But it just didn't work. I really needed continuity for Writers' Workshop. My students sometimes just lost their train of thought when they had to wait so long for class. Plus, most of the track meets were on Fridays so the Spring was awful!

Last year I proposed a change. We would teach our enrichment classes every day, five days a week for seven weeks and then devote the last thirteen to fourteen days of every quarter to electives. And it works! Quite well! Each teacher is asked to do two of four electives during the year and parents volunteer for the remaining classes. Usually I facilitate a chess room first quarter and the word game room third quarter. But this year I wanted something different. I wanted a book club. So I put it out there, thinking of all the special girls who would sign up to read Pride and Prejudice with me! Imagine my shock at having six boys in my group - not a girl to behold! P-n-P would obviously need to be replaced.

We started with Archer's Quest by Linda Sue Park. A Korean-American, Ms. Park wrote A Single Shard, one of my favorite books for junior high and the one I use to introduce writing research papers to my students. We finished AQ in a week and were ready for other things. So I went through my bookshelves and pulled out 30 books that I thought the boys would like. They quickly made their choices, pulled up bean-bag chairs and floor pillows and read for 30 minutes. The last ten minutes of each session we get together and talk about our books. So far we've discussed setting, characters, over-riding themes, conflict, and surprises. This has worked beautifully. I read too. The first couple of days I read some of their books but I finished them so fast that it didn't seem quite fair. Now I'm reading a book about birth order. The boys were intrigued by that idea. I love how each boy's face lights up as he shares his book with his friends. It really is a great class!

A couple photographers from the yearbook staff came into my room during our book club today. They took pictures - and the boys never knew they were there. They even got one of me, leaning back in my chair with my feet on my desk. This is the most wonderful 42 minutes of my day. And the boys love it!

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