Hi Elisa- My third graders are in book clubs right now and have been for a couple of months. I do not have them do "jobs" as I believe all students should be doing all those things. If they are assigned a job, they tend to only focus on that job. Right now I have 4 book clubs going. They are formed by the students' reading level. I bring in 4-6 chapter books at their level and they spend some time looking them over. They decide as a group which book they want to read and then meet with me to share their reasoning for choosing that book. I do make sure to listen to each and every student. I make it clear that everyone has ideas and thoughts and we can learn from everyone.
There have been occasions where they could not come to consensus in choosing a book and that has been solved in 2 ways (by them) -one, they decided to read the top two books -thus having a book in waiting. The second way was they decided to break into 2 groups. I did explain to them that when you only have two people in a group the ideas and conversations could be limited -but, it was their choice as to how they solved the problem. After the mini-lesson the book club members meet and decide together how much they are going to read that day, keeping aware of the time and allowing the last 15 minutes of the period for discussion. Then they go off and read. When everyone is finished reading (they have signals) or when there is only 15 minutes left in the period, they meet and discuss what they've read. The discussions could include a response around the mini-lesson, sharing difficult, confusing, or interesting words (they each note these on a sticky note with a reference to page number and paragraph), analyzing the setting and character (I do have some guiding questions to start them off), noting and discussing the theme of the story, and for plot -story structure (ex. Climax, problem/solution, summary of what was read today) I remind them to link discussion from previous days with the new reading -did the character change, does your idea of the theme still hold, or are you thinking about it differently now? They also incorporate a response to literature piece (like the book because... If I could ask the author one thing... ) They are usually very successful. I start book clubs at level 22. I have done them at level 18 and 20, but I find those students still need support and have trouble being independent during the discussion. I often have a teacher directed book club (sort of like guided reading) with those students. I have 2 guided reading groups a day and visit 1 of the 4 book clubs a day. I have 1 hour for reading workshop. Jan Each day comes bearing it¹s own gifts, untie the ribbons. -Ruth Ann Schabacker On 2/11/09 5:13 PM, "elisa kifer" <[email protected]> wrote: > I am wanting to let my 3rd graders conduct their own literature circles. I > have tried this in past years, but it doesn't ever seem to take. I teach > the expectations and model, model, model. Any suggestions? _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
