October Classroom Book Clubs

My building overhauled the schedule this year, and with the new changes, my opportunities to hold a student book club during the school day were significantly impacted. I was extra disappointed because I'd worked really hard to develop and establish our new Reader Challenge, which required a monthly book club-style meeting for kids to earn their challenge badge.

I was lamenting to some ELA colleagues how book clubs were my only opportunity to address these NYS library standards:

• Grade 8: Participates in literary discussions, special literary programs, and book clubs
• Grade 9:  Shares reading experiences and responses to literature in multiple ways (e.g., face-to-face conversations, technology presentations, posters, creative products)

Unlike classroom teachers with rostered students, I don't have DEDICATED time to work with kids, so a schedule change meant that I wasn't able to cover these standards during the school day.

Eighth-grade ELA teachers to the rescue! While we were figuring out the new schedule, they suggested I come into their ELA classes once a month to run a book club with their students. LOVE IT! We've since figured out a way to hold the Reader Challenge Book Club during the school day, but I'm pumped to take the opportunity to hold a monthly book club in classrooms, too!

For classroom book clubs, students are NOT going to read the same book. Instead, I'm going to use their independent reading selections as the basis for our monthly meetings/activities. 

Since our first meeting is in October, I wanted to design something spooky -- and came up with Character Tombstones: Imagine the main character in your independent reading (or classroom) novel dies at the end of the book. What would be written on their tombstone? 

This book club activity is available on TPT.

Students learn about epitaphs (engravings written on a tombstone), review literary terms like tone and voice, think about characterization and then create an epitaph for the protagonist in their independent reading novel. 

My goal is to use these "classroom book club" sessions as a fun, low-stakes way to share our individual reading journeys. I really want to celebrate their books, rather than "kill the joy" of reading!