Book Club Plus:

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Book Club Plus

• A Framework for Teaching Critical Thinking,
  Comprehension, and Writing

Taffy E. Raphael University of Illinois at
Chicago NYSRA, November 2002
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Why Book Club Plus?

• Problems of practice in literacy teaching
• Engagement with age-appropriate texts
• Work with reading-level-appropriate texts

Our Dual Obligations
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Dual Obligations Dual Commitment

• Age Appropriate Text Context

Book Club

• Reading Level Appropriate Text Context

Literacy Block
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Book Club Guided Reading
age-appropriate text access student-led
discussion within instructional context created
by teacher students apply taught strategies
within student-led book clubs
reading-level appropriate text access teacher-led
discussion around specific skills/strategies/word
s to be taught students learn new strategies
within guided reading group
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Problem of Practice in Professional Development

• Lacking experiences with conversation-based
  learning (reading/writing)
• Lacking experiences working across cultural,
  linguistic, and economic borders

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Experiences We Valued

• .with texts that challenged us
• .with authentic, meaningful literacy activity
  that included reading, writing, and talk
• .thinking about the influences of culture,
  economics, and language on our own learning
• .learning through conversation

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What we did

• We READ and TALKED ABOUT Autobiography and
  Related Genres
• We WROTE Literacy Life History Portfolios
• We CREATED Book Club/Literature-Based Unit
  Construction and Teaching

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How We Did Our Reading Book Club for All Ages
Opening Community Share
Reading
Writing
Book Club
Closing Community Share
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Sample Teacher Book Club Ideas

• Author study (e.g., Julia Alvarez)
• Genre study (e.g., autobiography)
• Theme study (e.g., intergenerational
  relationships in our lives)
• Professional book study

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Literacy Life History Portfolios

• Integrating Writers Workshop with Book Club

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Sample Writers Workshop

• Building/Accessing Background Knowledge through
  Shared Reading William Joyces Scrapbook
• Building/Accessing Background Knowledge through
  Quick Writes

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Portfolio Entry 1

• Letters in My Family The Artifacts

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Dads Letters
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Dennis Family
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David and Matt from Camp
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Literacy Entry

• The essay draft

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Building on Our Experiences

• Creating Curriculum
• to Meet our Dual Commitments
• The Addition of Literacy Block

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Its all about ownership!
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Book Club Plus A Complete Literacy System
Book Club
Literacy Block
Read Aloud
Unit Work
Community Share
Journaling
Guided Reading
Reading
Writing
Working with Words
Book Club
Process Writing
Sustained Silent Reading
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A Closer Look at the Key Components

• Community Share
• Opening
• Closing

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Opening Community Share

• Teacher modeling/
• demonstrating
• Group Practice
• Students later use learned strategies to meet
  their own goals

Comparing communities for The Giver
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Family Stories Unit Introduction

• Opening Community Share
• Whole class
• Teacher-led
• Prompt What do we know about families?

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Floating Community Share
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Closing Community Share

• Reinforcing Opening Community Share mini-lesson
  if applied in students' Book Club discussions
• Observations, positive and/or negative, from the
  teacher or students themselves about what went
  well and/or what was problematic
• Making thematic connections
• Connecting across books in multi-title units
• Informal cross-talk between groups, facilitated
  by the teacher, discussing and connecting their
  small group discussions as a whole class

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Book Clubs

• And Fish Bowls

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Book Clubs

• Student-led
• Based on age-appropriate text
• 4 - 5 students per group
• Reading the same book
• Meets about 5 minutes initially, then longer as
  kids feel more capable of sustaining a discussion

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Fishbowl
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Writing

• A tool for reflection (e.g., logs, sketch to
  stretch)
• A tool for sharing information and ideas (e.g.,
  essays)
• A tool for gathering and organizing information
  (e.g., reports)
• A tool for learning genres (e.g., story writing,
  mimic authors style)

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Reading

• The lived through experience of engaging with
  literature
• The use of strategies and skills for authentic
  purposes
• The learning about self, society, and the human
  experience through literature study across genres

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Integrating Strategy Instruction with Book Club
Plus

• Super QAR An Example

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QAR A Powerful Language to Support Discussion

• Understanding sources of information
• Understanding the relationship between
  information sources, questions and responses
• Learning to generate interesting questions for
  discussion
• Learning to draw on information for answering
  questions

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In the Book
Right There A detail type of question, where
words used to form the question and words that
answer the question are often right there in
the same sentence.
Think Search The answer is in the text, but
readers have to think search to find the
answer sometimes within a paragraph, across
paragraphs, or even chapters.
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In My Head
Author and Me The information to answer the
question comes from my background knowledge, but
to even make sense of the question, Id need to
have read and understood the text.
On My Own The question relates to the text,
but I could probably answer this one even if I
had never read the text. All the ideas and
information come from my background knowledge.
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QAR A Development Model
In the Book
In My Head
connections text-to-self text-to-theme
Explanation
Compare/Contrast
Cause/Effect
text organization text-to-text connections
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Scaffolding Students
Grade 2
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Scheduling

• Modifications and Extensions of the Basic
  Components Daily Use

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Organizing for the Week of Instruction
Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs.
Fri.
Teacher Daily Readaloud
Book Club
Book Club
Book Club
Literacy Block
Literacy Block

• OOpening community share
• 5-15 minutes
• Reading 10 - 20 minutes
• Writing 10 - 15 minutes
• Book clubs 5 - 20 minutes
• Closing community share
• 5 - 20 minutes

Guided Reading Groups Skills Centers WWW
searches Journaling Unit Work/ Writers Workshop
Social Studies connection
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Generic Schedules
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Middle School Book Club Scheduling
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Scheduling a Year

• And looking at some samples

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Culture as Anchor
Our Storied Lives
Part 1. Stories of Self Part 2. Family Stories
Patricia Palacco author study Part 3.
Stories of Culture(s) Multicultural trade
books and the WWW as Resources
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Storied Lives in Grade 8

• Unit 1 Conformity vs Individuality (Stories of
  Self)
• The Giver
• Writing memoirs
• Unit 2 Relationships (Stories of Family and
  Friendship
• The Pigman
• Formal Essay taking responsibility
• Unit 3 Civil Rights (Stories of
  culture/society)
• Multi-title see www.oakland.edu/mikehus
• Writing as social action

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Literature Selection Stories of Self
Books Roxaboxen McLerran Molly's Pilgrim
Cohen Chicken Coop Monster from The
Dark-Thirty Southern Tales of the Supernatural
McKissak Boy Dahl My Life in Dog
Years Paulsen When I Was Little
Curtis Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born
Curtis Tarantula in My Purse Craighead
Family Pictures Garza The World of
William Joyce Scrapbook Joyce Glorious Angels
Myers
Context Copies
Book Club Read Aloud Guided
Reading Shared Reading
1/student
1
6
8-10
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Unit Work Grade 3
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Unit Work Memory Books for Unit Centered on The
Giver
Grade 8
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Pages from a Memory Book
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Family Stories Author Study

• Patricia Polacco
• Michigan Author
• Many titles at different reading levels
• Videotape of author/illustrator
• Writes using autobiography

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Books/Video for Family Stories Unit
Guided Reading
Book Club
Read Aloud
Viewing
And... Babushka's Doll The Keeping Quilt Thank
You Mr. Faulker The Bee Tree
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WHAT WAS LEARNED?

• Using standard district-mandated measures, how
  did our students do?
• Using project-specific measures, how did our
  students do?

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Standard AssessmentsDo Book Club Plus students
face any disadvantages?

• On Standardized Test IOWA Total Reading No
  disadvantage
• On Basal Reading Program 1 Formal Test No
  disadvantage
• On Basal Reading Program 2 Informal Assessment
  Test No disadvantage

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and on performance-based assessments?

• e.g., growth in knowledge of language system,
  communicating ideas, etc.

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I Can Statements Writing
I can write to communicate my ideas. I can use
writing for different purposes and audiences. I
can show me in my writing.
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Character Map 11/23/98
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Log Entry Spring 99
I have a queshten on the end of chapter 3. Was
litel Willy in the race or was he pracising?
Thats the reason I was getting comefused. I
like the book alot so far. I wonder what's going
to happen next. This book is so exicting so far.
it's like you are in the book. I'm getting
comfused thogh. Was litel Willy's granfather
alive or dead? Because litel Willy is talking to
his granfather. Dous he have any parints arond?
dous litel Willy have any frenids? Well I
don't know!"
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Rikkis Pretest Writing
I come HoMe FROM Scholl I eat a snak I
woch TV. I rid my bike to Badins or Laras. My
eeys Are Boune My hair is dndy- Boand. I
was Born on Agest 1
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Rikki 2/9/99
When I was going to go to WhaltDisnyWold My
sister and brother cept on tesing and poleing my
hair out. I cept saying stop it but they gust
said oh youre a litel BaBy criying. Well
my Brother cept on saying That. My
sister cept poleing my hair. For an Hour and a
15 min. Soon my sister Stoped poleing my hair.
But My Brother cept onying me. He said I
bet you cant count to 100! My parints whar to
striket about all the nows. The wher getting
oniyd to! Finily my sister said ly of Ricki.
By the time we got Thar allmost all my hair
was gon. The end.
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Rikkis June 6 Posttest
About Me When I was born, I had now hare. But
my mom said I was cute. My sister said that I
shouuld be named Sinderella. I was born Auget 1,
1990 335 am. I was born mary hospetel. When I
went to the chich to get Blessed, on ant Viky was
holding me and I was chuwing on ant Vikys themb.
Then I went to Dokters. they gave me a book.
they made it for me.
My hole family was in it. And I had it ever sinc
I was boin. Then I ? l ened 8. Know im
ahmost 9. Well thats all you kn- ow about me
so bye Good bye! Why aint you living? Oh, so
you want to here more! Well you tauke avery
thing from me. Oh ya I forgot my sister,
Jessie, she dropt the cake on the floor for
Alexes birth- day.
The end.