The Inaugral Researcher’s Chair

After surviving…hmmm…I meant... experiencing Researcher’s Chair, I am ready to come back for more!

In all seriousness, I want to thank my fellow fellows for their tolerance of what felt like a random outpouring of my research experience. Your probing questions and thoughtful suggestions were thought-provoking and genuinely appreciated. I will be asking for more soon. It also was a good reminder of why book clubs is a practice I keep trying; just talking about it fired me up to go and take another crack at it.

Quick re-cap of my research:

Sophomores in my Pre-AP course participate in a book club once a week for a three or four week period. Below is a rough outline of the process:

Week 1:

• "Book Talks" (brief overview of each book) to introduce title options
• Student selection of top 3 choices
• Book club membership determined
• Students complete webquest on title to provide background, context, author info, etc.
• Book clubs meet to establish norms and goals

Week 2:

• Groups meet to discuss first third of book (discussion is guided by students’ sticky notes kept as they read and the discussion log with specific prompt provided by Cindy and me)

Week 3:

• Groups meet to discuss second third of book (discussion is guided by students’ sticky notes kept as they read and the discussion log with specific prompt provided by Cindy and me)

Week 4:

• Groups meet to discuss end of book (discussion is guided by students’ sticky notes kept as they read and the discussion log with specific prompt provided by Cindy and me)

Week 5:

• Groups complete mandala to reflect the “universe” of their novel and prepare to present mandala and their overall reaction to the book to the class
• Students individually create a found poem using what they decided was the most important page from the novel
• Presentations of mandalas
  

During the over-flow of my researcher’s chair I could use your help with:

1. I have the fall conference in mind (as well as my NCTE and NWP presentations) and would like to know what an audience of teachers wants to know about book clubs. During today’s discussion most questions seemed targeted towards the process and strategies that we used—is that what you would want to know more about? Can you give me the specific questions you have about book clubs in my classroom?

2. With your help, I think that I have arrived at the question that I am most interested in exploring: How can does partcipating in book clubs allow students to have an “authentic” experience exploring literature and the issues raised by literature? Is this what you heard me saying or did you glean (just for Stacey) something different in my ramblings?

3. That is all. I will burden my inquiry group with any more queries…if Cindy allows me stick around.