Book Club Plus:
A Framework for Teaching Critical
Thinking, Comprehension, and Writing
Taffy E. Raphael
University of Illinois at Chicago
NYSRA, November 2002
Why Book Club Plus?
• Problems of practice in literacy teaching
– Engagement with age-appropriate texts
– Work with reading-level-appropriate texts
Our Dual Obligations
Dual Obligations
…Dual Commitment
Age Appropriate Text Context
Book Club
Reading Level
Appropriate Text Context
Literacy Block
age-appropriate text access
reading-level appropriate
text access
student-led discussion
within instructional
context created by teacher
teacher-led discussion
around specific
skills/strategies/words to
be taught
students apply taught
strategies within studentled book clubs
students learn new
strategies within guided
reading group
Problem of Practice in
Professional Development
1. Lacking experiences with conversationbased learning (reading/writing)
2. Lacking experiences working across
cultural, linguistic, and economic
borders
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
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
How We Did Our Reading:
Book Club for All Ages
Opening Community Share
Reading
Writing
Book Club
Closing Community Share
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
Literacy & Life History
Portfolios
Integrating Writers Workshop with
Book Club
Sample Writers Workshop
• Building/Accessing Background
Knowledge through “Shared Reading”:
William Joyce’s Scrapbook
• Building/Accessing Background
Knowledge through “Quick Writes”
Portfolio Entry #1
Letters in My Family: The Artifacts
Dad’s Letters
Dennis & Family
David and Matt:
from Camp
Literacy Entry …
The essay draft
Building on Our Experiences
Creating Curriculum
to Meet our Dual Commitments:
The Addition of Literacy Block
It’s all about ownership!
Book Club Plus:
A Complete Literacy System
Book Club
Literacy Block
Read Aloud
Community Share
Reading
Writing
Book Club
Unit Work Journaling
Guided Reading
Working with Words
Process Writing
Sustained Silent Reading
A Closer Look at the Key
Components
Community Share:
Opening
Closing
Opening Community Share
• Teacher
modeling/
demonstrating
• Group Practice
• Students later
use learned
strategies to
meet their own
goals
Comparing communities for The Giver
Family Stories Unit Introduction
• Opening
Community
Share:
– Whole class
– Teacher-led
• Prompt:
What do we
know about
families?
“Floating” Community Share
Closing Community Share
 Reinforcing Opening Community Share minilesson 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
Book Clubs
And Fish Bowls
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
Fishbowl
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” author’s’ style)
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
Integrating Strategy Instruction
with Book Club Plus
Super QAR: An Example
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
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.
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, I’d 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.
QAR: A Development Model
In the Book
In My Head
Right There Think & Search Author & Me On My Own
Explanation
Compare/Contrast
Cause/Effect
[text organization]
[text-to-text connections]
[connections:
text-to-self
text-to-theme]
Scaffolding Students
Grade 2
Scheduling
Modifications and Extensions of the
Basic Components Daily Use
Organizing for the Week of Instruction:
Mon.
Tues.
Wed.
Thurs.
Fri.
Teacher Daily Readaloud
•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
Generic Schedules
Middle School Book Club Scheduling
Scheduling a Year
And looking at some samples
Culture as Anchor
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]
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
Literature Selection: Stories of Self
Context
Book Club
Copies
1/student
Read Aloud
1
Guided
Reading
6
Shared
Reading
8-10
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
Glorious Angels Myers
Joyce
Unit Work: Grade 3
Unit Work: Memory Books for Unit Centered
on The Giver
Grade 8
Pages from a Memory Book
Family Stories: Author Study
• Patricia Polacco
– Michigan Author
– Many titles at
different reading
levels
– Videotape of
author/illustrator
– Writes using
autobiography
Books/Video for Family Stories Unit
Book Club
Guided Reading
Read Aloud
Viewing:
And...
Babushka's Doll
The Keeping Quilt
Thank You Mr.
Faulker
The Bee Tree
WHAT WAS LEARNED?
• Using standard district-mandated measures,
how did our students do?
• Using project-specific measures, how did
our students do?
Standard Assessments:
Do 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
…and on performance-based
assessments?
e.g., growth in knowledge of
language system, communicating
ideas, etc.
I can write to communicate my ideas.
I can use writing for different purposes
and audiences.
I can show “me” in my writing.
Character Map 11/23/98
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!"
Rikki’s 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 dndyBoand. I was Born on Agest 1
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 you’re 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.
Rikki’s 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 3:35
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 Viky’s 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 know about me so bye
Good bye! Why ain’t
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 Alexe’s birthday.
The end.