Journal Club

In this article Nathaniel Petrich is discussing the importance of implementing book clubs into schools but not necessarily into lesson planning. His idea of a book club is like an extracurricular assignment where students meet once a week during a Friday lunch. His two main arguments are that book clubs promote better, classroom relationships, and they spark up a passionate desire for learning and reading. None of these outcomes could be accomplished without a safe reading environment which is another topic he emphasizes throughout the first half of this article. The rest of the article is about an experiment where he studied a group of 5^th graders participating in book clubs; his goal was to determine what his students liked and disliked about book clubs and using this information to create an ideal learning environment.

As I read I was thinking about our own studies about book clubs. Like we have previously discussed in class, Petrich also likes to allow students to choose their particular roles in the book club. Ideally, it’s designed to help everyone learn more in a short amount of time, and these roles give students a sense of belonging which helps them feel comfortable contributing their thoughts. As I read, these all seemed like wonderful ideas in the most ideal situation where all students had a burning desire to learn, but I don’t think that’s always the case. Many students can’t stand reading, and they will only read the bare minimum in a schoolyear. This article was important to me because it allowed me to see whether or not I want to start a book club for my students. Done correctly I think book clubs can really excel student learning, but I always need to decide if it’s a good fit for my group of students.

(WC: 300 Cross-curricular)

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1171691.pdf