The past two weeks we have been given the opportunity to participate in a book club, which I think was a very effective way for us to be able to experience this type of strategy. It gave me an extra perspective on this strategy rather than simply discussing what students would do and the potential pros and cons. I have been able to actually experience as a student what is exciting about this strategy and what is not helpful. The first thing I loved was being able to chose what I read. I was able to pick out which book was most exciting to me and read it with another group of people! This idea of letting students have options is honestly a very great tool for motivating students and helping with classroom management. They have been given their desire to feel as though they have some control. I got to choose chasing Vermeer, which is an absolute great book!
At first I wasn't sure how I could use it in my math class, however through discussing it with my group I think there are some great ways to make this beneficial. I'm not completely positive if I would use this specific book because I may not be teaching geometry. I highly encourage geometry teachers to definitely look at this book as a resource. There are some really good ideas for big group projects in this book such as making and decoding messages with geometric shapes. It has great connections to the real world and makes math into an exciting adventure
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Hannah, I enjoyed that we got to experience the strategy of doing book clubs in class as well. Also, I liked that we were able to choose from a variety of books across content-areas. I like the point that you made about how letting students choose their books can be motivating for them. In my own experiences with books, I have been more motivated to read a book that I chose opposed to a reading that I was assigned. I believe that motivation would be a key component for doing book clubs in a classroom.
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