[MOSAIC] Book Clubs/Read Aloud-Middle School-for girls

[Shauna Covell]

I’m a literacy graduate student, and I’m in the process of making an iMovie about book clubs.  Since book clubs were recently brought up, I was wondering if anyone could share about their book clubs in more detail.  I am also proposing in my iMovie that teachers create an online (and optional) book club.  This is a place where students and teacher (and maybe even parents) can read a common text on their own and then share their thoughts in a common place (kind of like this listserv).  I would attach a link to the author’s website and anything else that relates to the book.  I love books and I want to read twice as many books with my students as I could in the regular school day.  I thought this might be a way to accomplish this goal, among others.  Any thoughts or advice on this would be much appreciated.

Speaking of books, some of my favorites for 8th grade girls include The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Chasing Redbird, and Esperanza Rising.  If you think these are too long, you could also use The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  I also just heard about a book that would be great to read with middle school girls.  It’s called Uglies and it deals with all sorts of teenage issues like beauty and body image.  The problem is that it’s very long.