I co-sponsor our school book club, which is made up of a diverse group of students who enjoy reading challenging, current texts both for pleasure and personal growth. Most of our students participate in other clubs or extracurricular activities, hold jobs, and pursue talents and hobbies. They make time in their busy schedules to come together because they believe in the power of good literature.
While a love of reading brings our students together, our experience as a book club goes beyond that.
We challenge our students to read stories, both fiction and nonfiction, about important issues that they are facing today: race, sexuality and gender, mental health, poverty, and more. Our students engage with these issues--and with this literature--with maturity and by building a community. As we build that community together, we also have a lot of fun, including our participation in an annual, multi-district Battle of the Books, as well as a recent field trip to see the film adaptation of THE HATE U GIVE.
My Project
Our students read some of the year's best YA fiction and nonfiction as they explore relevant social issues. This year, our focus is on diversity and representation in the texts that we read: Symptoms of Being Human, One of Us is Lying, and Far from the Tree.
These books will give our book club the opportunity to engage with issues of family and identity.
Each student will get their own copy of these books to help them build their personal libraries. With these books, our students will discuss important, sensitive issues that they might not feel comfortable talking about otherwise.
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