I had the pleasure of participating in this year’s new Community of Readers Book Discussion at Aurora High this past week. This discussion was designed to promote more of a culture of reading as staff members shared some of their favorite books with mixed groups of young people from our high school. There were over 40 summer reading options available for selection and each of the young people read their selected book over the summer. How the book was discussed differed depending on the facilitator, but one of the more important pieces of this activity was that there was no mention of points or grades. This was about having conversations about a book that everyone chose to read.
As you can see from the list, there were a number of works of fiction, so I threw out a non-fiction book and held my breath to see if anyone would actually sign-up. I was glad to have eleven young people select the Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor as their summer read. It’s a great book about the power of positive psychology, but I won’t get into the book here other than to say there are seven researched based principles that have shown to positively impact how our brain handles situations. In our group we went through a short introduction of each other to be sure everyone knew who was in the room. This group was a mix of sophomores through seniors. I then brought up the Copernican revolution this book addressed which is to say that happiness doesn’t follow success, but actually precipitates it more than we realize. After this short, less than ten minutes, intro the young people then jotted down on a post-it which of the seven principles stood out to them, why they thought that way, and what page of the book contained a quote, statement, or story to demonstrate their thinking. Five minutes later they were discussing their thoughts with a partner and soon after that sharing with the group. It was really exciting to hear what stood out to each of the young people as they both shared with each other and with the group as a whole. In reflection, I would have changed a couple of things up because it felt a little more like ping-pong than ultimate frisbee. That is to say the discussion kept coming back to me as the facilitator and though I would try to direct it back to the young people the conversations felt a little more “teacher centered” than I would have liked. With a little bit of a different set-up I think we could have had young people driving the discussion more and sharing their thoughts based on each others comments just like teammates pass the frisbee between each other as they move down the playing field. However, in the end, everyone was able to share something about their thinking in this short 30 minute period.
As I mentioned, there were over 40 different discussions taking place and therefore 40 different ways books were shared. The one common piece is that these discussions were all about the books and the story within them rather than the points and how to prove what was read. At the beginning of each school year we have struggled with “students” and their summer reading. In the past we have had them come with a report written over the summer, tested them with a multiple choice test on day one, required them to respond to a cold write, etc. The only things these were successful at doing was to deliver the message “points are important” and “we must hold you accountable to your summer reading.” This year’s Community of Readers discussions set a very different tone for the start of the year and I hope it continues. The messages of responsibility over accountability and empowerment over compliance were clear. Although there is still room for improvement, and I already have heard several ideas based on our staff’s reflections, this is a great way to nurture a community of readers.
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