Reading and Writing With Purpose - Classic Literature

Welcome to the Reading with Purpose book club! In this book club, we will meet once a week for eight weeks to discuss classic children's literature. We will read one book a week, and students will share a written reading response each time we meet and discuss the stories with their peers. Students will be encouraged to think deeper about what they read and to write their own thoughts down to share with the class. I will provide clear instructions on each week's reading response. My main goal is to have students dig deeper into analyzing a novel and to connect various book elements. Topics that we will cover include:

Theme
Foreshadowing
Characters
Genre
Conflict
Setting 
Narrator

Students will cover these topics during our discussion and through the weekly reading responses. There will be one reading response due every week, and students will have clear instructions and a rubric to help them with this process. Reading responses will need to be a minimum of five sentences, so students should be able to write a paragraph on their own before enrollment. Students will choose their own reading response each week from a list I provide to take ownership of the process. 

The class structure is as follows:
Week 1 - Students will read Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss.
Week 2 - Students will read The Giver by Lois Lowry, write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss.
Week 3 - Students will read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss.
Week 4 - Students will read The Westing Game By Ellen Raskin write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss. 
Week 5 - Students will read When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park, write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss.
Week 6 - Students will read The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle, write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss.
Week 7 - Students will read Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss.
Week 8 - Students will read His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, write a reading response, and come to class ready to discuss.

This class is for the student who devours books, and because of this, we will be reading one book every week and discussing the essential themes in each book. Students who enjoy sharing their thoughts with others either on the microphone or via the chat box will do well in this class. Students who do not like to participate may not enjoy this class or feel very successful with it. I do not force students to participate but instead expect students to discuss, engage, and pay attention during class.

Please note, we need 6 students to run this book club. Please consider sharing the listing after you enroll your student. Thank you!