Submitted by Larry Retzack (not verified) on November 18, 2007 - 12:23.
I could have written that letter myself, & your suggestions are relevant. Two years ago I won a bookshelf grant from ALA/Nat. Endowment for the Humanities in return for which I committed myself to form a Book Club. I book talked Eng. classes, distributed flyers on both sides of campus, exhibited the new books, including bilingual Eng./Span., in the LMC display case, got a terrific poster made, and obtained 24 brand new copies of a ppbk suitable for any of our 3,100 high school kids.
Following the book talks, I had a roster of 50 students/staff who indicated at least an interest in a book club. Eventually, I held two meetings. Wanna guess how many came? 1 student & 1 teacher. My LMC has at least 29 seperate ppbk titles used for supplementary English class reading. I suspect if I had that much assigned reading in addition to the 3" thick textbook, I probably wouldn't be eager to join a bk club based on reading for pleasure either. I'm not trying to blame the English curriculum, but kids have SO much assigned reading that they're just not interested in adding to it. And this year, CHS has implemented a daily 20-minute SSR regimen which I wholeheartedly applaud.
I wanted to eventually morph the Bk Club into a Writer's Guild to get some of our students in print because CHS publishes a student newspaper that has lots of good narrative content. But when the deadline hit and the club still didn't have enough members to fill an officer slate, required by school policy, I gave up & offered to return the bks to ALA. They graciously told me I could keep them if I put them in the general collection, which I did.
What's the answer? Maybe lunch time meetings instead of after school? Explicit motivation in the form of door prizes? CDs? Cars? Including food on the meeting agenda? I don't have a clue and I guess I'm just too old to figure it out. But thanks for your article.
LMC School hub
Submitted by Larry Retzack (not verified) on November 18, 2007 - 12:23.
I could have written that letter myself, & your suggestions are relevant. Two years ago I won a bookshelf grant from ALA/Nat. Endowment for the Humanities in return for which I committed myself to form a Book Club. I book talked Eng. classes, distributed flyers on both sides of campus, exhibited the new books, including bilingual Eng./Span., in the LMC display case, got a terrific poster made, and obtained 24 brand new copies of a ppbk suitable for any of our 3,100 high school kids.
Following the book talks, I had a roster of 50 students/staff who indicated at least an interest in a book club. Eventually, I held two meetings. Wanna guess how many came? 1 student & 1 teacher. My LMC has at least 29 seperate ppbk titles used for supplementary English class reading. I suspect if I had that much assigned reading in addition to the 3" thick textbook, I probably wouldn't be eager to join a bk club based on reading for pleasure either. I'm not trying to blame the English curriculum, but kids have SO much assigned reading that they're just not interested in adding to it. And this year, CHS has implemented a daily 20-minute SSR regimen which I wholeheartedly applaud.
I wanted to eventually morph the Bk Club into a Writer's Guild to get some of our students in print because CHS publishes a student newspaper that has lots of good narrative content. But when the deadline hit and the club still didn't have enough members to fill an officer slate, required by school policy, I gave up & offered to return the bks to ALA. They graciously told me I could keep them if I put them in the general collection, which I did.
What's the answer? Maybe lunch time meetings instead of after school? Explicit motivation in the form of door prizes? CDs? Cars? Including food on the meeting agenda? I don't have a clue and I guess I'm just too old to figure it out. But thanks for your article.