The Read Write Think Lesson I chose to analyze is "Boys Read: Considering Courage in Novels." Research suggests that many boys are drawn to books that spark discussion and offer positive role models. In this multisession lesson, students choose one such novel to read and study. Each of the recommended novels deals in some way with the concept of courage, and students are asked to consider how individuals can demonstrate courage through their everyday actions. Students read and discuss their chosen text with peers, use online tools to review the main events, and draft a persuasive essay about their novel.
I chose this lesson to review because in class we have been discussing ways to motivate boys to read, as well as exploring resources about book directed towards males. I thought this would be an interesting lesson to analyze to see how this particular teacher motivates boys to read, and what books she chose for her male students to read. Essentially, this lessons is like what we did with our book clubs. The teacher starts out by discussing the concept of courage with her male students, and then allows the students to each choose one of five books that have a male protagonist. The students are broken into groups according to which book they chose, and they have to break the book into four sections and set a reading schedule. As the students read their selected books, they have whole-class discussions on courage, what it means in their daily lives, how the main character in their book displays courage, difficult choices, responsibility, and change. Students also meet in their book clubs every session and discuss these elements. As they read, the students must fill out a graphic organizer from the RWT website to record the main events of the novel. Finally, students write a persuasive essay that discusses ways in which the main character displayed or failed to display courage throughout the novel. They use the persuasion map from the RWT website to complete this assignment and refer to their graphic organizers to find three main reasons that support their thesis.
Overall, I thought this lesson had a great concept behind it. However, I felt that it was very broad and didn't live up to the potential it could possess. First of all, the suggested book list that the author of this lesson provided was not very good. Most of the books were very old or not very exciting; I definitely think there are better books our there for boys that could be suggested. Of course, this is just a "suggested" book list, and the author does include the Guys Read website link to find more books. Doing a book talk on each book to get the students excited and interested is a great idea that was suggested. In addition, I think dividing each book into only four sections and having a section due each time the groups met was a little too much. I think there needs to be shorter reading sections due, as well as more meeting times to really get into the novel and make it meaningful. I like that there was choice provided to the students on which books that they wanted to read, but you also have to be careful that the boys don't just choose books that their friends choose so that they can be in the same group.
I felt that the concepts discussed each meeting time were good (courage, change, responsibility, difficult choices, and how all of these concepts applied to the students' lives as well as the main characters), but the students didn't really have to do any meaningful assignments each meeting time. They were basically just told to "discuss" these concepts and then fill our their graphic organizer on the main events in that section. Boring! Plus, the graphic organizer was very juvenile. It could work for some students, but I think there needed to be other options depending on the learning styles and levels of the students. I think the students needed more direction when they met in their books clubs, and they also needed to be provided with an activity, project, or writing assignment to complete regarding the concepts discussed instead of just talking about it. The teacher needs to be able to see that the students understand what they are reading and what is happening to the main character, how he is coping, what his actions are, and how this applies to the students' lives as well. Discussion is good, but when the students are working independently in small groups, they also need to be held accountable and complete something meaningful so that reading the novel actually taught them something and was worthwhile.
The main assignment in this lesson was the persuasive essay. I did not like the topic that the students had to write about because I felt that it was very juvenile, yet again. I think that by this time it would be very obvious if the main character was courageous or not and why, and referring to their graphic organizers just seems petty and not meaningful - almost like busy work. Even if this assignment was for 6th graders, they could still be held to higher standards and required to do more difficult and meaningful assignments. Writing an essay to wrap up reading a novel is not how I was taught to teach :) Especially if you are dealing with boys who already don't like reading and writing, doing fun and interesting assignments along with the book, and doing an awesome alternate book report at the end or something similar, could work out great. I think that incorporating writing into the book club is definitely necessary; however, I do not think a final, persuasive essay on something so obvious and petty is worthwhile. The students could have already done a writer's notebook entry on this prompt halfway through the book or at the end. I would also be doing a writer's workshop in my class, so the students could complete a writing assignment of their choice pertaining to their novel during this time, and the books clubs would occur on days I do reader's workshop.
Lastly, I did enjoy the extensions that were provided at the end of the lesson for students to do. This were actually meaningful and seemed like they could get boys reading. The assessment portion of the lesson was week because there didn't seem like any real way to assess the students' participation in the books clubs. A blog or something like we did in class would be a great way to asses them, as well as more assignments throughout their reading like I mentioned earlier. There was a self-assessment form for student to fill out that I felt could be beneficial because it required students to reflect on their participation, their strengths and weaknesses, and how the assignment could be made better. In conclusion, the concept of this lesson was great. I would definitely do a book club/literature circle activity like this in my class one day for boys, but I would certainly change the way the books clubs were designed and the assignments the students did with them. Unfortunately, even though this lesson was meant to motivate boys to read, I think it might do the opposite. I hope to adapt this lesson one day and really get boys to enjoy reading a novel.