Last Book Club Meeting For Term 1

In the end, our final meeting for the term was just a party. I bought goodies for the students to enjoy and oh, they did! Talk about locusts! ;-)

Priyanka didn't turn up because her other passion is soccer and there was a student versus staff game going, but she will be back next term. The others were there, from Year 7 to 9, eating, drinking horribly strong lime cordial and chatting. Rakibur wanted to see what his reward could be from the Allen and Unwin web site, once he finished reading the manuscript, so he went on line and looked at the catalogue, then went out to see the last few minutes of the soccer game.

And the others spread out after they had eaten and drunk enough. I did ask if they wanted anything to read for the holidays, but they reminded me with a smile that they had manuscripts to read. Two of them read them then and there. Emily lay across the comfy chairs, reading Pretty Little Liars and telling me how wonderful it was. Kaitlyn sat at a table with her manuscript. Nusaiba and her friends joined us for the first time; they have taken manuscripts for the first time too. They have taken a new student under their wings and brought her along, though she isn't really a reader, but it's nice to know this girl, who's in my homeroom, is not alone. Perhaps soon I can find some reading matter she'll enjoy.

At the end, some of them helped me tidy up and I gave away the last f the food to those who wanted it, not that there was much left. I gave Kaitlyn the rest of the cordial, which she swears she can drink neat!

Next step is to get permission for the Reading Matters excursion. It's not free, but not expensive and such a nice thing to do.

Did I ever mention I love running Book Club and the kids in it?

Reflecting On Term 1

This year, I got some new Book Clubbers and some of the old. Two year 7 students have joined - hopefully, there will be more. I have had inquiries. We're doing a full meeting every second Wednesday (we used to do every Thursday half of lunchtime). So far so good - I hope to take them to the Reading Matters student day next term and perhaps we can discuss that this week. They are picking up this year's Allen and Unwin manuscripts - only four to choose from this time. No one wanted the Catherine Jinks novel, but we have takers for the ones by Sean Williams, Steven Herrick and a writer I hadn't heard of, but whose blurb sounded the most interesting.

We have been monimating books for the YABBA awards, too. That occupied an interesting lunchtime and I bought some new books on request.

The iPads - aargh! My class blog is a success so far and is good for what it is, but it's not enough for my needs. One of my students, who is an integration student, has been borrowing one from the integration unit, Lighthouse, to enable him to use the Book Creator app to make an ebook, but his aide isn't with us this week or the first week back and I found out only this morning that he is only allowed to use it when she is there. And he's been doing an ebook, which is not possible on his own iPad, because he doesn't have the app and can't access it. And right now, his own iPad is in for repair anyway. The system was down for a while, but after a time I managed to get him going on a school laptop and he was actually working! But we will have to find a way to get the photos he downloaded on to the camera roll of the iPad and I'm rather thinking it might work out simpler to get him to put them into a PowerPoint instead of doing the ebook I'd hoped for him to do.

Another student had his iPad confiscated for downloading games (and I want to know how he did that) - they ALL have games! So now the school is taking up all the iPads for reasons I don't know, but I'm betting that it won't be possible to download anything at all when they get them back. They have book apps on the computers, but no way of downloading books. At least, not with the school's approval. They still can't email their work to their teachers.

In fact, pretty much all they can do is type up work that they then can't email or even load on to their Home drives, make KeyNote presentations that they can present in the interactive whiteboard room, but not hand in (see above for the reasons) and look things up online. What's the point of having these computers if the best things about them are blocked?

Time to start finding more ways around this. Maybe it's something I can do on the holidays coming up at the end of the week.

 

Reflective blog - um, whatever! Book Club! Sunshine College West Campus Library

I've tried this before. It never worked. But this year, apart from the usual suspects, we have a strongly-bookloving bunch of Year 7 girls. They consider it cool to hang out in the library and talk to the library teacher about books and reading. One of them even agreed with me that Twilight wasn't particularly scary as vampire books went and asked for Dracula. I couldn't give it to her right away, because it was already out. Her friend had it! :-)

So as they were coming anyway, I revived the Book Club idea. I have around ten enthusiastic young readers who turn up on Wednesday to do book things. Mostly, so far, it's been browsing through new books and choosing from book displays, but this week we actually sat around and talked about books they - and I - had read and I let them know that Edwina Harvey, author of The Whale's Tale, was coming to town and would be speaking to them. Young Willis, who has already written me a superb essay for English - a Year 8 kid! - had read it and spoke enthusiastically about the book. Selena, his classmate, borrowed it. Willis was borrrowing the four-novel volume of Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy and I told the others about that. I promised Willis I would buy Volumes 5 and 6 if he wanted me to, though I personally hate the fifth novel and the sixth is by the author of Artemis Fowl (they had heard of him!).Thando of 8B wanted to tell the others about a fabulous book she had read called Ten Things I Hate About Me (someone else borrowed that on her recommendation). Her friend Paige wanted to know about Jane Eyre, which she had picked up from the display area. I felt able to explain the concept of Gothic romance - the young woman who goes as a governess (live-in schoolteacher, I explained)to a country home and falls in love with the boss, who has a Deep Dark Secret. I told them I had bought it because I wanted somewhere for Twilight readers to go when they had finished the series. Paige borrowed it. When I saw her yesterday she was quite enthusiastic so far.

I considered it a huge achievement last year when I got Jacinta to read and enjoy two books after she had refused to read even one, and it was - but we do have to look after the good readers too. They're the ones who actually turn up in the library, willingly.

Current plans are to take them to Teen Booktalkers next term, if I can get permission.

Sunshine College West Campus Book Club

I've tried it before. Usually, it has fizzled out - and I do like to have the occasional full lunchbreak. This year, I have enough students really, really interested to make it worthwhile. Not to mention those who want a writers' club! Which means that on Tuesday I get no lunchbreak at all, because you can't have the two together.

But who could deny them? I gave out some information about a writing competition being run by the Melbourne Writers' Festival. You get a story starter written by a well-known children's novelist and use it to get started. One girl has already finished her entry! There are eleven in 7A alone. Two in my own class.

Today I invited my Book Club in. I meant to discuss the manuscript reading for Allen and Unwin (we have nine students interested - last term there were four, all back). I meant to talk about Children's Book Week. I meant to discuss what they were reading.

Well, in the end, they pounced on the new books and borrowed them - the ones they chose at the last meeting. And they did discuss those.

Not very organised, on my part, but hey, it was their club and they enjoyed themselves, so I guess it worked well.

What next, I wonder? I'm book shopping today, if I can get away on time.

Let's see, is that request "Nightworld" or Night-thingie or what?

And what next for the school? The plans for the new school incorporate a tiny library for four times the students and three book store rooms, the sort of thing they have done at primary schools to save money on staffing. There will, I suspect, be no book clubs at the new school, no one to instill a love of reading or look after those who do, no one to come up with any of the ideas I have. That's modern schooling for you.

I'll look after them while I can.