Lend a book club discussion prompts

When you are ready to lead your first discussion, heed the following tips to get the most rewarding experience out of your club meeting. Select a number of questions, write each on an index card, and distribute. Instructions are provided on introducing social is. Carol ive been looking and cant find any questions for our book club i guess ill use generic. For more formal groups a prepared list of questions about the book will keep the. You might be surprised to hear how inspired, empowered, enraged, or even educated your friends.

Picking different book genres is therefore a critical step in keeping your book club recommendations interesting and varied. Some are autobiographies and others are compelling true stories. Gather a group of friends, choose a book and start reading. This book is about lowen ashleigh, a struggling writer who was on the brink of financial ruin. The library has tools to help including book club kits and book lists, including.

The quotations can be used as writing prompts or to initiate discussion. Whats one takeaway from the book youd like to share with someone else. Here are some tips and insights about what has worked well for me. Controversial topics, unclear endings, and unreliable narrators may turn some. Following last weeks format, the discussion is going to consist of 6 prompts that will be updated midway through the discussion period 4 prompts now, and 2 on monday. The book is shortjust 116 pagesbut those pages are rich and lend themselves to. These bookmarks act as a cheat sheet for students who struggle with what to talk about when their book club meets. The book narrates the story of roser bruguera and victor dalmau after being forced to depart spain. Hopefully since you are a book club, the offender should not feel offended when the leader, or any member who feels like the discussion is going astray, tries to bring the conversation back to the book by proposing a new question or making a book related observation. The widow clicquot goodreads meet your next favorite book. For a list of current titles available, please see the attached list. This list is a great tool to help fuel your discussion at your next meeting. How many people would you like in your reading group.

Book group leaders who usually focus their discussions on novels may be hesitant about trying a nonfiction title. An 11yearold boy named michael boards a ship crossing the indian ocean and the suez canal. A variety of talking points are the focus for book club meetings, and the talking points are printed on sticky notes for students to easily reference. Discussion questions you can use with any book morristown. Ive been in a lot of book clubs, and i know its not always easy to get a conversation going on a book. Whether you are discussing characters and their actions, setting, theme, or images, having a guide to questions that will lead to fruitful exchanges on your enjoyment or lack thereof of the book, plot, and even its moral implications can help make your discussion more productive and keep it on track. This will be a discussion on either the end of the book or a key aspect of the book that we have not covered in class. Have a chapter of a new book sent to your email each day to see if you like the book enough to check it out from your library. Option b by reading guidebook club discussion questions. If another group has reserved the item, prompt or early return would be.

Its one, im happy to report, the ladies of the film book club are willing to follow. Analysis, synthesis, and evaluation questions generally lend themselves to more indepth discussion of the topic. Consider the following questions and share your plan of action with the group. This months pick, the night diary by veera hiranandani, is a compelling historical novel about an event that many young readers know little about the 1947 partition of india and pakistan. The memoir provides a good starting point for discussions about the holocaust, as well as suffering and human rights. For example, week one we might discuss chapters 14, week twos discussion will address chapters 59, and so on. Have a discussion with your book club about the ways your reading selection has changed each of you. If you are interested in reading books deeply or want to focus on a particular type of book such as. Non fiction book club questions westfield memorial library. In addition to or instead of writing the answers, students could draw pictures.

This month, due to its terrifying relevance and to keep up with the discussion of the. Fiction book club questions westfield memorial library. Because nonfiction reading is like taking a course on a topic, the natural step after learning about a topic is to share what youve learned. Those books that are chosen are not provocative and do not lend themselves for. Social issues book clubs with daily discussion prompts by. Light snacks or desserts are simple and lend a cozy atmosphere.

Decide to start with only a few of the cards on a ring and add to them later. If you are using the prompts to talk about books, your students will, too. Book club bookmarks with conversation prompts by beach. As always, please mark spoilers if you go beyond chapter 45 and feel free to contribute to your fancy. The following general questions can be applied to any novel, and they provide a good starting point for creating your own discussion questions for a given work. Author robert macfarlane kicks off discussion of nan shepherds the. No matter the genre, age, notoriety, or length of the book of the moment, book club questions can kickstart or enhance your group discussion. It is a good idea to plan on finishing the book a little earlier than you might otherwise so that you have time to think about it and prepare before your book club meets. You dont have to be in an english class to analyze books as a group. Ann patchetts the dutch house is the book everyone is talking about right now. Refer to the prompts on the cards as often as you can.

About a week before book club, discussion leaders will be emailed their assigned topics. Depending on your students, you may want to allow for two or three days of reading, conferencing, and writing questions. Its hard to strike a balance between questions that are openended and inclusive, but not so broad that certain members ahem. And i know this because when i visited my family for the holidays, more than one family member came up to me and asked if id read it yet. Adult programs will be starting up again soon, and this year will be my third year leading our small but dedicated book discussion group. Tell them that they will be reading their book and writing questions for the book club discussion. These general discussion questions are useful when a book discussion guide is unavailable as is the case with replay discussion questions for fiction. Running a bookclub by dymphna flynn producer, bookclub and peter guttridge. Ive found that the best book club discussion questions are ones that are openended and that get people to share their personal opinions. Download the lorax writing prompts for your own personal or classroom use only.

The four rules for a good book club electric literature. I love talking books with readers and would be honored to join your discussion via skype. Book club basics getting started before you start recruiting folks, take a moment to think about what you want out of a book group. Asking the right questions can mean the difference between a dull, lackluster book. The original version of the book is in spanish but has now been translated into english by nick caistor and amanda hopkinson. Below you will find our favourite nonfiction books. Catharines public library will lend out book club sets to any community book club that has registered at the childrens and community services department at the central library. How to lead a book club discussion book club questions. A book discussion club is a group of people who meet to discuss a book or books that they. After reading the lorax with your students, have them choose one of these 5 writing prompts to write about. Book club basics getting started leader norms san rafael. Welcome back to autostraddles book club, where we pick a book and read it together and then talk about it.

Reading as a social activity prompts a deeper relationship with the books we love. But nonfiction books can also lend themselves beautifully to the book club structure. Sarah quinlans husband, jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was just a teenager. After a photoshop nightmare of an opening montage, in which we learn these four friends have been finding time in between marriages and divorces, law school and childrearing to talk about books for several decades now, we see them settle in for a. If youre ready to start a book club, heres 40 of the best book club questions, for fiction and nonfiction alike. The lorax writing prompts inspiration laboratories. We encourage you to close your discussion by committing to taking action that will help you practice building resilience. Students can refer to the conversation starters on the bookmark throughout their meeting to prompt them on what to discuss. One of the most rewarding experiences for a book club can be to read a great book. Controversial topics, unclear endings, and unreliable narrators may turn. Come up with eight to ten questions about the book.

Mazzeo brings to life the woman behind the label, barbenicole clicquot ponsardin, in this utterly intoxicating book that is as much a fascinating. Effective questions for leading discussions effective questions are the key to an effective discussion. Our 23 hour meetings are primarily a social gathering with a mere 10 minute discussion about the book snuck somewhere in the middle. Use this product to easily implement a unit that addresses social issues through student book clubs. Choose one question at a time and toss it out to the group. If your group rotates discussion leadership, hosting, and choosing titles, make sure that no.

Prompts for nonfiction reading group discussions keeping nonfiction book club questions simple, but open ended, will allow for plenty of opinions and encourage discussion among members. Possible topics for reading responsh %lj,ghd notebooks. Thank you for selecting missing pieces for your book club discussion. If your library doesnt offer a regular reading group at. Have each member bring in a question or an observation theyd like to discuss and either put the questions in a bowl, or write them up on a board, then either refer to these prompts when the discussion lags, or methodically use them to drive the conversation. Sounds like life of pi, but in this tall tale form the seas, parts of the story are retold in his adult.

With four focus questions, notetaking prompts, and discussion points, readers practice answering thematic questions based on textual. A river runs through it is a series of three stories in the form of one overall book that tells the semiautobiographical story of norman maclean. You can also come up with your own questions using the tips below as a guide. Brooklyn public library loves book clubs, and gathering people around the. The novel centers on griet, the protestant daughter of a delft tile painter who lost his sight in a kiln accident. All topics all writers digital newspaper archive facebook twitter. Written by elie wiesel, night is a concise and intense account of the authors experience in nazi concentration camps during the holocaust. Girl with a pearl earring tells the story behind the advent of this famous painting, all the while depicting life in 17th century delft, a small dutch city with a burgeoning art community. If it is a book discussion club that meets at a library, then each member may borrow a copy of the book from the library. Provocative book club questions for elie weisels night. My current book club group is much more casual, but perhaps too much so. The widow clicquot is the new york times bestselling business biography of the visionary young widow who built a champagne empire, became a legend in her tumultuous times, and showed the world how to live with style.

You can assign the discussion questions and writing. In one of my past book clubs, we literally only read books that included discussion questions at the end of the book because we wanted to be certain wed have a meaningful discussion. Each month, we share top book picks from indie next and libraryreads, as well as the target book club title and pennies pick for costco. Book club central will be a repository of resources on book clubs from tools to start and maintain your club to recommendations on books, as well as fun ideas like food pairings for. A long petal of the sea, isabel allendes newest novel, tells us a story of exile, hope, and belonging. Create a deadline and set a day for book clubs to take place. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Librarian becky spratford in her article, book discussion first aid, shares her groups norms.

This presentation will help you start a reading group and provide you with tips to. At first glance, it may seem as if the preparation process will need to be very different and therefore more difficult. By continuing to use this site, you are accepting the use of these cookies. This may seem obvious, but it is the most important step, so it is worth stating. Book club discussion topics find out what themes you should be discussing and how to find book club questions. Book club central, or bcc, will bring a world of information to book lovers, book clubs, libraries, and anyone who wants to increase their enjoyment of reading. Unlike chat rooms, you dont need to log in at any particular time. Themes the book presents many opportunities for discussing themes with. Titles included in our book discussion feature an extended loan period, and. Reading assignments are often the basis for understanding much of the information and material content delivered in class. Rather than meeting inperson, this book club will hold weekly online discussions based on a section of the book.

Welcome to the latest installment of brightlys book club for kids, where we provide you with engaging books and bookinspired activities young readers can enjoy together. The big list of class discussion strategies cult of pedagogy. As our host said, the book club had already been in quarantine for months. It can often be challenging and overwhelming for students to encourage reading and assess comprehension in the absence of traditional facetoface class discussions. I suggest printing these on either white or colored cardsto. However, starting with a few knowledgetype questions is an excellent way to get students warmedup. There are some general book club discussion questionsthat should work on most books, especially popular selections and bestsellers.