Book Partners/Clubs: Meet Friends and Bond Over Reading
Lily and I realized our mutual love of books when we were assigned as book partners for Language Arts. We learned we had the same reading speeds and interests. Book clubs are a great way to meet good friends and bond over the love of books. You'll find that they are not only fun, but they benefit your overall reading experience. This is because you are sharing your opinions and they are sharing theirs, which leads to clearer understanding of confusing parts, interesting discussions about what the character should have done, and fully understanding the theme. You don't need more than a book, a friend, and a place and time to meet, although many clubs include snacks, themed meetings, and other out of the box ideas. I have put down how we did it in school. You can make your own variation, or follow what we did. Have fun!
TRADITIONAL SCHOOL BOOK PARTNERS
For school we were assigned book partners to help us build parntership and time managment skills. Basically, we had to read at least 3 books in the next 2 weeks with our partner (Or partners in one group's case) These are the steps we took to prepare for the first meeting.
CHOOSE A BOOK
Choose a book that interests both you and your partner. It should be a readable length for both of you (So you can read before your last meeting; for us it had to take *maximum* 6 days) If the book seems that it will be good for discussing, then it is good meeting material. By good for discussing, we mean that you should be able to talk about the book for a good 15 minutes off of your sticky notes. *See sticky notes for more info*
PLAN FOR THE NEXT MEETINGS
Write out a plan: How many pages are you going to read before each meeting? (Ours were every 2 days, but you can plan yours accordingly) Are there certain stretches of time where you are busier? (Plan less for those stretches of time) Any that you have nothing going on? (Plan more for those periods)
Once you have that all set, you can start reading! Read to your page goal before the next meeting. But remember, don't read ahead of you page goal!!! That was a problem for us. The first day that we got our book, one of us finished it that day. If you have a flexible book partne, email them telling them what happened. Hopefully, they will understand and finish the book too. We ended up doing that MANY times, until we agreed to read a book every 2 days. (You don't have to do that, of course!)
STICKY NOTES
One way you can keep track of your thoughts and provide good disscusion topics is to write sticky notes as you read. You and your partner can choose how many to write, if there is going to be a predetermined focus to them, or if they can be about anything you think of as you read. Thinking about your thinking in this way is called metacognition. (Our class did three a week, and more advanced groups were encouraged to write about deeper things than 'That's funny.' or 'What's going to happen next.' We were encouraged to think about the author's style and about how we identify with the character's situation. 'Had we ever been through what the character was going through? Had we heard about it on the news?')
Now that you know all of this, I would say, get reading! Find some friends and choose a book! It can be more fun than you think.