Alien Pedagogy

At my school, we have a staff book club. We’re now entering our third year and I’m in charge. Here’s what’s happening.

Starting the Club:

We sent out a staff-wide email inviting anyone to join. After that, our email list consisted of those who responded. We expanded the club through word of mouth.

How We Meet:

We meet twice a month — both times before school starts. At one meeting, we discuss our “free” novels — whatever we happen to be reading. At the second, we discuss our book club selection.

Every member is responsible for getting a copy of the text. Two or three people can share, or everyone can buy a copy.

Selection Guidelines:

• Length — no more than 400 pages generally.
• The focus on selection should be community enjoyment more than “I think very few people will actually like this but everyone should be reading more obscure science fiction.”
• Everyone in the club should get to choose one text to be read during the year.

Popular Selections We’ve Read:

• Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
• Haruki Murakami’s After Dark
• Alan Moore’s The Watchmen
• Tim Winton’s Breath
• Schlink’s The Reader

Unpopular Selections:

• Enright’s The Gathering *
• Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem
• Ian Fleming’s James Bond books **

Benefits:

I strongly believe in modeling reading and an enjoyment of reading for students. Having a staff book club shows that adults do form communities based around literature. We often put in extra copies of our selections into our classroom libraries and then say “oh the staff book club read that last month — it’s really good, though Mr. X didn’t like it.”

You’re exposed to literature that you might not have read otherwise.

I think it’s always a good idea to have systems that allow staff to meet each other. It makes it easier to collaborate.

***

*Although we unanimously loathed The Gathering, it was a fun meeting explaining why we found it so difficult to read.

**Each of us chose a different Bond novel. It was my idea, and I still think it had potential. Quantum of Solace was released that month.

(I just finished an AP course offered at Worcester in Oxford, England. The course was led by Jim Cross.)

One thing that struck me repeatedly at this conference was the teachers’ enthusiasm for the classics. I really like the classics, but I was surprised that so many teachers had set up a curriculum that implies literature ended in 1925.

We spend a great deal of time talking about how Shakespeare is relevant, but I was surprised by how many of the teachers struggled to identify relevant authors who are writing today. Shouldn’t we work just as hard to support contemporary authors by modeling to students that they are capable of producing highly literate texts that affect our lives?

So I’ll close by asking which contemporary texts you’d add to the AP syllabus.

Since my last expansion of the classroom library, I’ve had about 30 – 40 books signed out regularly and a higher turnover than usual.

Even better, I’ve had two reluctant readers come to me this week speaking about how greatly they’re enjoying their books.

Top of the pops:

• Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
• Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park.
• Of course the Twilight series.

I always work hard to “sell” a book to the class. Here are some strategies that I used this week:

Thriller Sales Pitch

“I was looking at this copy of Jurassic Park last night and I almost started to read it. But then I thought ‘Be careful! If you start it, you won’t go to sleep tonight!’ Thrillers are really dangerous, but if you’re willing to risk it, a lot of people enjoy them.”

Inspirational Sales Pitch

I read the back cover of The Last Lecture to the class and then introduced three other books that also bring us hope in the face of adversity.

“Mature” Reading

Some books I marketed as being written for adults instead of teenagers (Procession of the Dead, by D.B. Shan is a more mature version of his teenager stories, though we have those as well). I also marketed Tom Clancy as a more mature version of Horowitz’s books.

Children’s Books

I picked up The Tale of Desperaux and Tales of Beedle Bard, but sold them as books that one reads for the fun of it. In fact, I’d already read Beedle Bard by the time I got the book to the school.

The English Department gave me funds to buy books this week. Of 19 new books, 18 have been signed out.

Reflections:

• Three students brought in books to donate to the classroom library.
• Books that weren’t new were also signed out.
• Many students simply do not understand the diversity of books. They don’t want to read because they haven’t been convinced that there are books that they will enjoy. Spending twenty minutes introducing the plot of a dozen books is very useful.