Book Club Unit Goal
My main goal for the Book Club Unit is to increase your appreciation for reading good writing. I sincerely hope that having an opportunity to select your a group novel to read for the course was an enjoyable experience. If you disliked this assignment and only did this reading because it was required, then you’ve pretty much missed the whole point (which would be quite sad because you won’t get many other opportunities like this in your educational careers).
Now, as we wind down the semester, I want to ask you to do some writing about the novel your group selected. You should be finished reading your novel by now (and hopefully most of you are), but if you are not finished, be sure to spend the next couple days reading the rest of your book club selection.
Beyond wanting you to enjoy reading a good book, I called this unit a Book Club because I wanted you to have the experience of reading a book for fun with someone else. In fact, I’m hoping you enjoyed this book club activity enough that you’ll consider joining a book club in the future. There are book clubs in every town across the country. Many people find participation in a book club to be a wonderful lifelong learning opportunity. Yes, this was a class assignment for a grade, true, but as usual the things I most want you to learn can never be graded. Becoming an “educated” person, the kind who might enjoy belonging to a book club, has much less to do with what I say as a teacher and much more to do with how you act as a learner: in the end, only you can decide to become an educated person (all I can really do is point you in the right direction). If you choose to care about words and books and people’s stories, I feel confident you’ll have a very fulfilling life. If you choose to ignore such things, you can still have a great life, you’ll just have missed out on one of the only true forms of magic that exists in the world.
(Ok, by now I’m sure you’re saying, “Enough already with the lecture. Just tell me what I have to do already!” So on with the show . . .)
Writing Together as a Book Club (Optional)
In almost every case, each person has at least one partner who read the same book. Hopefully, having a partner will enrich your appreciation for the book and will also help you to write a better paper. In fact, I would prefer that you your Book Response collaboratively with the other members of your Book Club. If one of more people write the Book Response together, all writers will receive the same grade for the Book Response.
Please note that writing together is OPTIONAL. You may write your Book Response individually if you want. You do not have to write it with a partner unless you would like to do that. Of course, if no one else read your book, you will have to work alone (but hey, at least you got to choose your own book!).
Book Response Options
There are lots of things I might ask you to write about the novel you have just read. Often English teachers ask students to write a simple Book Report explaining what the book they read was about and what they thought of it. That’s an ok type of assignment, but it doesn’t strike me as all that interesting a way to think carefully about the reading you’ve done. So I’ve tried to come up with some other, more unusual ways, for you to write about the book you chose.
Since this unit emphasized choosing a novel together, I thought it also made sense to give your group a choice about what to write. So I am giving you a choice of four possible ways to respond in writing about the book your group read. You may pick any one of the four choices below. I hope at least one of these ideas will strike your group as an interesting writing topic.
Option 1: The Sequel
Write a letter to the author(s) of the novel you chose. Discuss, in detail, what the author could do to write a sequel (a follow-up) to this book. Explain why your group would like the author to write the sequel in this particular way. If you choose this option, first look up the book and the author at Amazon.com to make sure no sequel to the book already exists. If a sequel does exist, read about it at Amazon and then make sure your own suggestions for a sequel are different from the existing sequel. Note in your letter if a sequel does exist to the book. When your group finishes the letter, you might do a search at Google to see if you can find an email address for the author so your group can actually send the letter to the book’s writer (as well as sending it to Dr. Pagnucci, of course).
Option 2: The Movie
Write a plan for how to turn the novel your group read into a feature film. (This type of a plan is often called a movie synopsis.) Explain who you would cast for the main characters and why you would pick those people. Explain what chapters you would cut from the novel to make the film shorter (most films are kept under two hours, which means you really can’t turn every page of a book into a movie scene). Explain what chapters would be vital to the movie. Also explain how you would begin and end the film, noting changes you might need to make to the way the novel begins and ends. If you choose this option, first look up your book title in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) or Yahoo! Movies to make sure your book hasn’t already been made into a film. If your book has already been made into a film, read about the film and then plan a radically different movie that could be made from your book. For example, the book Dangerous Liaisons was originally translated into a film which retained the book’s original focus on the romantic tragedy experienced by some 18th century French aristocrats. But later, a different film, called Cruel Intentions, was made about the book; this second film was set in a modern United States high school. Now that’s a radical retelling of a book! So, if your book has already been made into a film, try to think up some interesting way to retell the story in a new time and/or setting.
Option 3: The New Reader
For this option, write a letter to a specific person in which your group tries to convince the person that they should read the novel you’ve just finished. You must select a real person someone in your group actually knows as the audience for your letter (and, when you are done, I encourage you to send the letter to them). The person should not be another member of the class. In your letter, discuss why this book is worth reading. You might want to include a few good quotes from the book and discuss a main character and/or theme from the book. Your letter also should explain specifically why you think your friend would like this book. Why would this novel be a good choice for them? If you choose this option, be sure not to give away the ending to your book. No one likes to hear how a book ends before they read it.
Option 4: The Lousy Novel
I figured I’d better throw in one option for people who read a novel they didn’t like. So here it is. If you read a novel that everyone in your group thought was lousy, that’s ok, it can happen. In the case of a book your group didn’t enjoy, write a letter to the novel’s author(s) explaining how the book could be improved. What changes would your group want to make to the novel to make it better? What parts would you keep as they were? What sorts of revisions would make this a novel more worth reading? When you finish your letter, and if you are very brave, you might do a search at Google to see if you can find an email address for the author so you can actually send your letter to the author. In this case, since your letter is a bit critical of the book, make sure you include some positive comments as well about the novel you read. Even if you thought the novel you chose was bad, there must have been a few good things about it. So focus on some of the good points before you start criticizing. No one wants to hear all negative comments!
Book Response Requirements
Your Book Response should meet these basic requirements:
- in the upper right-hand corner, write the words “Book Response Option” and list 1, 2, 3, or 4 to match your selection
- also in the upper-right hand corner print the date, all group members’ full names, and all group members’ email addresses
- also in the upper-right hand corner list the author and title of your book club’s novel
- use an 11 or 12 point font
- double space your book response
- staple all pages together
- write 2-4 full pages for your response, no matter which of the four options you choose
- if you are writing with a partner or partners, you only need to turn in one copy of the final Book Response (just make sure all writers’ names are on the paper)