Year 9 Boys Book Club & Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
This week saw the launch of our Year 9 Boys Book Club in the Library.
Upwards of 30 boys were selected by the Head of Year 9 that would benefit from a book club atmosphere.
During our fist meeting, the boys were divided up into small groups, each group sitting with myself, six members of the Senior Leadership Team and the Head Teacher.
I delivered a short presentation and provided general reading discussion questions for each teacher to ask of their group.
The questions focused on reading in general but also things like their favourite tv shows and favourite video games.
See my previous post on the importance of asking these types of questions here.
I asked each teacher to record their answers so I could use them for future readers advisory assistance.
I then moved on to the book we chose for the club, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds The book focuses on Will, a fifteen year old whose older brother has just been murdered by a rival gang member.
Will vows revenge, takes his brother's gun and descends in an elevator to the street below where the teen who he thinks murdered his brother is standing.
I found an audio clip on YouTube of Reynolds reading the first few pages of Long Way Down and it was a very powerful moment.
Although the book is set in the U.S., gun violence and violent crime in general is a world wide problem. In London alone violent crime has risen by more than 44% in the past year, according to the Metropolitan Police in the city.
In the first three months of 2018, 11 teenagers were murdered in London. This is why I feel Long Way Down is a relevant and important book for our teens to read.
Written in prose, it is a stark and powerful read.
At the end of the presentation I asked the students (and teachers!) to have read to page 65 by next Friday.
Two hours later it was break time, four students came to the Library to tell me that they'd already read past page 65. These are boys that I've had for two years in Library Lessons and always struggled to find them "the right" book.
After school two more boys came up to me and said they'd read past page 80. One boy said he "loved the book" and that he'd be finished by Monday.
I also had a teacher email me to say that some of the boys had approached him as well to tell him that they'd already passed page 65 by the end of the day.
It blew me away because again, I've worked with all of these boys in lessons and always struggled to find them a book they'd stick to. Many of them are part of the "I hate books" or "books are boring" crowd.
I also had another teacher, who heard about this buzz from other students, email me for a copy of Long Way Down so she could read it on the weekend.
Another boy, who came to the Library this morning for an entirely different purpose, heard us discussing the novel and stuck around for the entire meeting. Afterwards he too asked for a copy and asked if he could join the club. He was of course immediately added to the group.
I have created discussion questions around the book that I'm sharing with the teachers every week so they can all discuss them with their groups.
The main goal is to have a Skype with Jason if he's available, or at least some kind of interaction as I really want the buzz that this book has created to continue.
I'm very excited for our next meeting!
Upwards of 30 boys were selected by the Head of Year 9 that would benefit from a book club atmosphere.
During our fist meeting, the boys were divided up into small groups, each group sitting with myself, six members of the Senior Leadership Team and the Head Teacher.
I delivered a short presentation and provided general reading discussion questions for each teacher to ask of their group.
The questions focused on reading in general but also things like their favourite tv shows and favourite video games.
See my previous post on the importance of asking these types of questions here.
I asked each teacher to record their answers so I could use them for future readers advisory assistance.
I then moved on to the book we chose for the club, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds The book focuses on Will, a fifteen year old whose older brother has just been murdered by a rival gang member.
Will vows revenge, takes his brother's gun and descends in an elevator to the street below where the teen who he thinks murdered his brother is standing.
I found an audio clip on YouTube of Reynolds reading the first few pages of Long Way Down and it was a very powerful moment.
Although the book is set in the U.S., gun violence and violent crime in general is a world wide problem. In London alone violent crime has risen by more than 44% in the past year, according to the Metropolitan Police in the city.
In the first three months of 2018, 11 teenagers were murdered in London. This is why I feel Long Way Down is a relevant and important book for our teens to read.
Written in prose, it is a stark and powerful read.
At the end of the presentation I asked the students (and teachers!) to have read to page 65 by next Friday.
Two hours later it was break time, four students came to the Library to tell me that they'd already read past page 65. These are boys that I've had for two years in Library Lessons and always struggled to find them "the right" book.
After school two more boys came up to me and said they'd read past page 80. One boy said he "loved the book" and that he'd be finished by Monday.
I also had a teacher email me to say that some of the boys had approached him as well to tell him that they'd already passed page 65 by the end of the day.
It blew me away because again, I've worked with all of these boys in lessons and always struggled to find them a book they'd stick to. Many of them are part of the "I hate books" or "books are boring" crowd.
I also had another teacher, who heard about this buzz from other students, email me for a copy of Long Way Down so she could read it on the weekend.
Another boy, who came to the Library this morning for an entirely different purpose, heard us discussing the novel and stuck around for the entire meeting. Afterwards he too asked for a copy and asked if he could join the club. He was of course immediately added to the group.
I have created discussion questions around the book that I'm sharing with the teachers every week so they can all discuss them with their groups.
The main goal is to have a Skype with Jason if he's available, or at least some kind of interaction as I really want the buzz that this book has created to continue.
I'm very excited for our next meeting!
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