College Prep book club

College Prep Book Club #1

For the next several weeks, you will use your time in English class to meet with your book club.  This club will consist of three to five students who are all reading and discussing the same novella or play. 

Each club must keep a work journal of its daily activities.  This journal will be kept in the classroom for easy access.   For each day you meet, you must keep track of the following:

·         Group members who are present

·         What you accomplished during the meeting

·         Your goals for the next meeting 

·         Additionally, it is recommended that you rotate the role of recording secretary.

Your first act as a group should be to determine each day’s reading assignment.  You may devote some class time to reading, but it must not exceed twenty minutes per period.  Please make sure all group members have the reading schedule; you all should finish the book before your group’s final meeting on February 13^th.

·         Each day, you will discuss your reading.  Take special note of how the author draws attention to what is significant.  You may discuss plot, character development, literary elements, themes, and anything else that pertains to your reading.

·         Please keep a daily journal of your reading, observations, ideas, conversations, and questions.  This will be handed in at the conclusion of this project. 

·         You will find several assignment topics below.  You will complete two of the assignments below. Each one should be at least 300 words long.

1.    Choose a symbol from your novel (an object, a place, an idea) and analyze it.  Do not choose a symbol referenced on Sparknotes or any other online cheating site. 

2.    Choose a short passage—no more than a page long—from your novel and perform a close reading of it.  Make sure you quote from the passage and comment on what you quoted.  Analyze your selection’s connections to the novel’s themes. 

3.    Write an essay in which you discuss how the title relates to the book as a whole—or to a section of the book.

4.    Write about the significance of a minor character.

5.    Trace the use of a particular word in a section of your book.  In what contexts does it appear?  How does it relate to a theme of the book?  The easiest way to find individual words is to search an etext of your, if one is available.

6.    Choose six quotations from your book and analyze each one. 

7.    Choose your own topic.

Here are some important dates:

o   February  3^rd: Assignment #1 due

o   February 10^th: Assignment #2 due

o   February 13^th will be the last day you meet in your clubs.  On that day, please hand in your personal journal and your club’s reading journal.                   

    There are etexts available for some of the books on the list:
The old Man and the Sea
The Invisible Man
Twelfth Night