Teaching Strategies - Book Discussion Groups

Teaching Ideas and Units - Teaching Strategies

Book Discussion Groups

Speaking and listening, reading
Bands A, B, C, D

What is it?

Book discussion groups are small groups that meet to read, discuss and respond to a book.

What is its purpose?

All students have the chance to express their responses to a text. By sharing their discussions, they begin to recognise that different readers can interpret a text differently. They also gain richer understandings of the text and opportunities to use literary language to explore feelings and justify opinions.

How do I do it?

In the time leading up to the book discussion groups, the teacher models way

• of using a range of comments and questions; and

• accepting and inviting different points of view.
This is done through reading aloud and using student and class conferences.
Sets of books are chosen that will be appropriate for students' interests and reading abilities.
Students are allocated to groups. The teacher may make the placements or students may choose among the books available. (In this case, the teacher gives a Įtaster' of each book or makes books available for preliminary browsing.)
Regular times are established for groups to meet (at least two sessions of 30 minutes each per week.)
Less experienced readers will need to have an adult leader, more capable readers will be able to choose a leader from within the group or take turns with this role.
Groups are introduced to the text at the first session and begin to read
Students discuss aspects of the text as they go.
At the end of each session, students decide how much of the book they will have read by next time, as well as questions/discussion points to raise.
As groups finish their book, they can evaluate the discussions and negotiate with the teacher a book-related activity that emerged from the discussion.

How can I adapt it?

Students could summarise some of their discussion and list a series of questions to be used as a model for other discussion groups. Students could jointly-construct a T-chart on what makes a Good Book Discussion to develop their discussion skills. Instead of using different books for different groups, this approach could also be used with

How can it be used to evaluate students' language learning?

Book discussions are useful for peer and self-assessments by students. Teachers can observe during the discussions and gather information by checklist or for anecdotal records. The book-related activities can be analysed for content and structure.

Where can I find out more?

Hancock, J. & Leaver, C., (1994) Major Strategies for Teaching English, Australian Reading Association, Victoria.
In their interviews for this site, Angela Bird and Colette Chinn both discuss providing a range of texts for students to choose and read together as an alternative to the whole class novel.