My Side of the Mountain Book Club

Beginning in the Fall, eight of the 3rd grade students took part in a book club that read My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. Each week the students were assigned chapters to read and a role such as discussion director, connector, word finder, illustrator or summarizer. Each student had the chance to complete each role at least once. When the groups met, the summarizer started the literacy circle discussion by sharing their summary of the chapters they read that week. The discussion director would then present their questions that prompted rich, insightful discussion. The connector shared how the reading connected to themselves, another book or the world around them. The word finder chose unfamiliar words from the reading that they looked up the definition of. As a group, they would put these words into sentences. The illustrator drew a picture that represented a part of the reading and the other students had to guess what part the drawing represented before the illustrator told what it was. As a culminating project, each of the students wrote a newspaper article portraying the main character Sam Gribley and his adventures. A few of the students are reading The Far Side of the Mountain, the next book in the series, at home or during Silent Reading.