"Book Club" Summary

In our group, we decided to read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and to watch the movie It's Kind of a Funny Story based off of the book by the same title. Both of these texts were about high school students who were dealing with depression and learning how they fit into the world. Both Melinda and Craig eventually made peace with themselves and found expression through art.

As a group, we first talked about the good and bad aspects of Speak.  We thought Anderson created an interesting character who had a lot of voice.  Melinda throughout her narrative had a good mix of tragedy and comedy.  We thought that the comedy tempered the very upsetting topic of rape enough that teenagers reading this would see what was really going on but would still enjoy reading it. Without the comedy, it would definitely be too sad and depressing.

We also liked her representation of the different cliques in high school.  Aly and I definitely felt that they were a bit exaggerated for the sake of the story, while Brian actually felt they were spot on.  I think this difference comes from our backgrounds since I felt that in my high school there were groups, but the boundaries between each group were a little more blurred.  Brian, on the other hand, felt that there were definitely four main groups in his high school.  Regardless, the feelings of not fitting in are something that most students experience at one point in their lives or another, making this topic easier to relate to.

All three of us also really enjoyed It's Kind of a Funny Story.  Like Speak, it incorporated humor to talk about a really relevant and potentially upsetting topic.  We liked the way the filmmakers portrayed certain scenes, like when Craig is singing and it goes into a kind of "band" mode.  All the patients are dressed up and they are on a stage singing and playing their hearts out.  At the end of the song, it goes back to reality, where they are just in a commons room at the hospital.  There was also a scene where Craig is drawing and all of the sudden the audience is inside his mind map, zooming through all of his artwork.  Another aspect we  liked is the positive and hopeful ending.  A lot of Craig's friends said they also had feelings of depression at some point or another.  There is even a scene where the counselor tells Craig that depression is nothing to be ashamed of because it is an illness like any other.  At the end of the movie, Craig has found ways to deal with his depression and move on with his life without committing suicide.  Both of these texts would send a message to students that depression is not the end of the world and can be dealt with.

One major caution about this movie is that there are some content issues.  Because of these, Aly and I thought that the movie would be best utilized by showing clips or segments of the movie.  Brian agreed that clips could work, but would also think about showing the movie in its entirety-once he got permission from the powers-that-be (parents, administrators).   Likewise, with both the book and the movie, we thought that if we taught these in a high school, we would need to be cautious about the subject contents of rape (for Speak) and depression (for both the book and movie).  Some students could have been raped and many may be going through depression.  I don't think it's good to censor subjects, but I definitely think that some subjects should be handled with care.

As future English teachers, we obviously enjoy reading for our content area. For me, this is why I chose English, so that I could read, read, read! However, one aspect of this project that was different from my normal classes was the choice involved. Most of the time I read for school, I am assigned a very specific book. Because of this, it was fun to be able to choose our texts and have more leeway. This helped me to realize that incorporating choice is a nice break and is something I should try to do when I start teaching.

As a group, we talked about different ways we could implement student-selected reading projects.  We thought it would be hard to let them choose anything (unless it was for a book report) because then you wouldn't be able to do as much with it in the classroom besides presentations.  So, one thing we thought of was to provide three to five different types of texts and let each student decide what they wanted to read.  Then, the students who picked the same books could do projects, group discussions, etc. together.  Another idea would be to base the books they need to choose from on a theme.  Two students could then pair up and compare and contrast the texts.    Aly talked about how in high school, everybody in the state was required to read Great Expectations.  As a teacher, if you are locked into something like this, it poses quite a problem for allowing students a choice.  However, in a situation like this an idea that we came up with is having the students pick a supplemental text that relates to the novel the entire class is reading.

Overall, I thought being able to select our own projects and texts was a good way to wrap up the semester. It made me more motivated to read, especially because it wasn't textbook reading!  This activity was also a good reminder that if I like doing, my own students will probably also like choosing and having a say in their education.  While it isn't feasible or beneficial to always give them a choice, it is something that will help create a more well-rounded classroom.