This past week Jill, Kayla, Jessie, Tom, and I all got together and had a little book club about the books Maus and John, Paul, George and Ben. We talked about things we liked and disliked for each, as well as how we would use it in a classroom. We thought that Maus might be for a lightly more mature audience and maybe more appropriate for a high school level. Just as we were saying that a lady Tom knew saw us and said how her friend's middle school class read it and loved it. But we decided that maybe we'd use sections of it and if the students wanted to read the entire thing they could. I liked that it was a a man interviewing his dad about his experiences, so it's a great source of history.
I liked JPGB because of the humor and pictures. I think it would be fun to just read it to the class and then have a discussion about each person. There is also a little true/false section in the back and you could do some group activities or class discussion with those as well. Not simply take the test but discuss it and turn it into a learning experience.
I am glad you brought up the point that Maus was a man interviewing his dad about his experiences. I could imagine you asking students to do an oral history project too, and you could give them an opportunity to express what they learned through a "mini-graphic novel" format such as the one in Maus.
ReplyDeleteSorry--one more question. So, even if you don't teach this exact book, do you think that you might incorporate "book clubs" into your instruction? Do you think you might ask students to do something similar to what you did with your discussion group?
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