Social Issue Book Clubs

 

Our current reading unit in 6th Grade is Social Issues Book Clubs. The books students are reading throughout this unit are fictional, but they include characters who deal with social issues we see in our world. As students read these books, they identify struggles faced by the characters and how we can name these as social issues. Some of the themes include loss, identity, bullying, family relationships, immigration, race, poverty, divorce, physical disabilities, and mental disabilities.

I absolutely LOVE this unit. Not only do students fly through novels with excitement, but students learn about common challenges faced by people in the world from the perspective of someone around their age going through it. They track relationships in their books and notice how those impact the characters both positively and negatively. Students are learning how to be better people right alongside the characters in their books. 

Students are in book clubs so they are able to have conversations with others reading the same book in order to grow their ideas and deepen their thinking.