The Finer Things Club - A book Club for Boys
The mission of KIPP Ascend Middle School, an open enrollment public charter school in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and character traits necessary to succeed in top-quality high schools and colleges so they can gain the intellectual tools and social capital necessary to transform their futures and accomplish their personal missions in life.
As a teacher for the past 13 years at KIPP Ascend Middle I've seen many great young men walk into my 8th grade classroom and eventually across the graduation stage. I've even had the unique privilege of teaching alongside former students. One of the constant challenges that I face as a teacher is motivating my young men to develop a love of and passion for reading. For example, all the top ten readers in 8th grade in terms of amount of words read are female! So while our young men excel in their reading ability, they often lack a passion and curiosity for reading; I so often hear from young men "I don't like to read." And these are boys that are on or are above grade level in reading!
This lack of passion for reading hinders their academic growth and I would like to change that. I've specifically selected 10 young men in the 8th grade class that are on or above grade level in reading, yet underperform in the amount of independent reading they complete. I've used metrics provided by Accelerated Reader to select boys who are specifically on grade level yet have read very few books compared to their peers. With this list of boys, I'm developing a program of motivation and empowerment centered around reading, fellowship, and food. Imagine an exclusive book club meets taste testing, meets a mentoring program.
The Finer Things Club
Every Thursday after school members of The Finer Things Club will meet, discuss a text we are reading, and break bread. And by "breaking bread" I mean feast. If you know teenagers, you're aware of how massively extrinsically motivating food is! Books we will be reading this year include: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Boy in the Black Suit, Boy 21, Native Son, and Letters to a Young Brother, and the Miseducation of the Negro. After four weeks of attending meetings and keeping up with their reading, members will be awarded their FTC shirts and pins. After 6 weeks of attending meetings and keeping up with their reading, they will be awarded "Massai Status". All Massai will be partnered with a 5th or 6th grade male student with a similar academic profile to mentor and push them in their own personal reading. They will be able to check in with their younger buddies and will work on encouraging them to read and improve the amount of time they spend reading. We will have a final end of the year celebration where all FTC Massai will be given awards and recognition for their growth.
By the end of the year, all members of the Finer Things Club will be Millionaires, having read over 1,000,000 words.
Donations go towards reading materials, shirts and pins, food for meetings, and the end of the year FTC celebration.