JUNIOR GREAT BOOKS - ages 6 to 12

The Junior Great Books program helps students boost reading comprehension, critical thinking, speaking and listening, and writing skills. Books are organized around such themes as relationships, kindness, confidence, gratitude, courage, and cleverness and feature stories by award-winning authors.

Our elementary students embark on an exciting literary journey that take them from folktales and fables from around the world to poetry and stories that are considered classics. To reach these destinations, they explore selections from the Junior Great Books series that everyone in the group has read in advance. Students meet on a biweekly basis to engage in a lively discussion about what they have read. They work together to discover meaning through looking at details, drawing inferences, and analyzing characters' motives.

Guidelines for Junior Great Books Participants:

1. Read the selection at least twice before the meeting. If you read it a long time ago re-read the selection, as you will not remember it well enough to support your opinion with evidence from the selection.
2. Read carefully and deeply. A vocabulary guide may be given to assist with words that you do not understand. If there is no vocabulary guide, use a dictionary.
3. Talk only about the selection that everyone has read for that week. Do not talk about different stories or events that do not relate to the current selection.
4. Speak up and say what you think. Also, speak up if you do not understand or disagree with something that is being said; and be ready to explain why.
5. Listen carefully and do not interrupt while someone is sharing an idea.
6. Be polite and courteous to your peers. Remember that you are working together as a team to search for the meaning of the selection. Let everyone have a chance to share his or her ideas.
7. Be on time and bring your book to every meeting.