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Engaging the Disengaged: Using Learning Clubs to Motivate

Struggling Readers and Writers

By Heather Casey

Untangling the struggling learners frustrations with reading and writing is a complex process ofunderstanding ability, considering engagement, and providing access to appropriate materials.

Learning clubs can evolve as an intervention to work with struggling literacy learners thatweaves together principals of motivation, engagement, and literacy development.

Learning clubs are a grouping system City Year Corps embers!teachers can use to organi"eactive learning events based on student#selected areas of interest.

$ositioning the struggling student within learning clubs can be done through either %pull#out& or

%push#in& interventions and this supports City Years 'ier ( )nstructional *upport by allowingthe Corps embers to %pull#out& or %push#in& +if space permits small groups or individual

students to focus on literacy areas where our students struggle in.

*tudents who struggle with literacy typically bring a history of frustration and failure to their

transactions with text. This frustration is compounded by the expectation that students are no

longer learning to read, but instead of reading to learn.'hese students, often dismissed as lost,fre-uently are asked to engage in reading and writing activities across content areas that are

frustrating. )t is not uncommon for students to respond to this frustration with inappropriate

outbursts or passive disengagement. )t is a lot of work to encourage struggling students to

assume ownership of literacy events. aking the struggling students part of the processmotivates them to consider what is being learned and how they construct that learning. 'his is

powerfully motivating for students who feel marginali"ed by the larger literacy community.

eading groups, learning clubs, or book clubs offer a different picture. eason being, these

struggling students are engaged because their ideas about literature and literacy matter to us, and

in turn, to their peers around them. 'his engagement motivates these students to actively pursueliteracy events because they want to become readers and writers.

Literature circles and books clubs +eading /#0, eaders 'heatre, etc. in practice, both offerspaces for students to participate in facilitated conversations about common texts, which are

generally, but not always fiction. )n a book club, the teacher +Corps ember becomes a

facilitator of student communication and comprehension as the focus is the process of

constructing and deconstructing text.

/s students decode, describe, and react to a shared reading event, their individual identities and

experiences shape conversations and the texts being considered while the conversations and textsshape the individual identities and experiences of the participants.

*tudents are engaged because they have the opportunity to make choices about their reading andtheir participation while sharing responsibility for learning with their peers and their teachers

+Corps embers.

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Using shorter selections that can be read in class allows corps members to directly monitor

student reading and scaffold the group process. 1hen students are working with shorter text, the

reading and responding happens within the session and the struggling students are more engagedbecause they are able to comprehend the selected text.

)n conclusion, learning clubs unlock the potential to motivate disengaged and frustrated readersand writers because these clubs refuse to dismiss students who struggle and do not view

themselves as readers and writers as a powerful vehicle for transforming and motivating engaged

and interested learners across content areas to use literacy to build learning not only for a schoolyear but to build a foundation of learning for life.