First Discussion Evening!

Stereotypes/Roles/Routines: Usually, book club members are stereo typically associated with housewives, or older women. This is a norm that this group has challenged as we are made up of young students (girls, with one male member). Routines that have been established through this occupation are consistent reading of books in order to be ready for book club, as well as meeting every Sunday (fortnightly) to talk about progress and have a catch up. We have made a Facebook page to arrange meetings, send reviews to each other and agree on books to be read and discussed when we meet up. Facebook is a great medium for on- and- off communication, as  students Facebook is a large part of social networking it is a perfect medium for communication. Within the club there is a merging of roles, there is usually a facilitator which tends to alternate week to week, there is one person who usually has an opinion on most things, there are individuals who are happy to just 'go with the flow' and there are members that just want to come and listen to the contributions of everyone else.

Update: 
THEN: This evening, group members gathered in the lounge on a Sunday evening. Over the last couple of weeks the group has been assigned the task of reading the first Fifty Shades Of Grey. There were mixed reactions when the group got together but it created a very good discussion between members. Members discussed suppporting characters, plot, main characters and discussed the ideas behind the book as well as the writing style of the author.

Having the first meeting made me realise that (obviously) not all books are to everyones tastes. One member of the group disliked the book so much that she literally stopped reading it- meaning she didn't have much to contribute to the discussion. The location was the same as the last meeting and members seemed to be much more comfortable discussing ideas and more relaxed.

I personally thought that the group had a good discussion but want to place more of an emphasis on everyone contributing equally. I found it really useful to use discussion questions found on the internet such as:

What is your take on the significance of the book's title?
Did you feel a connection to Christian or Ana? And why?

TODAY: Having a discussion with fellow peers today I realised that a large number of Occupational Therapy students don't read because they don't feel like they have enough time- but then spend a large amount of their evening on websites such as StumbleUpon.com where they are not really achieving anything and are slightly interested in what they are watching.