The Power of Choice

Today was the third class meeting of the semester.  On the syllabus I gave out the first day I listed the required grammar and reading textbooks for our class.  Then there was this note:  You will also choose three books with your book club.  Today was that day.  I passed out nearly 30 books.  I told each group that they had to look through all the books and choose three that their group would read together as part of a book club.  Although I had explained this the first day, the students seemed stunned.

A lot of hands went up:

• "Which books should we get?"
• "Who is going to decide?"
• "What is your favorite book?"
• "What kind of book is best?"
• "How will we agree?"
• "Any book?

My answer to all of their questions was simple:  "You choose.  It's up to you."
I offered no suggestions, no helpful hints, no direction on how to come to a group consensus.

After that, the students got down to the serious and happy business of looking at all the books and discussing among themselves which ones they wanted to read.

And their final questions:

"When will OUR books be in?  When do we get to start reading?"

Lesson Learned:  Choice makes all the difference.