Washington Literacy Resource Center

Junior Great Books in Belfair, Washington

Program brings the opportunity for enrichment and civil discourse

Savannah Elliott, who serves as both the district assessment coordinator and highly capable services coordinator for North Mason School District in Belfair, WA, has brought Junior Great Books^® across the country with her, having taught the program in Washington, DC, just a few years ago. She was instrumental in bringing the program to North Mason’s third, fourth, and fifth graders for WIN (What I Need) time beginning this school year. “I remembered this program, and I loved it,” Elliott says. “And I loved doing it with my kids. So I thought, ‘Yes, we need to bring that here.’ ”

“The biggest benefit for students is the flexibility in thinking Junior Great Books encourages,” Elliott continues. “Students understand that you can have different interpretations of the same text, and that’s okay—especially in the world that we currently live in! Our third, fourth, and fifth graders are not shielded from the political climate of our world, and they sometimes come to us with the idea that ‘this is right,’ and everything else is wrong. So getting them to see that one person thinks this, another thinks that, and a third thinks something else is important.

“Learning how to agree and disagree respectfully is really big for kids, as well as learning how to talk directly to another human being . . . because they are behind their screens all the time. In Junior Great Books, they look at the person they are talking to, and don’t try to shut down an idea that is different from their own.”