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What is a Literature Circle?
Simply put a Literature Circle is when a group of students get together about 2 times a week to talk about a book. Yes you are finally being asked to talk as much as you want to in class!! But, and here comes the teacher part, there are certain topics you are asked to talk about, and certain jobs that you are asked to take responsibility for in your Literature Circle Groups. Once you choose a book at your level (use the 5 finger method ) and are put into your groups (5-6 students ) you will be given a certain amount of the book to read (e.g. 1 chapter for each meeting). For each meeting you will have ONE "JOB" to have complete and ready to share and discuss with your group. The "JOB" instruction sheets are shown below. These "JOB" sheets are also to be placed in your Language Duo-Tang for safe keeping. All jobs are to be done in a notebook labeled "Literature Circles". Here are your "JOBS" INSTRUCTION SHEET BASICALLY WHAT IS TO BE DONE EXAMPLE adopted from Geoff Rothwell Using the Narrative Paragraph style used in class write a paragraph (or two) about your assigned reading. Take a look at the example shown to help you see if you have the right idea. At your group meeting you will be asked to READ ALOUD your paragraph, so it's a good idea to practice before hand. Your group members will then give you a critique (a friendly evaluation) on what you wrote. Your group may want to talk about : What was the best part? What was the worst part? What was the scariest part? Was the chapter a good one? What do they think will happen next? adopted from Geoff Rothwell Here is where you get to talk! For this job you are in charge of helping your fellow students to talk about your latest reading of your book. You will do this by asking at least 4 really good questions...not yes and no answer questions but questions that get them talking and giving opinions or guesses or predicting...or even better... arguing! Click here to see some good question examples to help you plan. Good examples of good questions are given on the sample sheet. If you go with those you're sure to start some talking. As you can imagine the talking may get out of hand, so it's your responsibility to keep it respectful and under control. Make sure: -no one is rude to any one else -people take turns -people keep their voices down (the rest of the class will be working) -that EVERYONE talks. Be encouraging, and supportive of those that don't talk very much. Quiet people often have something very good to say. adopted from Geoff Rothwell This job is a READ ALOUD, where you pick 2 interesting parts to read to your group. When you're finished you can ask them what they thought about your quality of reading (they have to be nice) and you should explain WHY you chose the parts to read that you did. Were they important to the story? Were they good examples of something? Were they exciting or funny...you choose the reason. Here's some tips as to how to practice reading your parts of the book to your group. First pick at least half a page to read, but don't pick over a page it may be too long! Practice first, read your passages till you make no mistakes. Here's how to help with difficult words or parts of what you're reading: Reread the word. Skip difficult word(s) read ahead and "Come Back to It". Put in a work that makes sense. Sound it out. Break the word into syllables. Figure the work out from the words around it. Write down the word, stop think about it. (adopted from Routman pg. 161b) adopted from Geoff Rothwell The Vocabulary Enricher job is quite simple if you follow the DIRECTIONS! Finding at least 4 strange, new, wonderful words in your reading should be easy. Look at both examples to see what you need to do.... adopted from Geoff Rothwell Artful Artist is a fun job if you like to draw! Choose a scene in your mind from the reading you just did and illustrated it on a page, then explain WHY you chose it. See the examples....