basic overview of literary circles

7/27/2019 Basic Overview of Literary Circles

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1

Literature Circles

Overview

When you implement literature circles in your classroom, you engage

students in 21st century skills as you improve reading performance.

Susan S. Lehr

Table of Contents

Introduction ...................................................1

Successful Literature Circles ............................2

The Teachers Role ....................................2

Planning Time and Instruction ...................3

Guiding Choice Through Book Talks .........3

Roles in Literature Circles ...............................4

Discussion Leader Role ..............................4

Predictor and Questioner Roles ..................4Skill Master Roles ......................................4

Literary Roles ............................................5

Facilitating Literature Circles ...........................6

Tools for Literature Circles .........................6

Forming Literature Circle Groups ............... 7

The Literature Circles Routine ........................ 8

A literature circle is a student-led group

that meets to have engaged discussions

about a selection that members know

intimately. Group members collaborate in

a dynamic process that involves reading,

recording responses in a journal, predicting,

and questioning. As a component of a

comprehensive balanced literacy approach,

literature circles provide research-based

instruction for vocabulary and skill

development. The structured process of

literature circles results in students taking

ownership of the text and improving their

reading comprehension. The teacher sets

the groups academic goals and models

instruction. Over time, students become

skillful at performing specific roles duringliterature circle meetings. As they discuss,

students support one another in achieving

their learning goals.



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Successful Literature Circles

The Teachers Role

Choice Students in literature circles often resembleenthusiastic members of a book club they chose to join.Guide your students to make suitable reading choicesbased on their interests, their background knowledge,age-appropriate content, and your classroom goals.While choice is a critical factor for motivating andengaging students in the reading process, teachersguide choices based on their instructional decisions forskills and strategies. Teachers also plan how to placestudents into groups and direct students to appropriatelevels of texts.

Benchmarking Consider when to select leveled textfor book talks, how to place students into discussiongroups, how to match readers with leveled text, andwhich timelines to establish. Reading AZ offersrunning records and reading comprehension quizzesfor assessing the independent and instructional levels ofyour students.

Modeling and Support The goal of thisinstruction is to empower students to guide their ownlearning as they are assigned to literature circles andgiven independent work. Introduce the process ofliterature circles during whole class instruction. Thenmodel the behaviors needed for each role that studentswill take on. Conduct guided practice while monitoringand providing feedback.

Engagement and Process Excellent bookdiscussions are characterized by students workingindividually and with the group. Independently,students read, reflect, and prepare for groupinteraction. In the group, they engage in meaningfulconversations, maintain a focus on the text, and gaindeepened comprehension of their reading. To achievethis high level of engagement and quality outcomes,teachers act as facilitators who guide students througha structured process, discussed further in FacilitatingLiterature Circles.

Build these key characteristics into your literature circles instruction.

When teachers use Reading AZ Literature Circles forinstruction, their role is that of a facilitator and their goal isto release learning to students. To introduce the process,choose the Model Lesson for either fiction or nonfictionand follow the instructional plan. In both, you distributethe Literature Circles Role Descriptions. Each has astudent-friendly explanation of the skills and strategies fora role and the accompanying Journal. Model how to usethe Journal to record information for the role and allowstudents to practice. When the process is still unfamilar,it is best to support students and monitor their workfor accuracy and completion. After the initial roles andstrategies instruction, plan a literature circle meeting ofabout 15 minutes. Specify the number of meetings groupswill have for the selection they chose, and have them worktogether to divide the whole selection into assignments forthe planned number of meetings. Have students use theReading Assignment and Role Planner as a tool.

Remind students that while all members have questioningand predicting roles for each meeting, they take turns forother roles. Then guide students as they discuss whichroles will be needed for the selection and which specificroles they will choose for the first meeting. To gainproficiency in skills and strategies, students do not repeatroles during the literature circle meetings for a selection,but choose different ones.

Now, students read their chosen selection, which maybe a story, article, play, or other text. Then they predict

and question as they read. They use their Reading AZLiterature Circles Journals to record their responses to theselection in their individual roles. During the discussion,the teacher circulates and coaches groups as they establisha collaborative relationship. To assess groups andindividual students, use the Observation Checklist and planfurther instruction based on the results. As needed, reteachand guide practice until you observe that students performthe roles skillfully during literature circle discussions.



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Guiding Choice Through Book Talks

Planning Time and Instruction

When observers look in on successful literature circles,they see empowered students who freely and authenticallyexchange ideas. These high-quality interactions arethe result of a specific process that teachers facilitate.

One step in the process is planning the time span for aliterature circles unit, usually two to three days in primarygrades and three to five days in intermediate grades. Therecommended length of each group meeting is 2535minutes. Teachers often schedule up to five rounds ofReading AZ Literature Circles per year. Providingliterature is another part of the planning. Allow groupsto make their choices from selections at independent orinstructional reading levels.

Another planning step is identifying the skills andstrategies for instruction based on curriculum maps,

district expectations, and instructional standards. Teachersexamine the fiction or nonfiction selections that studentshave chosen and discover rich opportunities for teachingreading skills and strategies. With these learning goalsin mind, teachers plan lessons to guide students as they

learn and apply those skills and strategies. Whole groupinstruction for the roles students will choose, along withmodeling and guided practice, is an essential part of theprocess. During guided practice, students record notes in

their Journals and then refer to them when they act in theirspecific roles during the group discussion. Through theprocess, students come to understand that their groupssuccess in literature circles depends on how they asindividuals perform in a role.

If your class schedule allows more time, let students planlonger assignments. Students may be grouped by theirinterest in a particular topic. All students will benefit ifyou instruct using the Model Lessons for Fiction andNonfiction, and the accompanying Role Descriptions,

Journals, and Bookmarks. For fiction, the Model Lesson

selection isMarcus Loses Patches (Level M); for nonfiction,the selection isBarack Obama (Level S). Have studentsreflect how using these tools will make their discussionsmore successful.

Literature circles are collaborative and student-centered.A group of students negotiates to choose literature they

will read and discuss together. The teacher guides thechoice by gathering information about students throughtechniques such as interest surveys. After students choosea genre or topic, the teacher selects from five to seventitles and presents them in book talks, which are one- totwo-minute commercials for each selection. To allow timeto place students into groups and prepare materials fordistribution, present book talks at least two days before thefirst groups meet.

To prepare for book talks:

Display a list of the selection titles in the classroom or

post the list electronically.

Have copies of the selections available for students tobrowse prior to choosing what they will read.

Have students record their rst, second, and third bookchoices on a sheet of paper.

Use students choices to guide decisions for placingstudents into groups. More than one group of studentsmay be reading the same selection.



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Skill Master Roles

These roles emphasize reading strategies and skills or all selections.

Discussion Leader RoleOne student acts in this role each time the group meets.

Roles in Literature Circles

Predictor and Questioner RolesAll group members will act in these roles or all types o text.

Skill Master: Main Idea and Details Duringreading, this Skill Master identifies the main idea andthen finds key phrases and important facts to support it.Then the student shares the information with membersof the group and invites them to add their ideas.

Skill Master: Compare and Contrast This SkillMaster pays attention to the similarities and differencesbetween two or more key topics, ideas, or characters inthe chosen selection. During the discussion, he or shehelps group members connect and compare ideas.

Skill Master: Cause and Effect This Skill Masteranalyzes the causes and effects of facts, concepts,and events. By sharing these connections during theliterature circle discussion, this student leadsgroup members to better understand story plotsand factual events.

Skill Master: Sequence of Events This SkillMaster points out important events in the order theyhappen so that everyone understands the selectionbetter. In this role, the student also discusses when twoevents happen at the same time or when the authornarrates events out of order, as in a flashback.

The Discussion Leader plays a key role. This studentmonitors the overall process that keeps the discussionmoving. During the meeting, the Discussion Leader calls

on students in their specific roles and gives them theopportunity to share their ideas. Most importantly, thisstudent makes sure everyone has a chance to participate.

Predictor In literature circles, students ownknowledge counts. Each student comes with priorexperiences with text and topics and uses them to makepredictions. Before reading, students make predictionsby using the title, outside cover, and familiarity withthe author. They also skim through the text. Duringreading, they will need to adjust their predictions whenthey encounter new information.

Questioner Another dynamic engagement with textis questioning. Some questions have answers right inthe text. Other questions stimulate deeper discussionbecause students have to draw conclusions or inferbased on clues. Before and during reading, all studentsgenerate questions and share them during literaturecircle discussions.



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Literary RolesIndividual group members choose these roles or both

fction and nonfction selections.

Summarizer This role requires a student towrite the most important ideas in the selection. Asmembers discuss the summary, they deepen theircomprehension. The Summarizer uses techniquessuch as dividing the text into smaller portions andcombining ideas.

Travel Tracker The Travel Tracker identifies thesetting, or where and when the action or events takeplace. In this role, a student must keep track of changesin the setting. The student also points out reasons thateach setting is important. For example, a setting maycause the characters to take action or the setting itselfmay cause unexpected events.

Conflict Connector In this role, a student focuseson how the author uses conflict to dramatize the centralproblem in the selection and how it engages the reader.The Conflict Connector recognizes that conflict is botha familiar part of everyday experience and a key elementof an interesting story. By identifying the conflict,students deepen their understanding of the selection.

Character/People Tracker This student focuseson how a character in fiction or a figure in nonfictionchanges and develops over time. The Character/People

Tracker helps others analyze the traits, feelings, andreactions that a character or person exhibits duringthe plot or in factual events. In this role, a student alsoleads members to use what they know about charactersto draw conclusions about the theme.

Wordsmith In this role, a student helps membersappreciate how words make a text come alive. Duringthe discussion, the Wordsmith prompts members toexplore multiple meanings of words, construct wordwebs or concept maps, make connections with otherwords and texts, spot vivid verbs, and discuss why the

author chose certain words.

Connector The Connector records text-to-text,text-to-self, or text-to-world connections that cometo mind during reading and shares them in the groupdiscussion. The Connector also encourages othermembers to make their own connections.

Illustrator The job of the Illustrator is to create andpresent an illustration that the group members interpretand discuss. The Illustrator prepares by selecting animportant paragraph, scene, or other text to illustrate,such as an exciting action or the main idea withsupporting details. After showing the illustration tothe group and hearing the other members comments,the Illustrator explains how the illustration connects

to the selection.

Researcher This student discovers additionalinformation about the topic, idea, people, places,or things in the text. As the Researcher shares thefindings, all students build background knowledgeand contribute new ideas sparked by the research. TheResearchers contribution helps members realize thatdifferent authors may write about the same topic fromdifferent perspectives and for different purposes.

Literary Reactor The Literary Reactor pays

attention to the feelings he or she has while reading afiction selection and to his or her opinions about whatan author states in nonfiction selections. After thestudent shares his or her own reactions with the group,other members discuss theirs.

Theme Tracker This students job is to ask, Whatis the big idea of the whole story? During reading, theTheme Tracker thinks about the characters, action, andconflict. At the group meeting, this student states thelesson or big idea he or she discovered and discusses itwith group members.



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Tools for Literature Circles

Facilitating Literature Circles

Student Tools In addition to the selection they arereading, students rely on other tools before, during,and after literature circle meetings. As an initial stepin the process, each student assembles a Reading AZLiterature Circles Journal. This booklet includes theReading Assignment and Role Planner, a referencefor tracking meeting times, reading assignments,and roles. The Journal also has pages for recordingresponses for specific roles. As students read, they

refer to the Bookmarks for their roles. This tool hasquick reminders of what they should look for as theyread and places for jotting page numbers of examplesthey can write about in their Journals. Students bringtheir Journals to each meeting and use them during thediscussion and when preparing for the next meeting.

Model Lessons A literature circle functions asa collaborative group in which members performspecific roles as they read and discuss both fictionand nonfiction selections. As students take on these

jobs, they become more engaged in their reading anddeepen their comprehension of the selection. Introduceroles and discuss them during whole class instruction.Two Model Lessons are provided to help you teachand model the roles, and they are accompanied by a

wide variety of student models. The Model Lesson forFiction is based on the selectionMarcus Loses Patches(Level M), and the Model Lesson for Nonfiction isbased onBarack Obama (Level S).

Fiction Lesson Nonction Lesson

JournalBookmarksRole Description

Student Tools

Model Lessons



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Forming Literature Circle Groups

More Tools for Literature Circles

A literature circle discussion group has three or four

members, a size that allows opportunities for individualparticipation and practice functioning in different roles.Teachers honor students choices by grouping studentsaccording to their preferences from the book talks.Teachers judgment also comes into play as they considerstudents unique personalities, interests, and ability tofunction well in groups.

Plan ahead to provide groups with these materials:

a copy of the selection for each student

Role Description and Journal for each student for the

roles needed for the current round of literature circles Bookmarks for the chosen roles

Reading Assignment and Role Planner for each student

Participation in literature circles leads students to gain adeeper meaning from a selection. This dynamic processbegins before reading as members make predictions, askquestions, and set a purpose for reading. During reading,individuals read for enjoyment and understanding, and

with the specific purpose of preparing for a role. At this

time, students are using the Bookmarks and Journals torecord page numbers, questions, and responses. Afterreading, they participate in group discussions and taketurns acting in their roles by sharing questions, ideas,or connections from their Journals. Together, the groupnegotiates which roles members take on and the readingassignments for each meeting.

Assessment Assessment for Reading AZLiterature Circles is also student-led. Studentsuse the Self-Evaluations for assessing their own

participation in group discussions. Prepare them byusing the suggestions and activities in FacilitatingSelf-Evaluations. During group discussions, use theObservation Checklist to assess group participationand reading comprehension. Then plan reteachingand coaching based on the results.

Groups can continue to make meaning from literaturecircle selections by developing a concluding project,report, or presentation and sharing it with the class.

Plan the activity so that it is an opportunity forstudents to apply critical thinking skills and gaindeeper comprehension. Encourage them to revise theirinterpretations as they make new discoveries about theselection. The project can also be used for assessment.

Observation Checklist Student Self-EvaluationFacilitating Self-Evaluations

Journal Booklet Cover with ReadingAssignment and Role Planner



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The Literature Circles Routine

Reading AZ Literature Circles provide teachers and students with everything they need for

lively, engaged participation in literature circle meetings. In successful discussions, teachers

guide students to follow the general process below. However, routines and processes vary in

different classrooms. As your students gain experience, the process will become a seamless

routine. Use this quick guide as you facilitate your literature circles.

4

Summarize The Discussion Leader asks the

Summarizer to provide a brief summary of theselection read. Other group members add theirown ideas about what was most important in theselection. All members use their Journals and theselection as key tools. (3 to 5 minutes)

3

Listen and Respond Students continue toactively discuss the ideas they hear from groupmembers in their roles. They add ideas from their

Journals and respond to others with their owninsights. When they talk about their ideas, theyuse evidence from the selection as support. As thediscussion winds down, the Discussion Leaderasks if students have any unanswered questions todiscuss. (7 to 10 minutes)

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Wrap It Up At the end of the discussion, theDiscussion Leader asks everyone to check theirReading Assignment and Role Planner for the

next meeting. Then, he or she asks members tomake new predictions about the selection theyare about to read. Finally, the Discussion Leaderasks members to choose another role for the nextmeeting. Members select Journals and Bookmarksfor their new roles. (3 to 5 minutes)

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Prepare Now students prepare individually for

the next meeting by reading the selection. Theyuse the Bookmark to review what their job is and to

jot key words and page numbers. They refer to theBookmarks as they write in their Journals.

1

Predict and Question The Discussion

Leader invites all group members to discusspredictions made in the last meeting and to sharequestions. The Discussion Leader also makes surestudents talk about the authors purpose for writingthe selection and the main message the authorwants readers to know. (3 to 5 minutes)

2

Perform the Roles Each group memberacts in his or her role, referring to the Journal.

The other members are active, responding andfinding examples or evidence in the selection.Group members discuss the information and makeconnections. (1 to 3 minutes per role)

basic overview of literary circles

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