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Create Meaningful Learning with Literature Circles
The best part of my day is most definitely Literature Circles! I love teaching reading and my class this year is full of very, very avid readers. These kids will read in complete silence for however long I allow them! One day I lost track of time while I was joining them in silent reading, and we all ended up in our books for almost 45 minutes! Whenever I need to replace something in the afternoon with say, a catch-up lesson or activity, I will ask what I should NOT eliminate and they will always beg me to keep silent reading in the schedule. Along with that, they love to talk about their books, and wait anxiously as a friend finishes a borrowed book so they can talk about what happened!
My goal was to make this authentic conversation that the kids have about their independently chosen books carry over into Literature Circles, where they are assigned a novel to read. In order to do that, I decided I would have groups of 4 and each group member would have a "job" that needed to be completed after reading and during Literature Circles. These jobs help ensure that students are taking responsibility for their reading and group conversations!
I have another terrific guest post from Julia for you. Julia's blog is In 5th Grade with Teacher Julia.
My goal was to make this authentic conversation that the kids have about their independently chosen books carry over into Literature Circles, where they are assigned a novel to read. In order to do that, I decided I would have groups of 4 and each group member would have a "job" that needed to be completed after reading and during Literature Circles. These jobs help ensure that students are taking responsibility for their reading and group conversations!
These are the jobs I came up with:
Discussion Director: This student is the Leader of the group. He/she will keep track of the groups participation and is also responsible in making sure that everyone shares. This person will record the start time and end time of Literature Circle as well as provide discussion questions for the group.
Practical Predictor: This student makes predictions either based on events happening in the story or character motives. Since the jobs are to be held for a remainder of time (not just one night), the Practical Predictor must revisit old predictions each day so the group can either confirm or revise the predictions from before.
Language Lover: This person determines the hardest words, words that shine, and notable parts in the story. I tell the students that even if you know the meaning of the word, if you think it is hard and maybe someone in your group doesn't know it, record the word so that everyone can discuss it. It is this student's job to make sure the entire group understands all of the challenging words AND recognizes the important parts of the section.
Visualizer: This student sketches out what he/she visualizes while reading. This person also describes the parts visualized with words. When meeting with the group, the visualizer must check with the rest of the group to see if everyone else "saw the same movie" in their mind.
Students are assigned these jobs for more than one night. I planned it out as 3-4 nights in a row. That way, they can become experts at the job. Since jobs don't change each day, students can start to feel like they "own" it more and put forth better effort while working. When we switch jobs, it is in a rotation, so each student knows which job is coming next.
Literature Circle Successes!
The Discussion Director is key in making this work. I saw a huge amount of responsibility and seriousness being taken on. These students made sure their group members were involved and followed the routine that were set in place. When students have a responsibility to keep everyone on track, they are seeing that responsibility through.
Push each other to do better work: When I was observing a group wrap things up, I heard a student say to someone else, "Make sure you write more predictions for tomorrow because we need more to talk about when you share." and another student in that group said, "Yeah, yeah! Because predictions are like the funnest thing to talk about!" I don't think my student wants to let down her friends and will come in with more to share tomorrow!
Students can really delve into their job because it lasts more than one day, and I believe this adds to the success of conversation. They have only one thing they are responsible for when reading AND they get to practice it a few times before they move onto their next job.
How do you teach Literature Circles? Is there something you do to ensure student accountability and meaningful learning?
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