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Re: Chele--Lit. Circles--talk to me...
Posted by Wanda on 7/21/08

Thanks for the helpful information. I am a 5th. grade teacher
in Texas and my school wants me to introduce Literature Circles
this year. I am reading a book by Debbie Diller, Practice with
Purpose. But it is so great to find teachers who actually do
these literature circles. I may have more questions later. Can
I e-mail you for help? Thanks to all you gave me new insight to
this new reading strategy.

On 7/15/08, Chele/5/SoCal wrote:
> Sorry, in advance... this got VERY long. But it's very
> detailed and that's good, right? :-D
>
> I've had to modify how I LIKE to do Lit. Circles based on my
> students' needs, but when I taught some more mature students
> (hopefully your 8th graders are more mature than my 5th
> graders ;-)), this is what we did:
>
> 1) I chose a genre and then several books within that genre. I
> put one copy of each book out on a table along with index
> cards. I had each student write their top 3 choices on the
> index card (and their name :D). I took the cards and
> *attempted* to give each student his/her first choice. I
> reserved the right, however, to separate folks that wouldn't
> work well together or to veto a book choice based on reading
> level (either too easy or too hard). Ultimately, I made 6 or
> so groups with 5 or so people in each group. Over the years I
> have collected hundreds of titles with 8 books in each set, so
> my groups can be that big if necessary; however, I would split
> a group of 8 into two groups of 4 if I had that many kids pick
> the same book.
>
> 2) Groups met briefly to decide on how many chapters they
> would read each week. Meetings were to be held on Thursdays
> over a month's time, so they had to take the number of pages
> or chapters and divide it by 4; rounding up or down when
> necessary. I advised them to be "heavy" the first week, if
> necessary, since they'd be excited about their new book and
> more willing to read more. I wrote down each group's "plan"
> and kept it posted somewhere safe so that if they "forgot" how
> many pages/chapters they were supposed to read, it was easy to
> find out.
>
> 3) Reading was done independently. Kids could read during
> class time or at home. They could buddy read if they wanted
> to. Maybe you can fit in a 20-30 minute silent reading time
> once a week (Tuesdays with meetings on Thursdays?).
>
> 4) Students also wrote a half-page response in their Lit.
> Logs. I made Logs by folding paper "hot dog"/tall style (just
> to be different) so their half-page was tall and narrow. They
> were instructed to write "edge to edge" (ignoring margins) and
> "top to bottom". Inside the back cover, I gave them sentence
> starters such as "I like the way the author..." or "This
> character reminds me of...". The focus was on telling me what
> they were thinking about the story, not summarizing. It is
> easy to tell who is doing their reading from their responses.
> ;-) It also seems that the students like sharing their
> thoughts and feelings more than writing a summary.
>
> 5) On meeting day, groups gathered and each member read
> his/her response aloud. This usually created many discussions
> on its own. Then, I posted an open-ended question on the board
> - one that could apply to any book - based on a skill or
> strategy we were working on. For example, if we were working
> on characterization, the question might be "If your main
> character was an animal, what would s/he be... and why?" Each
> member is required to respond, and then the group votes to
> determine who had the best answer. I told them they could have
> a 2-way tie, but beyond that, they had to figure out a way to
> break the tie. The winner(s) received 4 raffle tickets (2/2
> split for a tie) toward Friday rewards. The competitive nature
> of this kept everyone engaged. Concerning your "staying on
> topic" worry, there was a time limit, and if I didn't have a
> team's winner in my hand at X time, that group was
> disqualified from the sharing and tickets.
>
> I walked around and sat in on some of the meetings...
> randomly... but I tried to hit at least half of the groups one
> week and the others the next.
>
> 5) Each group would stay in their meeting spot and we'd have a
> share-out. Each "winner" would share a bit about their book
> and then his/her answer.
>
> 6) I collected each student's Lit. Log and gave quick check,
> check-plus, check-minus effort marks, possibly a few comments,
> and returned the Logs the next day. The checks became a letter
> grade at the end of the month. I also had each student fill
> out an index card that "graded" his/her team. I asked the
> students to tell me if their team is struggling in any way (so
> I can help before next week's meeting) and/or how each
> individual team member was going to help to improve their team
> score for next week. They also shared celebrations about
> things their group was or individual members were doing well.
> They were usually brutally honest as these cards are
> confidential and just between the individual students and me.
>
> Sometimes we'd do a wrap up project, but I mostly just wanted
> the kids to enjoy READING and discussing their books with each
> other. I didn't want them bogged down in "Discussion Director"
> or "Vocabulary Vixen" (heehee) worksheets. At the end of each
> month, I also did round-robin group-on-group sessions so that
> the groups could share about their books with the other groups
> to encourage (or discourage) others to/from reading their
book.
>
> Altogether, these meetings were about 20 minutes (once we'd
> done them a while and got it down) once a week, which leaves
> you plenty of time to get to your other skills/concepts.
>
> As far as incompletes, it is an assignment just like anything
> else, and the same consequences apply.
>
> After reading this and remembering how fun it was, I am
> anxious to see if I can make it work with next year's group.
>
> HTH,
> Chele :)
>
> On 7/15/08, GA/8 wrote:
>> I've been teaching 8th grade language arts for 5 years,
>> and desperately want to implement literature circles in my
>> classroom. I have tried to implement them several times
>> in the past 5 years, but something always seems to get in
>> the way (i.e. lack of time, lack of resources, lack of
>> proper 'teaching' of how to do literature circles, etc.).
>> I am DETERMINED this will be the year that literature
>> circles come to life in my room.
>>
>> That said, here are my issues:
>> 1. I teach 60 minute classes (4 per day) of Language
>> Arts, so am required to teach reading, writing, and
>> grammar curriculum. Time is an issue, particularly during
>> the 1st semester when our curriculum is VERY focused on
>> expository and persuasive writing. Where do you find the
>> time?
>>
>> 2. Every time that I have attempted to 'do' lit. circles,
>> students inevitably don't talk about their books. HOW do
>> you get it into their heads that this is the time to talk
>> about the book they chose, rather than the party on
>> Friday? I've tried the 'role' sheets, I've tried reading
>> logs...but they inevitably just don't talk about what they
>> are supposed to talk about.
>>
>> 3. What do you do about the students or groups that just
>> don't read the book?
>>
>> 4. Do you allow reading time in class or is reading for
>> lit. circles to be on the student's own time (again, class
>> time is an issue--I'm trying to figure out silent reading
>> time, but don't know if I can swing it daily).
>>
>> I do have decent collection of books that I can use (about
>> 15 different titles, with 10-20 copies per title
>> available). I know that choice is key, and the books that
>> I used last year for lit. circles, most of my students
>> said that they were good books that they enjoyed.
>>
>> ANY and ALL tidbits of advice would be GREATLY appreciated.


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Posts on this thread, including this one


• Lit. Circles--talk to me..., 7/15/08, by GA/8.
• Re: Lit. Circles--talk to me..., 7/15/08, by in the same boat.
• Re: Lit. Circles--talk to me..., 7/15/08, by Chele/5/SoCal.
• Re: Try these links...more inside, 7/19/08, by cam.
• Re: Try these links...more inside, 7/21/08, by JGS.
• Re: Abandon literary circles , 7/21/08, by L. Swilley .
• Re: Abandon literary circles , 7/21/08, by Confused.
• Re: Confused, 7/21/08, by Really? I thought Swilley was very clear + on target! nfm.
• Re: research points to the value of student based learning, 7/21/08, by cam.
• Re: research points to the value of student based learning, 7/21/08, by JGS.
• Re: Chele--Lit. Circles--talk to me..., 7/21/08, by Wanda.
• Re: Chele--Lit. Circles--talk to me... for Wanda, 7/21/08, by Chele/5/SoCal.
• Re: Implementing Lit. Circles, 7/24/08, by Laura.
• Re: Implementing Lit. Circles - Q for Laura, 7/24/08, by new teacher.
• Re: Implementing Lit. Circles - I'm not Laura, but... :D, 7/24/08, by Chele/5/SoCal.
• Re: Implementing Lit. Circles - Q for Laura, 7/25/08, by JGS.
• Re: Implementing Lit. Circles - Q for Laura, 7/25/08, by Laura.