Literature Circles

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Literature Circles
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Warm Up (Choose one, please)

• What is a problem youve encountered when doing
  group work in the past?
• Whats one aspect of group work that you enjoy?
• Discuss your worst group work experience. What
  was the assignment? Who was in your group? What
  was the problem? Why did things go wrong? What
  could you have done or do in the future to fix
  the problem?

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So what are Literature Circles anyway?

• Small, peer-led groups
• Meet and discuss on a regular schedule
• Discussion questions come from students
• Conversational meetings
• Rotating roles
• Evaluation is by students and teacher
• Can be a classwide book or chosen by group

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Discussion Director

• Writes out 5-6 interpretation questions for
  discussion. Leads the discussion among group
  members in an informative, engaging, and
  productive way!

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Literary Luminary

• Finds 5-6 quotations that are essential to the
  text, read them aloud to the group and use them
  as a springboard for discussion about character,
  plot, conflict, theme, detail, etc

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Wordsmith

• Find 5-6 words that are either unknown to you or
  essential to the storys essence. Share them
  with your group and discuss their importance.

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Question Secretary

• You are in charge of writing down your group
  questions and answers, and bulleting discussion
  points to be turned in for a grade!

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Types of Questions

• Factual one correct answer relies more on
  memory
• (Example What do Jem and Scout get for
  Christmas?)
• Interpretation more than one correct answer a
  matter of opinion explaining what the author
  means
• (Example Which character is the hero of
  the story?)
• Evaluation based on individual values or
  experiences different for every student
• (Example What would you have done in Scouts
  situation if you saw the mob approach the jail?)