Introduction to Literature Circles What are Literature Circles

Introduction to Literature Circles

What are Literature Circles? • “professional book clubs" • small discussion groups of students who are reading the same book • each member has a job, which changes each meeting

Literature Circles Jobs v v v Summarizer Literary Luminary Word Wizard Discussion Director Connector Literary Device Detective

Summarizer: • Remind group members of the characters, setting, and key events from a section of the story.

Literary Luminary • Create a reading plan for your group mates. • After you explain why you chose that plan, find out what your group mates think about the passages that were read. • Discuss.

Word Wizard • Have your group mates find your special vocabulary words. • Group mates are to predict the meanings BEFORE you give them the definitions. • Try to determine the part of speech.

Connector • Share your connections. • Have your group mates share their connections about the same events and characters. • Look for similarities and differences.

Discussion Director • Create questions for your group mates to discuss. • Challenge your group mates to elaborate and use contextual evidence.

Literary Device Detective • Find literary devices. • Ask your group mates to share literary devices they noticed.

SUMMARIES • Each individual student writes important events of assigned reading in his/her learner notebook. • Summaries can be written in paragraph format or bullet points. • Include any questions that you had about the reading on your summary page.

Written Responses • Each individual student is required to complete a weekly written response that is assigned by the teacher. • Your written response will be given each Monday and due each Friday.

PROCEDURES Before Meeting 1. Complete required reading 2. Complete role/job sheets 3. Complete written responses by due dates. 4. Complete grading rubric.

Assigning Roles 1. You will determine your new roles at the end of each meeting. 2. Remember, you cannot carry out the same role twice!

Reading Calendar 1) You will be given a calendar. 2) If you misplace this calendar, it is your responsibility to print a new one from our class webpage! 3) The calendar will include your daily reading assignments; meeting days; and writing response due dates. 4) Literature Circles will last for 3 weeks. At the end of the 3 weeks, you will complete a reading comprehension quiz on your novel. The quiz will be open book.

Let’s practice! • We are going to practice literature circles! • You will be assigned groups today and given an excerpt of a text to read individually. • You will begin independently reading today in class and finish reading tonight for homework. • You will be given roles to fulfill tomorrow in class.