In my previous blog post, I tried to explain the reasons for my deep love of Literature Circles. Now, I will turn to the more practical subject of setting up your students and classroom for success with this wonderful routine. Literature Circles are flexible and can be designed to accommodate a variety of students and reading materials; in this post, I will focus on my own particular situation, but there are many potential modifications and variations that can be made. Another post will soon follow to address other elements of my classroom set up.
I currently use Literature Circles with my “Paw” group, students who come to me during a reading intervention rotation. I work with on and above-level fifth graders during this period, so I have designed my current version of Lit Circles to involve the students in the reading of self-selected (to a point) novels and performing jobs based on challenging reading strategies and skills using Thinking Maps. In addition, a high level of responsibility is gradually placed upon the students for the successful completion and execution of these jobs. The rest of this post will explain how I choose books to offer the students and how they go about selecting the ones they prefer to read. I will also address how individual students create reading and job schedules that help them keep pace with their group mates.
The Books and Book Selection
It is a truism that kids who love reading will read often and that kids who read often will generally develop strong reading skills. If we accept this logic, then shouldn’t fostering a love of reading be right at the top of our to-do list as teachers? As far as I’m concerned, this is the primary purpose of Literature Circles.
Many years ago, I began building a collection of sets of high-quality and high-interest books in a variety of genres. I gave myself (intrinsic) bonus points if the books were part of a series and/or written by authors who had also written several other great books. My rationale was that, if there were sequels or other appealing books by the same author, I could either offer them up as future Lit Circles books or suggest that the kids check them out from the library. In the case of sequels, I made it a rule that only kids who had read the preceding book could read a sequel, and if even a single student did not want to read the sequel, the rest of the kids in the group would have to wait until more kids had read the previous book. As I already mentioned, I want Literature Circles to foster a love of reading; forcing a student to read a book they’re not interested in would obviously have the opposite effect.
Once I had put together a decent set of books, I put them to the kid test. Unfortunately, I was sometimes forced to discard certain books because they consistently got bad reviews from my students. This still happens from time to time as I gradually add new books to the mix. Again, if helping develop a lifelong love of reading is my goal, I can’t foist books on my students that I’m fairly sure they won’t enjoy. I will usually give a book a couple of chances before banishing it to my cabinets.
Ideally, every Literature Circle group should have four students in it, so I start by dividing the total number of students in my class by four to determine the number of books I need for a three-week cycle. If the number of students isn’t a multiple of four, I will create one or two groups with three students and eliminate one of the jobs for those groups. I try to include books from a variety of genres to make sure there is something for everyone.
Once I have selected a nice smattering of books to offer the students, I usually give them a brief description of each book; I also post a Google Books link for each book on Google Classroom (see below), which allows students to read descriptions of the books, see reviews, and check things like lexile levels and page numbers.
After students have had a chance to peruse the books on offer, they fill out a Google sheet like the one below by selecting the three books they would most like to read. They are asked to rank the books (1-3) using dropdowns.
I then convert the data collected on the Google Form to a Google Sheet (This is an option on all Google Forms; just click the Google Sheets icon in the “Responses” section). I then pick through the data to create groups. My goal is to make sure each student gets one of their three choices. Here is what a Sheet looks like after I have sorted everything:
Schedules
One of the most challenging aspects of Literature Circles for both teachers and students is time management—schedules are a must. After the students have been told which books they will be reading and who their group mates will be, they quickly get together to decide who will do each job for the first Literature Circles meeting of the cycle. As I explained in a previous post, the four jobs are as follows:
Summary Specialist (Exactly what it sounds like)
Discussion Leader (Students write questions based on the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy)
Thinking Map Strategy (One of the four reading strategies not addressed by the first two jobs)
Thinking Map Skill (A map designed for the analysis of a literary element or device)
Once students know what job they will do for the first meeting, they can simply follow the above continuum to determine the rest.
After meeting with their groups, students return to their seats to fill out premade (by me) schedules on Google Drawings. I make a schedule like the one below for each Literature Circle book. I include the title, a picture of the book, and the page numbers that students should read each day in order to keep pace with their group. Students are responsible for locating the schedule for their book in a folder I have shared with them in Google Classroom and making a copy of the schedule for themselves. They do this within a Google Classroom assignment, so they can submit it to me when they are done. This serves two purposes. First, it allows me to easily track who has completed their schedule and whether they have done it correctly. I can also print paper copies of the schedules for the kids to keep in their folders.
Before submitting their schedules, students put their names on them and fill out their jobs for each night of the week and the date ranges during which the Lit Circle cycle will take place.
My next post will address other logistical aspects of Literature Circles, including the organization of job sheets and student work and the structure and protocols of the meetings themselves.
Writing Every Day,
Eric Lovein
