The Problem
I first ventured into using literature circles while researching the best ways to help adolescent boys perform at the same levels as their female peers. This research, done through my MetLife Fellowship at the Teachers Network Leadership Institute, pointed me in the direction of allowing students more choice in their reading and writing activities. This helps boys and girls become more engaged in class, as well as utilize their interests and strengths. Literature circles are one very important way to help students select reading materials that conform more to their personal interests, while allowing us as teachers to be more directive than we can during independent reading, or Silent Sustained Reading.
My Expectations
One of my main goals was to increase student engagement in the learning process. I hoped that allowing students to choose from a selection of texts, they would have more buy-in into the class activities. Whenever I worked with one common text with the whole class for an extended period of time (such as reading a class novel), I was challenged to keep all the students engaged for the entirety of the unit. I would typically have less than half the class engaged
I also hoped to help students work better in groups – a skill they were certainly lacking. Our school, and the city for that matter, is incorporating cooperative learning into all the classrooms, but we are not necessarily teaching students how to work in groups. To the students, working in groups has meant sitting together while they individually complete the ask, while I wanted them to be really discussing the task, negotiating a common response, and completing the task together, not just while they were sitting together. I wanted to use the structure of the Literature Circles and commonly associated roles to help them work better in groups.
Finally during the 9th grade year, students are grouped in mixed ability classes. In every class, there are a few students who read extremely below grade level, a few who read above grade level, and many who read at or just below grade level. Another major goals was to differentiate the reading material so that each group had accessible texts in order to work on the necessary thinking and analysis skills.
How it Works
I was initially concerned about how I could incorporate whole-class mini-lessons and NYC standards into a curriculum where the students were reading different books. How could we have a class discussion? How could I continue to teach character analysis when there were six or seven different books, each with different main characters? How could I overcome not having enough books for students to take home and read?
I see each of my 9th grade classes every day of the week – 3 times a week for 45 minutes and 2 times for 90 minute blocks. My first goal in planning was to schedule in-class reading time. For each 90 minute block, students were scheduled to read for the first 30 minutes and respond in writing for 15; in addition, they would read and respond for one of the single period classes. I also decided that the groups would meet and complete activities about their book each Friday.
But, the biggest challenge was in continuing the necessary work of character analysis, which I would need to teach in mini-lessons using common texts. I decided that these mini-lessons would occur on Wednesdays using a short one-day text. Then, during their Friday meetings, they would apply the Wednesday mini-lesson to their books.
For instance, I wanted to discuss character goals and motivations, as well as the obstacles they face in reaching those goals. During the Wednesday lesson, we read a short chapter from a memoir and completed Somebody Wanted But So’s as described in Kylene Beers’ When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do (2003). This was a structure which we had used before and asks student to create sentences like, Steve (Somebody) wanted to be acquitted of the crime (Wanted), but no one believed him (But) so he began to write in his journal. I then used their SWBS statements in a mini-lesson to identify goals, obstacles, and the character’s reactions. During their Friday Literature Circle meeting that week, the groups received a chart that had the following columns:
A. What does the character want?
B. Why does he/she want this?
C. What stands in his/her way of getting this?
D. What is the character’s reaction or prediction reaction to the obstacle?
E. What is your opinion of the effectiveness of this reaction?
In this way, students were doing a task similar to a SWBS, but it appeared more advanced to them and also asked them to evaluate what the character did. It became my goal for each Friday Literature Circle meeting to make the work just slightly more challenging than what we had done together on Wednesday.
In helping students working better in groups, I used roles created by Dr. Spencer Kagan in The Pop-Up Social Role Card Kit (2004). I knew that throwing too many roles at my students at once would be unsuccessful, so I started small and used Recorder (the person who writes down the group’s work) and Taskmaster (the person who makes sure the group stays on task and on topic). Kagan’s books has tent cards with each role on one side and suggested comments for the role on the other. When students were working with their roles, I circulated and commented specifically on how each group was using the roles. If the group was doing real group work, they would receive small smiley face stickers added to their folders.
Results
Student engagement in their books was remarkable. During each reading period, students were engaged in reading their books; their engagement and comprehension were evident in their contributions to the Friday Literature Circle meetings. With students who have such a variety of interests and tastes, Literature Circles helped me match the best book with each student – both in terms of reading tastes and abilities. Students were able to read at their own pace, rather than at the pace I had set. I had no complaints from students about their book, which was not the case when we did whole class novels.
The thinking and analysis skills the students developed during the Wednesday whole class mini-lessons and the Friday Literature Circle meetings were also significant. Because in planning my curriculum I was forced to think about the sequence of activities and how they taught the skill, the students learned the skill rather than “the novel”. There was much less danger of my interpretation of the books leaking into their interpretations, because during the majority of their work individually and together, I was not with them. They were able to help each other and work together towards interpretations – most of the time being forced to do so without relying on the teacher’s interpretation. Students were also able to focus specifically on the thinking skills I was asking of them because the books they were reading were at the right level for them – something that could not have been done with a whole class novel. With a whole class novel, the book may have been too difficult for them to even have understood the basics of the story, not to mention doing critical analysis of the character.
Working in groups using roles helped students discuss, negotiate, and complete their activities as a true group rather than students sitting in close proximity to one another. Students also completed weekly reflections for homework about their group work – how they benefited the group and how one other person in the group contributed to the success. I noticed during other group work when I did not give our the role name cards, that student were still using the roles, declaring “I’m the Taskmaster!” I even observed offering to be the recorder when the other recorder got tired, or getting the group back on task even when they weren’t the Taskmaster.
Conclusions
Literature circles helped me reach my goals of differentiating texts, helping students learn group work skills, and most importantly, increasing student engagement in my classroom. It is important for English Language Arts educators to hand over the choice of texts and the thinking about the texts over to the students. Students are often unengaged in our classrooms, because they do not know their place in the teaching and learning going on. Literature Circles help students take real control over their learning and it focuses them on learning skills which make them feel more successful in English and other classes.
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