Introduction to Literature Circles

1. Introduction to Literature Circles

2. 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

3. Literature Circles Jobs • Summarizer • Literary Luminary • Word Wizard • Discussion Director • Connector • Literary Device Detective

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

5. 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.

6. 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.

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

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

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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. PROCEDURES Before Meeting • Complete required reading • Complete role/job sheets • Complete written responses by due dates. • Complete grading rubric.

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

14. Reading Calendar • You will be given a calendar. • If you misplace this calendar, it is your responsibility to print a new one from our class webpage! • The calendar will include your daily reading assignments; meeting days; and writing response due dates. • 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.

15. 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.