Empowering Young Minds Through Literature Circles
Posted: June 28, 2024 | Author: Jacqui Stanley
I am so fortunate to work in a school that gives me the freedom to enrich our students’ lives with wonderful literature. I introduced literature circles to fourth and fifth grade students and it has been incredibly rewarding – for them and for their families and for me! Ten years later, I am dazzled by what the students are able to do with some guidance and structure.
Students have one of six literature roles for each novel that we study. The roles are aligned with Blooms Taxonomy which is a classification of different outcomes and skills. Students read sections of the same novel each night and prepare to discuss the next day and share their different roles. The same section of each book is reviewed from six viewpoints. In addition, students summarize each nightly reading.
The roles are: Word Wizard which requires definitions of new vocabulary as well as synonyms. Questioners ask “thinking” questions for their classmates and discuss their responses. Connectors make connections between the text and their experiences or books they may have read. Predictors use clues in the text or their own background knowledge to predict and infer what will come. Travel Tracers discuss why the author chose a particular setting for an action and whether the events in the story would have been as impactful if they occurred in a different setting. Literary Luminaries find passages
they like and discuss what words or figurative language the author uses to create mood, atmosphere, or a state of mind or to pace the story. They analyze the craft of writing.
As well as text analysis, literature circles provide a great opportunity to make grammar relevant and real. Instead of learning about adverbs in isolation, rereading a passage without adverbs illustrates their purpose and what they bring to a text.
We are very fortunate at Yorkshire Academy to have an impressive library of literature which includes fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, myths, and epic poems. Each text is carefully chosen to give the students opportunities to evaluate and create new outcomes in a safe, non-judgmental, environment. They learn to be confident in their what they say, and they learn to agree and disagree appropriately.
It is always a gratifying experience when formerly reluctant students learn social skills and start expressing their opinions in a respectful manner with their classmates to the point where they run the literature circle.
“If reading is about mind journeys, teaching reading is outfitting the travelers, modeling how to use the map, and supporting the travelers if they lose their way, until ultimately it’s the child and the map together and they are off on their own.” Ellin Keene and Susan Zimmerman Mosaic of Thought (1997).