1. Making Literature
Circles Come Alive
Kelly Gardner
PARATESOL 2009

2. My Background

3. What are literature circles?
 Book Clubs
 Students meet in groups regularly
to talk about a book they have
read.

4. Literature Circles are...
 Reader response centered
 Part of a balanced literacy program
 Groups formed by book choice
 Structured for student independence,
responsibility, and ownership
 Guided primarily by student insights and
questions
 Intended as a context in which to apply
reading and writing skills
 Flexible and fluid; never look the same twice
 From Getting Started with Literature Circles
by Katherine L. Schlick Noe & Nancy J. Johnson
© 1999 Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

5. Literature Circles are not...
 Teacher and text centered
 The entire reading curriculum
 Teacher-assigned groups formed solely by
ability
 Unstructured, uncontrolled "talk time" without
accountability
 Guided primarily by teacher- or curriculum-
based questions
 From Getting Started with Literature Circles
by Katherine L. Schlick Noe & Nancy J. Johnson
© 1999 Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

6. Why use literature circles in
your classroom?
 It provides opportunities to read, write,
speak, and listen.
 Students interact in groups and are held
accountable for individual roles.
 They are student directed.
 They are engaging.

7. Literature Circle Roles and
Structure
 Roles
 Discussion Director (questioner)‫‏‬
 Literary Luminary
 Vocabulary Enricher
 Summarizer
 Connector
 Illustrator
 Adapted from Harvey Daniels

8. Discussion Director
 This role is designed
to promote discussion
and to ask higher level
questions about the
text.

9. Literary Luminary
 This role is designed
to get students to
choose passages from
the text. They may
choose them because
they´re...
 interesting
 funny
 confusing
 important

10. Vocabulary Enricher
 The vocabulary
enricher´s role is to
choose difficult
words from the text
and find out what
they mean. They
then explain the
meaning to the rest
of the group.

11. Summarizer
 The summarizer´s
role is to choose the
most important
events that occurred
in the passage.
These are shared
with the group and
other group
members add their
ideas.

12. Connector
 The connector relates
things that occur in the
passage with his or
her life, the real world,
or another book read
or movie seen.

13. Illustrator
 The illustrator´s job is to
draw something from the
passage that caught his
or her attention. The
image is then shared
with the group and other
members guess what is
happening in the picture
and discuss this part of
the passage.

14. Challenges of Managing
Literature Circles
 Developing an understanding of roles
 Teaching students to work in groups
 Helping students stay organized
 Maintaining and English environment
 Making sure students do the reading
 Keeping the conversation going

15. Addressing Challenges
 Developing an understanding of roles
 Practice, practice, practice
 Teacher guides students through the process
 Student volunteers have conversations in a “fish
bowl”

16. Addressing Challeges
 Teaching students to work in groups
 Establishing what good groupwork looks like
 Good conversations vs. Bad conversations
 Developing Clear Expectations
 Modelling by teacher
 Modellng by students
 Evaluation of mock conversations
 Self and group evaluations after each
conversation.

17. Addressing Challeges
 Helping Students Stay Organized
 Keep role sheets, meeting calendar, notes, and
self evaluations in a folder that stays with the
teacher
 Spend time at the beginning determining
students roles, pages to be read before each
meeting, and meeting dates.

18. Addressing Challeges
 Maintaining and English Environment
 Establish the expectation of English when
setting up groupwork expectations
 Hold students accountable for English speech
 Video camera
 Fish bowl
 Teacher observations

19. Addressing Challeges
 Making sure students read
 Create time for reading in class
 Choose books that are at students´ independent
reading level

20. Addressing Challenges
 Keeping the conversation going
 Give students conversation sentence starters,
 In my opinion..
 One connection I made...
 I agree/ disagree...
 What do you think, _______?
 Etc.
 Establish the expectation of keeping the
conversation going.
 Practice commenting on other group members
ideas.

21. Useful Links
 Literature Circle Resource Center
http://www.litcircles.org/
 http://www.literaturecircles.com/
 Literature Circles: Getting Started
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.
asp?id=19
 Literature Circle Roles
http://www.abcteach.com/directory/basics/reading/li
terature_circles/
http://www.edselect.com/Docs/Litcir.pdf

22. Resources
 Daniels, H. (2002). Literature Circles: Voice and
Choice in the Student Centered Classroom.
Portland: Stenhouse Publishing.