The Road Ahead
Literature circles will continue to evolve in my classroom in order to continue to keep the students interested and challenged. Some future plans include, eliminating role sheets that have previously been used. These will be replaced with a “journal entry” to accompany each section of reading. Each journal entry will include a writing section about what stood out in the reading, a picture of something from the reading, 2 “fat” discussion questions, and any difficult words from the reading. Students may set up their journal entry in a format that is comfortable to them but it must include each of these parts. In order to scaffold this change for the students, picture books will be used to introduce this new format. Similar to the beginning of the year, the teacher will read the story to the class and then all students will create a journal entry to go along with this story. The following day, the students will have time to have a short literature club meeting to learn the new meeting format as well. After repeating this process two or three times the students should be able to begin reading their chosen novel and attend weekly meetings. Some possible picture books to begin with include, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, and The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. In addition to all of these being wonderful stories, they also have many topics for discussion. Possible novels to use for the next literature circle include; Stone Fox (level P) by John Reynolds Gardiner, Fantastic Mr. Fox (level P) by Roald Dahl, and Mr. Popper’s Penguins (level Q) by Richard and Florence Atwater.
With the elimination of role sheets a new meeting structure will also need to be established. The first student will share what stood out to them by reading their writing. All members will have an opportunity to share any additional thoughts. That same student will then share their drawing in a similar fashion to the “iguana illustrator.” They show their drawing and each member has a chance to say what it means to them before the artist share their own meaning behind it. Next the student will ask each of his or her discussion questions allowing each member a chance to respond. This process will continue until all members have shared their work. At the end, any difficult words that were taken from the text should be found in the book and the group should discuss the meaning. One student will need to look the meaning of the word up in a dictionary and share it with the group. All students will fill out a reflection.
After establishing this new format I would also like to incorporate the use of literature circles into our French program. I have held out this long without doing them in French in order to ensure that students have a sufficient understanding of how a literature circle works before trying to do it in a second language. I feel like now my class is to the point where we are ready to take on this challenge. I feel like it will really help to improve not only the students reading levels in French but also their conversation skills in French.
With the elimination of role sheets a new meeting structure will also need to be established. The first student will share what stood out to them by reading their writing. All members will have an opportunity to share any additional thoughts. That same student will then share their drawing in a similar fashion to the “iguana illustrator.” They show their drawing and each member has a chance to say what it means to them before the artist share their own meaning behind it. Next the student will ask each of his or her discussion questions allowing each member a chance to respond. This process will continue until all members have shared their work. At the end, any difficult words that were taken from the text should be found in the book and the group should discuss the meaning. One student will need to look the meaning of the word up in a dictionary and share it with the group. All students will fill out a reflection.
After establishing this new format I would also like to incorporate the use of literature circles into our French program. I have held out this long without doing them in French in order to ensure that students have a sufficient understanding of how a literature circle works before trying to do it in a second language. I feel like now my class is to the point where we are ready to take on this challenge. I feel like it will really help to improve not only the students reading levels in French but also their conversation skills in French.
