Engaging Students through Literature Circles

Brianna Sanford

Tip # 1: Teachers Are Simply a Facilitator Teachers today are bombarded with ideas and suggestions on how to differentiate learning. They are told to teach reading to all students and make sure they are on grade level by the end of the year. Yet we also want to produce creative and critical thinkers and this feels impossible in the age of standardized testing. One way to differentiate and still allow for critical and creative thinking is through Literature Circles or Book Clubs. Literature Circles are most commonly seen as a way to engage students through reading books with their peers and having authentic discussions about what theyve read (Blum, Lipsett, & Yocom, 2002). These are often used in grades 4 and higher, but in a few instances have been successful with younger students as (Frank, Dixon, & Brandts, 2001; Heller, 2006). Literature Circles have been shown to improve reading ability in children with low comprehension (Avci & Yksel, 2011; McElvain, 2010), as well as children with disabilities Blum et al., 2002). They have also been shown to significantly increase childrens motivation to read because they are engaging to the participants (Avci & Yksel, 2011; McMahon, 1992). This handout provides suggestions on how to successfully implement literature circles into your classroom. In Literature Circles, children should be doing most of the talking and thinking. The teacher acts as a facilitator guiding students to question the content and discuss it in depth (McElvain, 2010). Often, teachers will have more than one group going at a time so that they can move from group to group allowing for student autonomy while still monitoring their discussion and behavior.

Tip # 2: Teachers Must Model How to Discuss the Books Appropriately Often, children are not given this opportunity so they do not always know how to discuss a book. Before starting a Literature Circle, teachers should create a mini lesson giving ideas on how to discuss books and how to listen to others thoughts without interrupting or offending them. A suggestion would be to create an anchor chart of a couple of common sentence starters for students to use at first. Remember, dont be too rigid in your discussion stems, allow the students choice, autonomy, and creativity when thinking and discussing (Pearson, 2010).

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Tip # 3: Students Should Be Provided with Roles The teacher should provide roles for students to have. Again, you dont want to be too rigid in your guidelines but it is important to give the student a role in the Literature Circle (Blum et al., 2002, J. Whittingham, 2013). Roles can be anything that the teacher feels necessary. Some suggestions are: Group Leader, Word Wizard, Fact Finder, Summerizer, and Focus Leader. These roles should be flexible and students should switch roles periodically. For more suggestions on roles refer to the Webliography on pg 6. Tip # 5: Encourage Students to Use Imaginative Voices as They Read If the students are reading aloud a passage with their group, they should be allowed to give voice to different characters (Pearson, 2010). While this may seem like play, it often helps the students make the content comprehensible. The teacher will want to monitor and make sure students are on task, but remember to allow the creativity to flow.

Tip # 6: Students Do Not Have to Read Aloud Every Page Sometimes Literature Circles happen when students do much of the reading on their own and then come together to discuss. They can then reread important or interesting parts. Students do not always comprehend best when others read (Ivey & Broaddus, 2001). This could be due to the speed of others reading or their own difficulties. Many times students do not like hearing others read because the one who reads aloud may read at a different pace as those following along silently. It is also difficult if a student stumbles on words often. Allow the students to have time to read aloud parts of it together as well as parts on their own. Giving student choice in this matter can be very helpful. The students usually know how they want to read and what will help them.

Tip # 4: Provide Guidance by Using OpenEnded Questions The teacher should help students think critically by focusing on open-ended questions (McMahon, 1992). Children will often ask basic questions about the book or characters. This is good for basic comprehension but there needs to be more discussion. The teacher can facilitate these questions by walking around and stepping in to ask them or by using a few question starters or post them on a poster for students to see and use freely.

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Literature Circles and Special Needs

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Tip # 9: Include Students with Disabilities Literature Circles are a great way for students to be included into classroom lessons. Dont wait until they are pulled out for resource, put them in a group with students who are understanding and helpful. Literature Circles have shown to help students with disabilities feel that they have gained success in reading and it gave them a better perception of their own reading ability (Blum et al., 2002).

Tip # 7: Allow for Presentations at the End Heres an easy way to get a summative grade for Literature Circles. Have the students present their book to the class at the end of the unit. This allows them to synthesize and share their information creatively (Avci & Yksel, 2011). Provide the students with requirements such as tell about the important people, scenes and themes of the book. For times sake you may want to give a time limit for each presentation as well. Give them a few options such as a PowerPoint presentation, a comic strip, a skit, a video, or a poster. The students are sure to enjoy producing this as well as watching others present.

Tip # 10: Dont Forget to Accommodate You can still use accommodations in Literature Circles. Some students may need to respond orally or have frequent breaks. You can allow for these during Literature Circles. They are a great way for students who have difficulty putting their ideas down on paper to share their thoughts without the struggle of writing everything out. One helpful accommodation that can work for almost all special needs students is the use of a task organizer. This can be in the form of a familiar thinking map or a blank outline. Either way, giving the students a page that helps them organize their thinking will help them to be successful (Blum et al., 2002).

Tip # 8: Be Flexible Not all classrooms are the same. As always, be flexible in your thinking of Literature Circles (Blum et al., 2002). You may need to change roles for specific groups or classes. Once a group selects their book, they may realize it is too hard so they may need to quickly switch books. Life happens, be as flexible as possible with these groups. The most important part is that the students are discussing and thinking critically.

Using Various Texts in Literature Circles

Tip # 11: Use Authentic Literature Literature Circles are most commonly used with popular and engaging books. These are usually high interest novels that are on the students reading level (McElvain, 2010). This does not mean that you have to keep strictly to a certain reading level for each student, but make sure the students are able to read and understand the literature.

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Tip # 13: Allow Students to Choose the Book Students are highly motivated if they can choose the books they would like to read (Ivey & Broaddus, 2001). Giving students some choice empowers them and in turn increases their motivation and attitude toward (J. L. Whittingham & Huffman, 2009). Sometimes student choice is difficult to implement. A way to achieve this would be to group your students according to ability as low, medium, or high. Give each group 2-3 books to choose that are in the center of their reading levels. Some groups may overlap books depending on the diversity in your classroom. Have the students choose their top 2 choices. As you tally them up, you should be able to give them at least one of their top choices while still maintaining some control over who is in each group.

Tip # 12: Use Themes to Guide Book Choice Often, Literature Circles are built around a specific genre or theme (McElvain, 2010). If you are teaching mystery, then you want the books to be mystery books. Themes are a little more broad. You could choose a theme such as Overcoming Obstacles and make sure all of the books were centered around that theme. That would make it easier to have common guiding questions and discussions among all of the students in the class.

Tip # 14: Dont Forget about Nonfiction While Literature Circles are most commonly used with novels, you can use nonfiction as well (Heller, 2006). In the same way, Literature Circles can be used to teach other content area (Blum et al., 2002). Literature Circles are not only useful in reading classrooms. They are a great way to integrate reading and science concepts as well.

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Extensions for Literature Circles Parent Tips

Tip # 15: After School Book Clubs Literature Circles can also be used as afterschool book clubs. This gives the teacher more flexibility in choosing books and students. Students should also have flexibility. These afterschool Book Clubs should not be tutoring but be a choice for students. An activity like this has shown to improve their feelings toward reading just by having the choice to come and the ability to choose their book (J. L. Whittingham & Huffman, 2009).

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As a parent, there are many ways that you can help to improve your childs love of reading and reading ability. 1) Read Aloud to Your Child: You can choose the book or allow your child to pick it out. It is best to choose a book that is a little higher than their reading level. This helps to develop oral vocabulary skills. 2) Encourage Your Child to Read on Their Level: As parents, we tend to want to continually challenge our children. Sometimes, they just need to read books that seem easy to them. They should pick books that are just right for them by making sure they are interesting, easily read, and appropriate content. This helps them feel comfortable while reading. 3) Ask Them Questions about Their Books: Ask your child to tell you about what they are reading and share what they think and feel about it. 4) Be a Good Model: Share with your child what types of things you are interested in reading. Even if it is simply newspapers or magazines, they should see you enjoy reading and hear you discuss what you have read or why you read. 5) Encourage your Child to Read about Their Interests: Help your child find books, magazines, and web articles that are centered on their interests. This can be books about baseball, horses, history or aliens. Children tend to read more when they are highly interested in the topic.

Tip # 16: Literature Circles and Technology Teachers and students can participate in discussions not only in person but online as well (Bowers-Campbell, 2011). The teacher can create a blog or a discussion board where the students may interact with each other. They may do this from home, over a holiday break, or between classrooms. To extend it even further, you may want to include children from another school or in another state.

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Webliography

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ReadWriteThink- Literature Circles: Getting Started http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/literature-circles-gettingstarted-19.html This website gives a basic introduction to Literature Circles and tips on how to implement them. The author gives a step-by-step lesson plan that can be very useful for the teacher whos never implemented Literature Circles before. Also, on the resources page, there are suggestions for various student roles as well as printouts to use. Teaching Resources- Literature Circles http://www.lauracandler.com/strategies/litcircles.php Laura Candler has a wealth of knowledge about all things reading. This page gives link to many different resources to help implement Literature Circles. She also has a few free webinars about Book Clubs and Literature Circles that can give you a better idea of what to expect. Mr. Croley- Literature Circles http://www.mrcoley.com/litcircles.htm This website has various printables for student roles and links to frequently asked questions about Literature Circles. He gives some research on the effectiveness of Literature Circles and provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Literature Circles Resource Center http://www.litcircles.org/ You will need to sit down and spend quite a bit of time to gather all the information this website has to offer. It links to many different helpful resources such as how to structure Literature Circles in various grade levels as well as how to implement it into themed units. Inspired Elementary: Literature Circles 101 http://inspiredelementary.blogspot.com/2013/02/literature-circles-101.html This blog gives very detailed and easy explanations for how to implement Literature Circles. The author gives examples of her daily schedule and ideas for activities and roles. She actually begins teaching Literature Circles using a short story from the textbook and then moves to novels. This is a great resources for scheduling and structure questions. Web English Teacher http://www.webenglishteacher.com/litcircles.html The resources on this website are geared toward high school but can easily be adapted for younger grades. The Literature Circle Packet has many different handouts and examples that can be modified and used to guide the students. The first link shares some examples on how to implement Literature Circles in elementary grades.

Further Reading

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Edmunds, K. M., & Bauserman, K. L. (2006). What teachers can learn about reading motivation through conversations with children. The Reading Teacher, 59(5), 414-424. It can be very difficult to motivate students to read. The authors have authentic conversations with fourth graders to find out how they feel about reading and what motivates them to read. The top three motivators were book choice, book characteristics, and personal interests. The authors share their study as well as back up their findings with research and ways to help motivate students to read. Clarke, L. W., & Holwadel, J. (2007). Help! What is wrong with these literature circles and how can we fix them? The Reading Teacher, 61(1), 20-29. This article explores the ways that Literature Circles can go wrong and how to fix those problems. Using transcripts from real groups, the authors address certain key issues such as off-task discussion or scheduling conflicts. The authors highlight the importance of powerful mini lessons before beginning the Literature Circles as well as choosing the correct books for students. This was one of the most helpful articles when it comes to troubleshooting Literature Circles. King, C. (2001). I like group reading because we can share ideas: the role of talk within the Literature Circle. Reading, 35(1), 32-36. Children show growth when they are able to talk and discuss what they are learning. The author points out the importance of discussion when teaching reading. There are great applications for Literature Circles and how to implement purposeful talk in discussion groups. The article discusses the teachers role as the facilitator and gives specific examples on how to do this. Long, T. W., & Gove, M. K. (2003). How engagement strategies and literature circles promote critical response in a fourth-grade, urban classroom. Reading Teacher, 57(4), 350-361. Children are often unengaged in after a while during a typical reading class. This article focuses on the engagement of Literature Circles and the effects on the students. The authors give strategies for engagement such as having them pose and solve problems about the events in the text. There are examples to help the reader have a better grasp on how to engage students through reading instruction. Mills, H., & Jennings, L. (2011). Talking about talk: Reclaiming the value and power of literature circles. Reading Teacher, 64(8), 590-598. doi:10.1598/RT.64.8.4 The authors explore the effectiveness of inquiry in Literature Circles. They give examples of specific types of questions to ask and ways to lead the discussion. The authors believe that this increases not only reading skill but the ability to think critically as well. There are also suggestions on how to keep the students focused and how to best facilitate Literature Circles in the classroom. Raphael, T. E., & McMahon, S. I. (1994). Book club: An alternative framework for reading instruction. Reading Teacher, 48(2), 102. While this article is older, it gives an extensive background for Book Clubs which seem to have been the precursor to Literature Circles. The authors share the difficulties faced in moving from regular curriculum to Book Clubs because the students were not used to such discussion-based activities. In the article, are tips and ideas for reading journals and transcripts from student interviews sharing their perspectives and growth.

References

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Avci, S., & Yksel, A. (2011). Cognitive and affective contributions of the literature circles method on the acquisition of reading habits and comprehension skills in primary level students. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 11(3), 1295-1300. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=82149521&site=ehost-live Blum, H. T., Lipsett, L. R., & Yocom, D. J. (2002). Literature circles. Remedial & Special Education, 23(2), 99. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=6398449&site=ehost-live Bowers-Campbell, J. (2011). Take it out of class: Exploring virtual literature circles. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 557-567. doi:10.1598/JAAL.54.8.1 Frank, C. R., Dixon, C. N., & Brandts, L. R. (2001). Bears, trolls, and pagemasters: Learning about learners in book clubs. The Reading Teacher, 54(5, Books That Celebrate Diversity High-Stakes Testing Journals and Spelling), 448-462. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uta.edu/stable/20204935 Heller, M. F. (2006). Telling stories and talking facts: First graders' engagements in a nonfiction book club. Reading Teacher, 60(4), 358-369. doi:10.1598/RT.60.4.5 Ivey, G., & Broaddus, K. (2001). "Just plain reading": A survey of what makes students want to read in middle school classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(4), 350-377. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uta.edu/stable/748056 McElvain, C. M. (2010). Transactional literature circles and the reading comprehension of english learners in the mainstream classroom. Journal of Research in Reading, 33(2), 178-205. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01403.x McMahon, S. I. (1992). Book club: A case study of a group of fifth graders as they participate in a literature-based reading program [abstract]. Reading Research Quarterly, 27(4), 292-294. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uta.edu/stable/747671 Pearson, C. (2010). Acting up or acting out? unlocking children's talk in literature circles. Literacy, 44(1), 3-11. doi:10.1111/j.1741-4369.2010.00543.x Whittingham, J. (2013). Literature circles: A perfect match for online instruction. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 57(4), 53-58. doi:10.1007/s11528-013-0678-5 Whittingham, J. L., & Huffman, S. (2009). The effects of book clubs on the reading attitudes of middle school students. Reading Improvement, 46(3), 130-136. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=44479406&site=ehost-live