You may have already heard from your excited students that they received their literature circle books this past week and wondered what the heck they were talking about. Literature circles is my version of Guided Reading. Each term (usually twice a term), I present students with 6-8 books I have chosen of various different levels. I describe each book to them briefly and each child gets to choose which book they would like to read. They are encouraged to choose a book that is an appropriate level of difficulty for them. This month, the books chosen were: Socks by Beverly Cleary, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown, Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary, Good Grief, Third Grade by Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna, and Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater. Students were placed in the different groups based upon their reading level, their desired choices and how many books were available. Each literature circle group will meet on the same day, except if school is not in session or if another event conflicts with that time. Then they will be rescheduled for a different day/time. Each book has been separated into 4 sections and we will meet for 4 weeks to discussion each section of the book. Students are NOT ALLOWED TO READ AHEAD IN THE BOOK. That may potentially ruin the book for the other students. During a literature circle meeting, we spend our time discussing various parts of the book: our favourite parts, what surprised us, predictions of what will happen next, etc. It's very similar to an adult version of a book club. It a less formal way for students to engage with books and in my experience, students really enjoy this format and get a deeper understand of the book that they are reading. In order to prepared for discussion, students must come to the meeting with that weeks section already read. We will not be reading the book during our meetings. It will be expected that you have already read the section and are prepared to talk about it. Students must also come to the meeting with a simple question that they will "test" the memory of their classmates with. The answer needs to be found within the book (e.g. no opinion or predictions) but need to test the memory of the people who read the book. Examples of good questions: What's the name of the camp that Ralph runs away to? What is the last name of Sock's family? To help students and family remember, dates for literature circle meetings can be found on the side whiteboard in the classroom and also on the blog HERE. I have created a page where all literature circle groups are named, with which student is in each group, their meeting dates and sections that needed to be read. I hope you find this helpful. I always look forward to Literature Circles and I hope most of the students come to look forward to it as well. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me or come see me before or after school. Mrs. Vieira
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
All about Mrs. VieiraI'm new to JKE and new to the school district but I've been a teacher in B.C. since 2008. I love art, animals and my family, which includes my daughter who is 1 year old. Archives
May 2018
Categories |