Biography literature circles third

Literature circles are a strong classroom strategy because of the way that they couple collaborative learning with student-centered inquiry. As they conclude their description of the use of literature circles in a bilingual classroom, Peralta-Nash and Dutch explain the ways that the strategy helped students become stronger readers:

Students learned to take responsibility for their own learning, and this was reflected in how effectively they made choices and took ownership of literature circle groups. They took charge of their own discussions, held each other accountable for how much or how little reading to do, and for the preparation for each session. The positive peer pressure that the members of each group placed on each other contributed to each student's accountability to the rest of the group. (36)

When students engage with texts and one another in these ways, they take control of their literacy in positive and rewarding ways.

Further Reading

I learned about literature circles way back in college when a friend who was an elementary education major asked me to help her practice a literature circle before her class “test.” I had no idea what a literature circle was. However, as an English Literature major, I knew I had to find out. I caught on right away!

A literature circle is a small group discussion (usually between four and six students) in which every student has a role related to a book. The group members take turns presenting their individual groups to the class. By the end, the group has discussed the text in many different ways. The roles that I encountered from my friend were valuable, yet fun: illuminator (vocabulary), questioner (discussion questions), and reader (passage finder) are some of the roles I remember from that day.

Years later, when I had my own high school classroom, I knew I wanted to adapt this engaging elementary strategy to my classroom. Since then, I have successfully facilitated literature circles with 7th graders all the way up to my AP Literature scholars. There definitely were some challenges along the way. With that said, here are some ideas to facilate awesome literature circles in your cla

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