Literature Circles Introduction

Description:
Literature circles are awesome. They are awesome because doing them will make you a better reader
and a deeper thinker. You will become a better reader and a deeper thinker by discussing interesting
books with your peers in a focused way.
A literature circle is a group of students who read the same book, analyze that book, and discuss what
they have read. Each group will also be expected to create a project based on the book.
Expectations:
As I mentioned above, literature circles are awesome. However, with the privilege of doing group work
comes the responsibility that all students are 100% engaged with academic content material 100% of
the time.
Positive consequences connected to 100% engagement with academic content material 100% of the
time:
You will become a much better reader because you will closely analyze a text.
You will become a more college and career ready student because you will be engaging in highlevel discussions with your fellow students.
You will become a deeper thinker because you will be expected to dive deep into the meaning,
the language, and the themes of the book that you are reading. Deep thinkers understand the
world better, but they also understand themselves better; they have better lives as a result of
more self-knowledge.
Negative consequences connected to engagement with content material that is less than 100% or that
happens less than 100% of the time:
Your grade will go down. Participation matters very much in literature circles.
You will lose the privilege of talking productively with your peers.
If your group is off task two times in one day, not only will you lose the privilege of talking with
your group for two days, but the amount of homework that your group will have to do will
double. This will occur to ensure that you are still learning as much as you possibly can even
though you will not be talking.

Literature Circles Overview

During literature circles, you and a group of students will read the same book, analyze that book, and
discuss what you have read.
The members of our group will be the following (include first and last names & phone numbers):

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We will be reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The book has 179 pages.
Predict: Based on what you know about the book so far, what do you think it is going to be about?
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Group prediction: Write down the prediction of another one of your group
members:________________________
________________________ predicts that that the book is going to be about
_________________________________
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Pick: What projects interest your group? What are some of your top choices from the Literature Circles
Project Options document?
1. __________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________________________________________________________

Literature Circle Project Options

Prepare and tape an interview with one of the main characters and question him or her to reveal
characteristics of his or her personality.

Design the locker or bulletin board of one of the characters on a poster board. Take pictures and
artfully arrange them to represent what the character is like and what he or she values. Explain your
photographs and clippings.

Write a rap or R&B song telling the story. Find an instrumental track to play with it as you
perform or record it on top of to play to the class.

Prepare a TV or radio broadcast of the story as if it were a developing segment on the evening
news. Think back to the beginning of the modern version of Romeo and Juliet for this.

Rewrite the story for younger children. Create illustrations and put it into picture book form
using PowerPoint.

Make a book jacket (A cover, summary, about the author, excerpt on the back, etc.) Then,
prepare a Book Talk with the author where s/he discusses why s/he wrote the book and the
importance of certain events in the book.

Create an online blog for a character in the book. Include at least 10 entries that are at least 5
lines each. Use at least 5 visuals.

Pretend to be a Hollywood advertising executive and create a video trailer for the book. The
video should be at least two minutes long, should make references to many parts of the text, and
should make the viewer want to read the book.

Create a playlist on iTunes that would either be on the main characters iPod OR that would be
the soundtrack to the movie version of your novel. You must include an explanation of why you
selected each song and what it reveals about the character OR what it represents in the movie
version of your novel. Be prepared to play at least 3 of your selections and give your explanations.

Make a comic book telling the story of the book.

Reading Plan
Directions: As you make your reading plan with your group, remember these rules:
You always need a Discussion Director.
The group members need to rotate roles each time the group meets
Each time your group meets, you will fill out this information (on a separate piece of paper)
and return it with your completed worksheet packet.
The chapters we will be reading for: (date): ______________: pages ______ through ______
Discussion Director: ________________________________
Literary Luminary__________________________________
Super Summarizer: ________________________________
Cool Connector: ____________________________________
Word Wizard: ______________________________________

Literature Circle Roles

Discussion Director: Your job is to write a list of on-the-surface and under-the-surface questions to
ask your group members. You also need to write the answers to these questions with the specific page
numbers on which group members can find the answers. Finally, your job is to make sure each of the
other members do their jobs at the appropriate time.

Literary Luminary: Your job is to choose paragraphs or sentences from the book to discuss with your
group. The paragraphs or sentences that you pick should be the parts of the text that are the most
interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important. Write down the page number and paragraph and
include your reasons for picking the paragraph or sections you chose. You also need to write down the
thoughts that your group members have about the passages that you choose.
Super Summarizer: Your job is to prepare a written and visual summary of the part of the text that
you have just read. You should write down a short statement about what happened in the book, note a
few of the most important events, and create a picture from one part of the reading.
Cool Connector: Your job is to find connections between the book and your life or the outside world.
This means connecting what you read to events in your past, to what happens at school or in the
community, to similar events at other times and places, or to other people or problems. In other words,
you need to create text-to-self connections, text-to-world connections, or text-to-text connections.
Word Wizard: Your job is to look for difficult and important words in your reading. As you are reading,
mark down words that you see that you do not understand. Later, look them up in a dictionary and
write down their definitions. You may also find words in the reading that are important to the story.
Mark these words too, and be ready to point them out to the group. When your group meets, help
members find and discuss the words.

Literature Circle Procedures

The following is the order of the discussion in literature circles. The discussion director is in charge of
moving this process along, and everyone else is responsible for being engaged and ready to
participate.
1.

All and discussion director: All students are seated in groups and have their book and role
sheet on their desk. The discussion director also has this piece of paper (Literature Circle
Procedures) on her or his desk.

2.

Summarizer: The summarizer shares out his or her general summary of the text as well as his
or her key events.

3.

Summarizer: The summarizer shows the group the visual that he or she has drawn. Each
member of the group guesses what the summarizer has depicted. The summarizer then explains
the depiction.

4.

Literary luminary: The literary luminary directs the group to find the first passage from the
reading that he or she picked. One person in the group reads it out loud. Then, the literary luminary
says why he or she thought the passage was important.

5.

Literary luminary: The literary luminary then asks for other students reactions to the
passage that was read. Other students discuss what they think about the meaning and importance
of the passage. The literary luminary writes notes based on the reactions of other students.

6.

Literary luminary: This same process is then repeated for the second passage.

7.

Cool connector: The cool connector directs the group to find one of his or her connections.
He or she then explains why he or she connected to that part of the text.

8.

Cool connector: The cool connector asks other students what they connected to in the
reading from the night before. The cool connector writes down at least one connection made by
another student.
[Steps 9 and 1 are only necessary if a group actually has a word wizard that day.]

9.

Word wizard: The word wizard shares at least four of the interesting or unfamiliar words that
he or she found in the text as well as the definitions for those words.

10.

Word wizard: The word wizard asks other students if they were confused by any other
important words and the group looks them up as necessary.

11.

Discussion director: The discussion director asks the group his or her two on-the-surface
questions. The discussion director does not give away the answer, but waits for the group to either
say or find the answer.

12.

Discussion director: The discussion director asks all three under-the-surface questions with
the group one at a time. After asking the question, each member of the group has a chance to
respond. After each member responds, the discussion director provides his or her answer. The
group discusses more if they wish to respond.

Name: _______________________________ Date: _________

_____

Period: ___ Pages: _____ to

Role Sheet: Discussion Director

Discussion Director: Your job is to write a list of questions that your group might
want to discuss about this part of the book. The best questions will come from your
own thoughts, feelings, and ideas about this section of the book. You also need to
write your own answers to these questions.
Questions:
1.______________________________________________________________________
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2.______________________________________________________________________
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3.______________________________________________________________________
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On-the-surface questions These are questions that can be answered by pointing
to the answer in the book. For example, Who did the main character meet at the
train station? or What did the young man do after his friend gave him the money?
1. _________________________________________________________________________________
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The answer to this question can be found on page ________
2. _________________________________________________________________________________
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The answer to this question can be found on page ________
Example Questions:
What was going through your mind when you read this?
How did you feel when?
Can someone summarize this section?
Did anything surprise you about this section of the book?

Predict something about the next section of the book.Name: _______________________________

Date: _________ Period: ___ Pages: _____ to _____

Role Sheet: Literary Luminary

The literary luminary picks passages from the text that are interesting, powerful,
funny, puzzling, or important. The literary luminary then gives two reasons why they
thought that the passage was interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important.
1. The first passage that I chose starts on page ____________. It starts with the words
_____________________________ and ends with the words
_________________________________ I chose this passage because
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What do your group members think about this quote? Do they agree with you? Why
or why not?
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1. The second passage that I chose starts on page ____________. It starts with the
words _____________________________ and ends with the words
_________________________________ I chose this passage because
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What do your group members think about this quote? Do they agree with you? Why
or why not?
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Name: _______________________________ Date: _________

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Period: ___ Pages: _____ to

Role Sheet: Super Summarizer

General summary of the reading
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Key events from the reading (in order)
1. ____________________________________________________________________________________
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2. ____________________________________________________________________________________
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3. ____________________________________________________________________________________
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Visualization of one part of the reading:

Name: _______________________________ Date: _________

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Period: ___ Pages: _____ to

Role Sheet: Cool Connector

The cool connector finds two connections between the book and his or her life or the
outside world. You can connect the reading to some of these things:
Your own life. This means events in your past, your feelings, your dreams,
etc.
Things that have happened at school, in your community, or in the larger
world.
To other books you have read
To movies that you have seen or to the lyrics of songs that you have heard.
Connection 1 page number for connection text_______
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Connection 2 page number for connection text_______
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Ask members of your group for at least one connection that they made to
the reading for today and record it here (include his or her name in your
answer): ________________
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Name: _______________________________ Date: _________

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Period: ___ Pages: _____ to

Role Sheet: Word Wizard

Every day, the word wizard looks for 6 words in the story that are:
Unfamiliar
Interesting
Kind of familiar but important
Kind of familiar but used in an unfamiliar way
Word from text
(and page number)

What I think it means

based on context
clues

Dictionary Definition