EN G 3 UE – Literatur e Circles
Our study of the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, will be completed according
to a literature circle format. The main goal of this unit is that you, the student, develop
language skills through the exploration of a given text.
The teacher in this situation becomes more of a facilitator of high-quality interaction
between students, who will be organized into groups. Groups will meet at least five times
throughout the unit, and during each meeting, you will take on one of five specific roles,
which are listed as follows:
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Discussion Director – the “wise fool”, prepares and poses central questions;
Networker – makes connections between the novel and actual world, as well as
other works;
Profiler – develops insights on characters of the novel;
Wordsmith – finds key words/phrases and explains significance;
Visionary – finds key examples of imagery and illustrates them for the group.
Note that each student needs to change to a different role for each meeting, ultimately
taking each role at least once throughout the unit.
Later in the unit, one formative creative assignment will be assigned which will be
designed to help generate some thought-provoking perspectives on the novel. There will
also be two summatives: a journal/quotation analysis for which your role notes will be
useful, and a literary essay.
Meeting Date + Page Interval
Role
Preliminary Meeting
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N/A
Meeting #1
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Meeting #2
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Meeting #3
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Meeting #4
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Meeting #5
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