Literature Circles You are responsible for being prepared for your group meetings. This means completing the reading your group agreed to do and completing a thoughtful response. If you are not prepared, your group will have a difficult time conducting a thoughtful conversation. You may respond to the book in many ways. Try to do a different job each time you complete one. It is your choice and responsibility to choose a different form of response for each meeting. Everyone in your group must each have chosen a different daily job. Here is a list of ideas for responses. The directions show the MINIMUM requirements for the response. Do not limit yourself, your talents, or your ideas. Discussion Director Write two questions for your group to discuss. Also, please write your answer to each question. Your questions should be answered by a minimum of a paragraph each. Remember to give example from the book in your answers. Your questions should be BIG, FAT questions, not workbook questions. Remember some of the best questions can never be answered with a certainty. The answer should just be what you think and what from the text made you think that. Choose questions that make you think or wonder. Each group must have a Discussion Director each day. Examples: Is Stuart Little a mouse that acts like a human or a human that looks like a mouse? Did anything in this section of the book surprise you? Illustrator Choose a part of the reading you found yourself picturing in your head. Draw a full size picture of it and color it. Write a paragraph describing the scene and explain why you chose to draw this in the way you did for the picture. (Go beyond - It formed a picture in my head.) Connector Choose a part of the story to which you can make a connection. Remember, the connections are text-to-text, self-to-text and text-to-world. This can also include author schema. Be sure to write at least a paragraph explaining your connection. Then write at least a paragraph explaining how this helps you understand the book better. Example I think Stuart Little was scared when he was on the garbage boat. Once when I was younger, I was lost in a store. I was very scared and I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. If Stuart was scared and Margalo rescued him, he will be very grateful to Margalo. If Stuart thinks Margalo might get hurt he will want to protect her even more because she saved him. Fab Vocab Be on the look out for at least three important words in the reading. If you find words that are puzzling or unfamiliar, jot them down. Also, collect words repeated a lot, used in an unusual way or key to the meaning of the text. The idea for this job is to look up the definition and decide how and why the author used the word in such a particular way. Along with the definition of the word, please complete a Fab Vocab work sheet for each word. Investigator Investigate (research) a part of the book that interests you. This might include: the geography, weather, culture, or history of the book’s setting, information about the author, his/her life, and other works, pictures, objects, or materials that illustrate elements of the book, or the history and derivation of words or names used in the book. This is not a formal research report. The idea is to find one bit of information or material that helps your group understand the book better. Investigate something that really interests you -- something that struck you as puzzling or curious while you were reading. You can gather the information from the introduction, preface, or “about the author” sections of the book, library books or magazines, online computer search or encyclopedia or other novels. Write at least a paragraph detailing the information you found. Then write at least a paragraph explaining how you think this information will help you and your group understand the book better. Compare/Contrast Tell how two things are alike or different, two characters or maybe two books. Choose any two things that share similarities and differences, Use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast these two things. Summarizer (optional) Summarize what your group read for the meeting. Remember to include the most important events, not the tiny details. Be sure your summary is in the same order as the book. Do not break your summary down by chapter. (If you read three chapters, summarize all three chapters, do not do just one chapter and do not do three different summaries.) The summary should be 1 full page, about three paragraphs and should include: Who? Who are the main characters? When/Where? When/Where does the story take place? What? What are the goals of the main characters, or what problems must they solve? How/Why? How do the characters reach their goals or solve their problems? Literary Luminary (optional) Read like a writer. Pick out a few passages of excellent writing, and then respond to it: Why did you choose this entry? How did it affect you as a reader? What do you think the author was trying to tell the reader? Predictor Predict what you think will happen next (or later) in the story. In a paragraph explain why you think this event will happen. In your next paragraph, explain what from this book or your other experiences make you think your prediction is true.
