Have you used Literature Circles with ELLs

Hello colleagues, I'm thinking about using Literature Circles with my upcoming class. Has anyone used this approach with intermediate and/or advanced English learners? If so, please share how this teaching strategy worked for you. Successes? Challenges? Thank you!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

Comments

Hi Susan,

I have, a few years ago, with an advanced class, but it was an intensive ESL university setting-- not Adult Ed. It was a level 5 (of 6) reading / vocabulary class of about 12 students from mixed backgrounds in a nine week session.  We met 1.5 hours a day, 5 days a week, and we did the literature circles once a week.  They chose the books from several I previewed for them and we wound up with three groups:  The Little Prince, Fahrenheit 451, and The Pearl.

One thing that was very successful was an idea adapted from some things Jim Burke developed.  Outside of class, in addition to reading, they rotated through different assignments which gave each of them a role to play when they met to discuss the book:

  1. DISCUSSION DIRECTOR: Your job is to develop five or six questions and lead your group in a discussion. Don’t worry about small details; your task is to identify the big ideas in the reading and to facilitate the sharing of reactions. Usually the best discussion questions come from your own ponderings, reactions, and concerns as you read.
  2. SUPER SUMMARIZER: Your job is to prepare a brief summary of the assigned reading. Your group discussion will start with your statement that covers the main events and ideas of the assignment
  3. WORD WIZARD: The words that an author chooses are deliberate. Your job is to be on the lookout for seven or eight especially important words in the reading. If you find words that are unfamiliar or puzzling, mark them while you are reading and then write down their definition, either from a dictionary or from some other source. Cite the words and the pages plus the paragraphs in which they are located. Be ready to point them out and to help members of the group discuss their importance.
  4. LITERARY LUMINARY: Your job is to locate at least three passages for your group to discuss. Your purpose is to help members of your group probe more deeply into some interesting, humorous, puzzling, or powerful passages. As you read and locate some interesting passages, be sure to jot down the page number and paragraphs. For example, you could use post-its to mark the passage in the book. Note why you chose the passage and be prepared to read the passage out loud. Lead the discussion.
  5. IDEA INVESTIGATOR: Your job is to dig up some background information on any topic related to your book/chapter. This is not a formal research report. The idea is to find bits of information or material that helps your group better understand the characters, setting, plot, and themes of the book/chapter. Investigate something that really interests you—something that struck you as puzzling or curious while you were reading. This might include information about the author, famous people mentioned in the book/chapter, or some other related topic. Cite your links and bring in copies of what you found so that your group can discuss it.
  6. COOL CONNECTOR: Your job is to find connections between the book/chapter your group is reading and the world outside. This means connecting the reading to your own life, happenings at school or in the community, similar events at other times and places, or other people or problems this book/chapter brings to mind. You may also see connections between this book/chapter and other books/writings. There are no wrong or right answers here. Whatever the reading connects you with is worth sharing.

Other successes included the richness in discussion we had.  I would just basically rotate and listen to be available.  The majority of the questions, as you might guess, were with vocabulary.

One challenge was that although I warned them about the difficulty of Fahrenheit 451 when they chose it, that book was just too hard for them.  I don't think I would include it as an option.  They missed so much of the meaning that I don't think it was as enjoyable for them as it was for the other two groups.

Another challenge was that I didn't develop an objective way to evaluate their progress or understanding. The program I worked in required grades, so I think I graded more on effort and participation than anything.

Hope that's helpful!

TC

<p>TC, Susan, and all,</p>

<p>TC, These are great suggestions for discussion roles. Susan, a dear friend of mine, Katharine Davies Samway and Gail Whang, a middle school teacher, wrote a book about Literature Study Circles. Here's the link:</p>

<p>http://www.amazon.com/Literature-Study-Circles-Multicultural-Classroom/…;
Although it was written several years ago, and is about 5th and 6th grade students, I think it has a lot of useful information about how to set up and manage literature study circles.

I haven't done literature study groups with my students, but I have done reading dialogue journals - again with younger elementary and middle school students, but the process and outcomes would be the same - just differences in reading materials. I think reading dialogue journals, or simply reading journals, would make a good adjunct to literature study groups and might help with the issue of how to evaluate progress or understanding.
Dorothy

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Hello Dorothy and all, Thanks for sharing the link to the book about literature circles, Dorothy. I'm intrigued by using dialogue journals with text. Could you tell us how this approach has worked for you? I agree that methods used with younger students can often be just as relevant with adults. I've used dialogue journals extensively --particularly with beginning level students-- where the students and I interact by responding to one another in writing, but I've never used this approach with reading material as the focus of the dialogue.

How structured did you make the activity? Did you provide initial prompts for the writing or was it more open ended?

Have others used journaling or dialogue journaling with reading materials? Please share your experiences.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

Susan and all,

To answer your question about reading dialogue journals, the writing was very open-ended. The students were expected to write the title and author of the book or story they were reading, and I often did guide them with questions, but not structured or prepared questions. I would encourage them to go beyond plot summaries (although that's an important skill in itself!) and explore character development, influence of setting, and make predictions about what would happen next. I guess I pretty much focused on all the kinds of things you might discuss in a literature study circle. Sometimes I had read the book the student was writing about, but often I hadn't. One of my favorite moments was when one of my 8th graders suggested that we read the same book together. We read a couple of books together. Her interest at the time was in fantasy, which has never been a favorite of mine, but I think it was great that she took me outside of my standard genre reading. I'll admit it was a labor-intensive activity, but no more so than dialogue journals, and I enjoyed it a great deal.

Dorothy

 

Hello Dorothy and all, It's interesting to read how you structured the dialogue reading journals with 8th graders, Dorothy. What I have found to be the most valuable aspect of a dialogue journal is the way it strengthens the relationship between me and individual students. Through dialogue journals, we are having an authentic, personal conversation in writing. I have learned so much about the learners in my class through dialogue journals.

I can see how focusing on a text together, especially a text that is rich with meaning such as those your students read, and then journalling about that text would deepen the student/teacher connection. Keeping the writing fairly open the way you did has clear benefits, as well.

I can relate to what you say about how time intensive this practice is. I'm wondering how often you responded to the students' journals. When I've used dialogue journals with beginners, I tried to respond for every class meeting. It didn't take too long since the students' writing was minimal and my responses were short, but with higher level students the amount of time required to read and respond to the journals would be much greater, of course.

Some members might be interested in checking out this article about dialogue journals in the LINCS collection "Dialogue Journals: Interactive Writing to Develop Language and Literacy." Please feel free to share your experiences with dialogue journals, as well as any questions you may have about this practice.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

Hello all, Thanks so much for your thoughtful and detailed response, Tonya. Over the years, I have used Literature Circle with groups of teachers to model how they might use the process with students. I am now working with a group of advanced adult English learners who I believe can benefit from this approach.

The Literature Circles concept, which has been used extensively in K12, was created by Harvey Daniels, who has written several books about Lit Circles. One of Daniels' primary interests was giving students choice of what to read. While I acknowledge that offering choice is a powerful motivator, I also think that the Literature Circle process can be highly engaging, even when the teacher selects the text. With teachers I have often used Literature Circles with a textbook I chose for a graduate course and even with theoretical articles we were reading for a course. I've used similar roles as described on Tonya's list.

As Tonya has outlined, members of small groups who have all read the same material take on different roles during group discussion. Another role that I use is the role of Illustrator. The Illustrator creates some kind of picture that captures the main ideas of the reading or an aspect of the reading that was particularly meaningful to him/her.  The Illustrator talks to the group about the significance of the picture and invites comments and questions. While the teachers I have worked with  often balk at having to illustrate -- many consider themselves poor artists-- I love the Illustrator role because when students serve as the Illustrator, they often share things that capture a big picture idea that reflects something deeply meaningful in the text. It's nearly always fascinating!

I'm still thinking about how to approach this with the English learners I'll be working with starting next week, and I welcome members ideas for how to structure this. It seems to me that the Lit Circles process will help us to address a number of learning objectives (i.e., CCR standards) related to reading, writing, listening and speaking as well as vocabulary.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP