Literature Circles

Adapted from: Fountas & Pinnell (1996) Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children.

What is a Literature Circle?

During literature circles, students meet in small groups to discuss, respond, and reflect on their reading. The teacher or students facilitate the discussion, and as students progress through the primary grades, they will become able to take on parts of this facilitator role. A goal of primary-grade literature circles is to guide students to become more independent with each component of the discussion so that they are ready to hold discussion groups with very little teacher coaching by the end of third grade or the beginning of fourth.  Literature circles, which begin to occur in Third and Fourth Grade, along with Guided Reading groups, silent reading, and reading workshop are all part of a balanced literacy program for young readers.

What does a discussion group/ literature circle look like?

Students begin by reading a predetermined amount of text. It is important for all children, regardless of reading level, to have the opportunity to participate in literature discussion. Emergent readers engage in a literature circle far less often that mature readers, but can discuss texts that have been read during shared readings or heard during read-alouds.  By the time they are in Fourth or Fifth Grade, students participate in literature circles more frequently (1-3 times per week) and more independently.

Each literature circle lasts approximately 10-30 minutes, depending on the text. Teachers may set a general focus for the discussion (e.g., character description, dialogue, setting ), however, discussions should allow for open-ended response.  It is important that students feel comfortable sharing ideas and taking risks in the discussions.  Teachers should monitor good discussion and questioning behavior.

Good discussion and reflective thinking strategies need to be modeled and practiced with students ahead of time. Teachers may want to have students help generate the guidelines as a class. Some examples of guidelines are:

For what purposes do students meet in literature circles?

Literature circles can be organized for a variety of purposes. Many times students are reading the same text, but it is also appropriate for students to be discussing different texts. For example, groups might be arranged around students:

• Focusing on the same text.
• Focusing on different texts of a particular author. 
• Focusing on the way authors use a particular strategy (setting, character traits, conflict...) in a variety of texts. 
• Focusing on different texts on the same theme (friendship, families, challenges...). 
• Focusing on different texts from the same genre (fairy tales, poetry, mysteries...).

The emphasis in these discussions focuses on comparing and contrasting texts and finding patterns in a variety of texts. Students will need to give a short summary of what they read before explaining their thinking when there is a variety of reading material brought to the group.

How can teachers and students use literature circles to assess learning?

As teachers evaluate a discussion group, they should monitor that students are not only progressing in reading and writing strategies but also in discussion etiquette:

• Attending to the topic.
• Participating actively in the group. 
• Asking questions. 
• "Piggybacking" on others' comments. 
• Allowing all members of the group opportunity to participate.  
• Disagreeing constructively. 
• Supporting opinions with evidence.

The discussion structures and strategies listed above should be modeled and practiced with students through focus-lessons that give students a chance to observe a group being coached in a discussion of a text, and that allow for guided practice of strategies.

Recording the group interaction is important and can be monitored in a variety of ways:

• Anecdotal Notes--Anecdotal notes taken on individual students (on "post-it" notes or stickers) can then be placed on each student's folder for record-keeping.

• Seating Charts--Teachers record where each participant is seated, note the incidence of interaction among students, and take brief notes on comments voiced during the discussion. This record-keeping slows the pace of discussion and automatically allows for extended time for thinking and reflecting on participants' comments.

What are some questioning strategies that help students respond to reading?

Teachers use questioning to prompt discussion without dominating the conversation. A main purpose of a literature circle is to have children share their own ideas in response to their reading and hear the ideas of their peers.  Teachers can facilitate the discussion by using guiding questions and should try to lead from where students are in their discussion.  Students may also use their response journals as a stimulus for discussion.

One approach that teachers can use to structure literature discussions is shared inquiry. Shared inquiry is an approach that is based on teachers (and students) asking interpretive questions and allowing students the opportunity to discuss the question and ask follow-up questions to construct or extend meaning.  For example, interpretive questions for Jack and the Beanstalk might include, "Why does Jack answer the old man's question by saying, 'Two in each hand and one in your mouth?', Why does the ogre's wife want to keep Jack from being eaten?", "Why does the author make Jack's mother a poor widow?" (Great Books Foundation, 1992, p.9)

In general, good interpretive questions:

• Have more than one answer supported by the text.
• Uses appropriate vocabulary for the participants.  
• Focuses on the text. 
• Requires students to take a stand. 
• Are specific to the particular text.

During the discussions, teachers should allow enough time for students to think before answering and time to rethink their answers based on later discussion. Teachers can help students examine questions more thoroughly by asking follow-up questions, which require students to be more accurate and specific:

• What makes you think that?
• How would another character react to that? 
• Why did you think the problem would get solved in that way?

Some guidelines for teachers on modeling the leadership of a shared inquiry discussion are:

• Start with a good basic interpretive question.
• Model all discussion strategies thoroughly. 
• Listen carefully to participants' comments. 
• Take notes on participants' contributions. 
• Encourage participants to talk to one another. … Ask participants to relate ideas to the basic question.
• Encourage participants to refer to the text frequently. 
• Be open to challenges to your questions. 
• Give everyone a chance to contribute. 
• Ask (and encourage students to ask) follow-up questions often.

The most appropriate kinds of questions are engaging and thought provoking. They rely on high-level thinking based on Bloom's taxonomy (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) and are open-ended.

Questions teachers use to guide their students' reflections should include questions that encourage reading for global understanding, developing interpretation, personal reflection, and critical analysis.   Responding to reading from the perspective of each stance encourages students to develop strategies that good readers use to construct meaning from a text.

Global Understanding
Forming an overall impression of a text.
Requires students to think about the overall meaning of what they have read. Students are asked to explain the topic, gist, or theme, supporting their ideas with details.   

• What is the problem/conflict in the story? (Reading for literary experience)
• Summarize the reading selection. (Reading to be informed)
• How would the directions be used to perform the task? (Reading to perform a task)

Developing Interpretation
Revisiting the reading selection.
Requires students to verify specific details about ideas in the story to support characterization, setting, conflict, resolution, sequence of events, or causes and effects. With informational text, students must demonstrate an understanding of topics and supporting details.   

• How do the pictures help you perform the task? (Reading to perform a task)
• How are the two readings similar and different? (Reading to inform)
• What changes did you see in this character? (Reading for literary experience)
• How did the conflict develop and get resolved? (Reading for literary experience)

Personal Reflection
Connecting to what a reader knows.
Requires students to consider their prior knowledge and use this experience to construct meaning from the text. Students compare the author's point of view with their own view, or information from the text with students' background knowledge.   

• What questions would you ask the author or characters? (Reading for literary experience)
• What additional information would have helped you complete the task? (Reading to perform a task)
• What new information did you learn? (Reading to be informed.)
• What would you have done if you were the character? (Reading for literary experience)

Critical Analysis
Analyzing the way the author wrote.
Requires students to analyze what they have read by thinking about the author's purpose and craft, by evaluating elements of the text, and by judging the usefulness of a story or passage.   

• How would you improve the author's directions? (Reading to perform a task)
• What kind of background information do you think the author needed to write this story? (Reading to be informed)
• Was the reading convincing? (Reading for literary experience)