Good books.  Good teachers.  Good students.  Good ideas.  Sounds like a GOOD plan to me!  But how do we bring all this GOOD stuff together and make it work for our students?  How do we demonstrate a LOVE for good literature and the PLEASURE that comes from reading AND fulfill state mandated curriculums and associated standards?  How do we ENGAGE students in the literature and NOT turn these great works into textbooks?  One solution is the tried-and-true introduction of LITERATURE CIRCLES. 

First of all, put away all your tired old notions of what you have experienced before with literature circles.  This time we are going to  take it up a notch.  Please take this short survey to see if you have what it takes to teach with literature circles. 

If you are reading this part, you must have passed the test!  Just as the implementation of any teaching strategy into your classroom, your first consideration is understanding the purpose of the strategy, adapting the strategy/instruction for your students, and organizing for instruction.  The next series of links and resources are included to provide the background information you need to understand the components of literature circles. 

Literature Circles

Standards

Because literature circles involve REAL reading in a social context opportunities exist for students to practice and apply many comprehension and higher order thinking skills and strategies as mandated by state reading/language arts curricula.  If you are a teaching in Kentucky, you can find core content standards at this site.

Planning Standards-Based Instruction:  http://www.englishcompanion.com/pdfDocs/irvineplanner.pdf

Quality Adolescent Literature appropriate for Literature Circles

The next step is to fine the quality pieces of literature that are good matches to:  1)  your students (first and foremost); 2) your curriculum; 3) the resources you have available to you.  In selecting literature, it is imperative that YOU have READ the books.  There is no substitute for reading the books and little success can come from trying to teach using a book you do not know PERSONALLY.  Next, you need to determine if YOU have the proper passion for the literature to spend the amount of time that is required for planning an in-depth study.  You must also KNOW your students well enough to be certain that the same level of passion can be "exhumed" from their sometimes-less-than-enthusiastic adolescent and young adult readers' minds.  

Examples of Literature-Based Units

Decisions to be Made

The establishment of literature circles without specific plans is a plan in itself - for disaster.  People do not automatically know how to discuss literature.  Most of our students have answered questions with "right and wrong" answers for so long that we have conditioned them NOT to think, question, or offer ideas that are "outside the box."  It takes structure, modeling, guidelines, practice, and patience to move students to a place where they can work in groups and actually become contributing members to the thoughts, ideas, and questions being discussed.  Carefully orchestrated classroom and instructional management is required.  Some of the considerations include:

Electronic Resources

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