Literature Circle Assignment
**Our
main purpose is to think about the Cultural Foundations of Education. Keep the
themes of our course in the foreground as much as possible. You are not being
tested on the novel: you are seeking ways to think about culture and education.
Choose
one of the following roles:
Literary Luminary. You identify key passages and quotes from the text
that you want the group to analyze, understand, critique, and otherwise explore.
You should be prepared to explain why you have made these particular selections,
although you may not need to share this information during the discussion. Help
people remember some interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important
sections of the book! You should prepare to read at least one thing aloud,
dramatically with meaning; you might ask others to read other selections. During
the discussion, ask others to find quotes or passages that support their
interpretations or conjectures. Keep the group on task in discussing the book by
bringing them back to the details of the text!
Connector. You make connections to other things we have read and/or discussed, as
well as to specific personal experiences in your own life, and to anything else
“outside of the book or our class.” As you get to know your group-mates, you
may be able to make connections to things you know about their interests and
concerns as well. Also, look for connections within the novel: how are events,
places, people, symbols, etc., related to each other? Any relationship between
such things that you can find is a key to an important concept. Come prepared
with your connections. During the discussion, get the others to make connections
by asking questions (e.g., have you ever felt the way “ …” did when
“…” happened in the book? Have you ever been in such a situation and found
it turned out differently?)
Illustrator. Your job is “representation and analogy.” You
draw pictures, make charts, organize ideas in webs, and otherwise represent
ideas in the novel to the group. Stick figures and flow charts are just as good
as sketches or cartoons. Show your work without comment to the others in the
group. One at a time, have them
speculate on what your picture/etc. means, and to connect it to their own ideas
about the reading. After everyone
has had a say, you get the last word: tell them what your picture means, where
it came from, or what it represents to you. Also, pay close attention to
metaphors that are used – both by the author, and by the members of your group
as they talk, because metaphors are valuable ways of representing important
ideas. Point these out to your group, and ask them to consider the implications.
Soundtracker.
Music can be a powerful force in a
movie. Watch your favorite movie again, and listen to the way music can convey
emotion, build suspense, or add to the excitement of a movie. Pretend your book
is being produced as a motion picture, and you have been hired to create the
soundtrack for the film. As the Soundtrack Producer your job is to determine
what songs and artists would be a part of the movie's soundtrack. In addition,
you will design an album cover for the soundtrack. To help you in the
development of the soundtrack, answer the following prompts: What genre of music
would fit this movie? Is it suitable for multiple genres? Explain. – Bring a
boombox with music samples!
Question Collector. You are on a serious mission to pose questions. Prepare a list of questions that the group might discuss, and, whenever the group feels like they have run out of steam, offer one of your questions for discussion. Don’t worry too much about details – help the group to talk about the main ideas. Often, the easiest way to do this is to get folks to consider what they thought about while reading: What was going on in your mind as you read that section? What questions did you have when you finished that chapter? Did anything about that character surprise you? Don’t work for answers: generate discussion. Indeed, there may be no answers to your questions. Your ultimate goal is to get the group to end up with more questions than they started with. “What questions do we have now?” is your favorite thing to take notes on. Support others’ efforts to ask questions, because they are doing your job for you! Collect questions from the group to bring to the whole class.
Literature
Circle Rubric Form
Literature Circle Participation.
(20%) Twice during the semester you will be take on a role in preparation
for small group discussion of a young adult novel. You will be evaluated on how
well you: i) prepare ideas and questions for your group; ii) participate in the
class discussion; iii) facilitate other group members' engagement with the ideas
and issues of the novel; and iv) search for ways to apply the issues of the
novel to teaching and learning in school settings. Our tentative schedule lists
when we will be discussing The Skin I'm In, by Sharon Flake, and Feed,
by M.T. Anderson.
Based on my observations during class, I offer the
following feedback:
You have prepared materials, ideas and questions for your group, according to your role, and you have found ways to share these with the group:
1 2 3 4 5 X5= _____
You have participated in the class discussion. (This includes offering opinions, finding relevant quotes from the book, asking questions of others, waiting for others to share alternative perspectives, etc.)
1 2 3 4 5 X5= _____
You
have facilitated other group members’ engagement with the ideas and issues of the novel (by
asking them about how they have interpreted something, by facilitating them in
their elaboration of ideas they are considering – e.g., by asking them
follow-up questions, by not excluding them from the conversation, etc.)
1 2 3 4 5 X5= _____
You searched for
ways to apply the issues of the novel to teaching and learning in school
settings.
1 2 3 4 5 X5= _____
Total: _____