Collaborative Literature Circles

Literature Circles is a way of sharing ideas, thoughts, questions, and more. Currently I am reading the book 'Julie of the Wolves' by Jean Craighead George. Daisy, Melodie, and Claire are members of my group. The last Lit Circle, there was a twist, two twists actually. First, a different member was going to grade our lit circle. The second twist was, we were to partner up with someone from our group, and do a collaborative lit circle. Claire and I partnered up, we each got our equal share of work. One passage, a discussion, one response, one connection, a vocabulary word each. This collaborative lit circle had its benefits. It had its challenges and also gave knowledge.


The benefit (s) of working with a partner was, we got less work. Instead of doing of each thing, we only had to one, the other half our partner did. Doing two of each thing is hard work, finding two important passages and writing them is not easy. The most difficult, the question, you have to get a good level question, out of the box. Something that isn't answered easily, something you have to think about, especially something you give a quality answer. When you work with someone, you can get feedback from he/she to make it better. Your partner knows the book, they can help with mistakes and misunderstanding.


There were some challenges we over came or tried to over come. One, I had forgotten my book at school on thursday. It was difficult to work without the book, because without the book, I couldn't get quotes, or little details and stuff like that. Claire had mentioned to me that I could read from google books. It was a close save, I used the google book to get information. Luckily, it was only Thursday, I still had a few more days left. We had gotten over that problem. Claire too had some trouble. She just couldn't figure out a good question. She thought about it for two days and got nothing. I thought that I could give her a question, but that would've been cheating. I was checking moodle out of habit when I came across the sheet to help us with our question, "Question Stems". I examined the sheet, it was perfect! When I told Claire about this, she quickly looked over at it. Soon enough she got a good question plus a great response.


My understanding of the novel has grown since I last read. The last reading assingment was all about Julie's past. I learned she her father, Kapugen had died while fishing, Julie wasn't near him because she had to go away from seal to go to school. Her aunt, Aunt Martha, took her away. Julie later got married to Daniel at the age of thirteen. She either could live with her aunt or move away to marry Daniel. Julie never liked her aunt, even at first sight. Her husband, Daniel, was terrifying too, that was the main reason she ran away from home. Julie was heading to her pen pal, Amy, who had been waiting for Julie for months. Now Julie has gotten her reason to go away to live in San Francisco. But, she gets stuck on the North Slope. A barren land of ice, where hunting is pretty much impossible.

Literature Circle Discussion

  My literature circle group, Claire, Daisy, and Melodie, our book, Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. We did our first discussion last tuesday. Literature Circles is a way of sharing thoughts, ideas, question and so on about the same book a few people are reading. Everyone has a different viewpoint of the book, getting together and discussing about it helps the reader understand more about the book. My reading book 'Julie of the Wolves' is about a girl, Miyax, who runs away from her terrifying husband, Daniel, to her pen pal Amy who lived in San Francisco. Miyax had gotten lost on the North Slope of Alaska, where she met a pack of wolves. Soon they are her only hope of survival, The Slope is barren, with no food she has to depend on the wolves to give her food. Each person in the group shared their Lit Circle sheets, which includes two passages, two discussion questions, two responces to the questions, two connections and two vocabulary. After sharing I noticed how each of us had a different idea about the same book, and I understood that listening to each other we also helped them with mistakes they made or a misunderstanding.


 The group discussion helped my understanding of the book, not only me but everyone else in the group. I had trouble understanding the sentences and their meaning because English my second language. My group helped me clear out those problems. For example I thought someone else was talking about Miyax, like they were telling the story not Miyax. My group members explained to me how it works and I learned. Also Daisy, thought that Silver gave food to Miyax not Jello. Jello, almost an adult wolf gave food to a pup, Kapu, who brought food to Miyax.


 Connections are important in a discussion, they help bring out similar thoughts or question from group members. Sometimes there are connections sometimes there's no connections, but it's still important. Most people think similarly, but not quiet the same usually notice the same things in books. For example, for the discussion questions, Daisy and Melodie had the same question just the words were turned around a bit. They aruged about it for a while, but Claire told them that maybe they thought in similar ways.


I predict that using Lit Circles kids can express their ideas and thoughts. Then other group members will see the book from a different angle. Sometimes in your group there might be a shy kid, as they get used to Lit Circles they will start to share more ideas. Since their always with the same group they get comfortable with them.




Literature Circles is a useful reading group thats helps ideas, thoughts, question, connections, predictions for a book come out. Group members understand because they are reading the same book. Sharing ideas makes understanding easier, they can see similar ideas, edit mistakes or misunderstanding. When someone has a problem, they can ask their group members for help.

Sources-

newberryproject.blogspot.com

cobbk12.org