English Sasha Blake and Mark Davis Literature Circles 3 2007-03-20 1. Who am I? How do I identify myself? 2. What is important to me? 3. Whom do I care about? W = Help the students know Where the unit is going and What is expected (prior knowledge, interests) ~ H = Hook all students and Hold their interest? ~ E = Equip students, help them Experience the key ideas and Explore the issues ~ R = Provide opportunities to Rethink and Revise their understandings and work ~ E = Allow students to Evaluate their work and its implications ~ T = Be Tailored (personalized) to the different needs, interests and abilities of learners ~ O = Be Organized to maximize initial and sustained engagement as well as effective learning. Understanding by Design Professional Workbook (p. 14), by J. McTighe and G. Wiggins, 2004, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Copyright©2005 ASCD

how to make connections between what they read and the essential questions.
ways to make meaningful connections through peer support (social constructivsim).
collect multiple sources of textual evidence to gain a greater understanding of the plot.

make predictions about text events before and during reading.
use evidence from a text to form questions and verify predictions.
respond to questions and discussion with relevant and focused comments.
discuss the meanings of new words and themes through group participation.
present their group discussion in a meaningful exhibit through oral presentation.

characteristics in a text help us to define our feelings about the story.
peer discussion can provide a valuable resource of connecting ideas and clarifying lingering questions.

NECAP GSE 9-10 (W 8.3, 14.4) and (R 13, 14.4)

NCTE and IRA Standards

Standard 3 - Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features.
Standard 7 - Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources.
Standard 11 - Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
Standard 12 - Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Through the online environment, the students will draft ideas and discuss freely what they have learned as well as engage members of the faculty and a local writer. Social constructivism will be employed through an online, dynamic, asynchronous forum where students can read and reply to responses from fellow students, faculty, and a writer.

Students will select a book based on preferred choices.
Divide students into groups based on text and needs for the Literature Circles and select the "first round" roles.
Model the roles of the Literature Circles and conduct a practice first round.
Continue working on student-selected passages while rotating the roles daily. The teacher acts as a facilitator, supporting question generation and checking for comprehension.
Demonstrate a "menu" of exhibits that the group will work on to demonstrate their text and their understanding of the essential question.
Allow student presentations to the class and evaluate using the oral presentation rubric and students' self- and group evaluations.

The teacher will maintain a Task Record of the roles each student completed using a check/check-plus/check-minus system for completed work. They will also keep track of the observed on-task behavior of students and look for patterns of unfocused work.
Exhibit-specific rubrics will be used for the final presentation, to guide students on the task at hand and to evaluate the effectiveness of the exhibit.
Logs of progress and conversations on the online forum will be used as a participation measure for all students.
The school-wide oral presentation rubric will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the presenters in the group presentation.

H: Book Talk - demonstrate the six choices for literature circle groups.

E: Daily EQ Scenarios - ask the students to journal about a scenario based on the EQ (ex. what challenges do we face as teenagers?)

T,R: Literature Circles - work on task-specific roles to answer the essential question and check for understanding of daily reading assignments.

E: Self and Group Evaluation Rubric: check individual and group participation through common criteria.

E: Presentation Exhibit: create one of the following for the oral presentation: (podcast, short film, song, interactive slideshow, poster, or Reader's Theater presentation).