The intent of literature circles is "to allow students to practice and develop the skills and strategies of good readers" (DaLie, 2001).
Later that year, some of her fifth grade students expressed an interest in reading them, organized themselves loosely into groups, and started to discuss the novels.
They differ from traditional English instruction where students in classroom all read one "core" novel, often looking to the teacher for the answers and the meaning and literary analysis of the text.
Well-run literature circles highlight student choice; occur over an extended period of time as part of a balanced literacy program; involve numerous structured and unstructured opportunities for student response and interpretation; and incorporate assessment and evaluation that includes self-assessment and numerous extension projects.
Reader-response criticism, independent reading, and student-centered learning comprise most of the theoretical underpinning of literature circles.
Features of literature circles include (Daniels, 1994): Discussion prompts can be given by the teacher to encourage a direction for the students' responses, such as "How does the setting affect the characters?"
Clip boards may assist children in using their role sheets when groups use floor space to conduct their discussions.
Schlick Noe and Johnson note that role sheets take focus and energy away from group discussions: "Students can learn collaborative and individual accountability strategies to make their discussions work without the constraints of role sheets" (Schlick Noe and Johnson, 1999).
Most teachers starting out may, however, wish to assign roles to students to help them learn some of the structures of Literature Circles and to aid in classroom management.
One thing to keep in mind: Readers who are deeply engaged with a book and eager to talk about it with others may not need the structure of roles.
Many teachers discover that the roles feel restrictive to some students and can become a disincentive to take part in literature circles.
Harvey Daniels always intended roles to be a temporary scaffold to support students as they learn to talk about books in small groups.
This role involves locating a few significant passages of text that are thought-provoking, funny, interesting, disturbing, or powerful.
The summary should include the main ideas or events to remember, major characters, symbols or other significant highlights of the passage.
This role involves recording where the major shifts in action or location take place in the novel for the reading section.
Historical, geographical, cultural, musical or other information that would help readers connect to the novel is often researched and shared with the group.