"In literature circles, small groups of students gather together to discuss a piece of literature in depth. The discussion is guided by students' response to what they have read. You may hear talk about events and characters in the book, the author's craft, or personal experiences related to the story. Literature circles provide a way for students to engage in critical thinking and reflection as they read, discuss, and respond to books."
Literature Circles Resource Center
http://www.litcircles.org/Overview/overview.html
This section of the website really helped me better understand what a literature circle is. I had never heard of a literature circle before this class. Now that I am familiar with them, I think they are a very powerful tool. Literature Circles are reader response centered. The students are giving their own opinions over the material to their own group, not to the entire class. I think having the students choose what they want to read out of a list of books make it more interesting for them. They are not being forced to read something they don’t want to. They will be more willing to participate and be engaged in the discussion if they are interested in the material.
I wish we had done something like this when I was in school. My teachers would assign reading material and we would discuss it as an entire class. That intimidated me and most my classmates, so only a few students would participate. Had the discussion been broken down into groups, I would have been more likely to give my response to the material.
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Kim: I wish there had been something like this back in my day. Even just the idea that I got to choose what I wanted to read would've been huge. The one time I did get to choose a title was back in the 11th grade: a buddy and I asked our teacher if we could, based on religious grounds, opt out of reading THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. She was cool with that, but said we weren't off the reading hook. She pointed to her in-class library, said pick something, and you'll write a report on it when you're done. I chose THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, and I couldn't put it down. For a slow reader, finishing a book like that was huge. Not wanting to put it down was even more huge.
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