Complete Engagement with Digital Literature Circles

litwithlyns

10 years ago

I am so excited about how the complete engagement with Digital Lit Circles went in my classroom, that I had to share them here with you! These student-centered activities turned out better than I could have ever anticipated.

For anyone who’s new to lit circles, they are a collaborative and student-centered way to get students involved in the book they are reading. Students are put into groups based on the book they choose. Then, each student is given a job for the week. The ones I use are: Discussion Director, Vocab Finder, Character Catcher, Main Idea Maniac, and Figurative Language Finder (if you happen to have 5 to a group).

Why Use Digital Lit Circles

Doing these activities digitally is a great way to incorporate 21st century learning and keep students’ attention! Every aspect takes place online through Google Classroom or whatever learning management program you use. Except for the reading of course (unless they have the books on their own devices). That also means no paper! Everything from the tracking of the page numbers and jobs, grading of the activities, etc. is done virtually! Now that Google Classroom has the new feature that allows you to assign work to individual students, groups, etc. it makes it EXTREMELY easy to assign digital lit. circle groups! I LOVE THIS!!! It makes differentiation a breeze!!!

This is How the Lit Circles are Ran in My Classroom:

When putting my students into groups, I make sure that each group has 4, but no more than 5 members. On the first day, I tell my students how many days they will have to read the book and try to allow for approximately 20 minutes of literature circle work each day. Of course, this doesn’t always work out. I also let them know if our schedule changes (we don’t have class due to testing, school events, etc.) that I will add a day to the agreed upon days.

Must-Dos to Keep Engagement with Lit Circles

On day 1, they are to see how many pages are in their novel. Then divide that number by the number of days they get to complete the book. This tells them how many pages to read each day.
One thing I have learned in doing these for several years, is that all directions HAVE to be EXTREMELY clear. Students have to know exactly what is expected. This is key to keeping students’ attention. Before we get started, I go over each “job” that they have to complete at some point while reading the assigned book. For the first week, I assign the jobs. This is mainly because I want to be the one to choose the discussion director. This is the group leader. Then I typically allow the students to decide who will do what job in the following weeks.
It’s also very important that they complete the Tracking Sheet. This tells me who is doing what for the week. It also allows me to see who was supposed to complete the discussion director, vocab finder, etc. jobs.
Since students are completing their jobs digitally, on the first day, I have the discussion director for each group pull up the file, which I have posted online. You can share the link via whatever digital program you use. Then I instruct the discussion director to share the document with each group member by clicking the “share” button, and then enter each group members’ email. This way they are all collaborating/working on the same file. Next, I have the discussion director to also make at least 4 duplicates of each slide. This is so each person can have a copy of each slide when it is their turn to perform the job. This is also why it’s EXTREMELY important for the group to accurately complete the Tracking Sheet each week. Once again, this shows me who is completing each job that week, when I go in to check their work.

Weekly Lit Circle Meeting

Each week, usually Friday, the groups have their weekly meeting. This is where each group member shares the information the for their weekly assignment. This is also where it’s very important for students to follow directions and stay on task. Otherwise, these meetings tend to not go as planned.

With this in mind, I have my students follow a script that I have created and included in the resource. The script is used by the Discussion Director, who also serves as the group leader for that week. At the end of the meeting, I make sure that each group has determined who is doing each job for the next week. I also make sure everyone is aware of what pages they are to read. I require that they document all of this on the tracking sheet before the meeting is over. This also keeps engagement with digital lit circles going, as well.

To purchase this resource, click here. If you prefer the printable version, click here.