Literature Circles: Student Reading Groups

Literature Circle praxis is meant to aid students in reading comprehension. This can take many forms. Student groups should remain 3-4 in size, depending on the regularity of attendance. Student should be able to work in an environment that affords active listening, active reading (including annotation), and writing reflection.

Literature Circles can take one lesson or several days, depending on level and length of reading. The desired outcome can be to engage the reading as a group member with a particular ROLE or to use that ROLE to process a specific aspect of the text.

Roles include:

• Discussion Director
• Vocabulary Enricher
• Literary Luminary
• Checker (for task/role objectives)
• Summarizer
• Artful Artist
• Character Captain
• Passage Picker
• Reporter
• Bridge Builder

Any combination of the above roles can be assigned by the teacher. It is up to their discretion which roles should be used and in what groupings. Some roles overlap in responsibilities. Those that overlap are also differentiated for various learners.