literature circles: the impact that they have upon reading...

26
Literature Circles 1 Literature Circles: The impact that they have upon Reading Comprehension in intermediate level classrooms. Author: Maren Aldrich

Upload: nguyenphuc

Post on 08-Jun-2018

220 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Literature Circles 1

Literature Circles: The impact that they

have upon Reading Comprehension in

intermediate level classrooms.

Author: Maren Aldrich

Literature Circles 2

Literature Circles 3

Abstract

This study was focused on literature circles and the impact that they have over a student’s

reading comprehension at the fourth and fifth grade level within a suburban school district. The

focal students were six fourth grade students and five fifth grade students, three of which had

Individualized Education Programs. Teachers, students, and parents were interviewed and

observed in their learning for the time of literature circles for half of the school year in order to

see progress or digression in their reading comprehension. In the observations of the students in

their literature circles it was abundantly clear that they were becoming more engaged in the

conversations and readings. It would be more telling to observe a third grade classroom to see

their interactions because they are a part of the intermediate level.

Literature Circles 4

Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………..pg. 5

Theoretical Framework…………………………………………………pg. 5-6

Review of Literature……………………………………………………pg. 6-10

Methods…………………………………………………………………pg. 10-16

Findings…………………………………………………………………pg. 16-20

Implications……………………………………………………………..pg. 20-21

Conclusion/Limitations…………………………………………………pg. 21-22

Appendices………………………………………………………………pg. 23-25

References……………………………………………………………….pg. 26

Literature Circles 5

The focus of this research paper is to determine whether or not literature circles can be

used as the basis for improving a student’s reading comprehension. There are many components

that are addressed to reach the answer to this question. The sociocultural theory is the

foundation to a lot of research and theorists have been able to find that literature circles are an

essential asset to learning. The simple question of what literature circles are, which leads to the

engagement of readers, and ultimately their reading comprehension will lead to the findings of

this study. The participants in this study along with the background of the school are included to

give some information as to what students were learning and where. Limitations and

implications are made available to see what other avenues are available to the students as well as

to the teacher.

The information that is provided will show that literature circles are an important aspect

of a child’s learning. Reading comprehension is a major factor is some students’ learning and

with the use of literature circles in the classroom, students’ will be able to improve upon this

aspect of their learning. You will also find that along with ELA, literature circles seemed to help

improve upon the attitudes towards other content area subjects. The main intended goal,

however, was to prove if literature circles were a positive tool for learning to promote success

within reading comprehension.

Theoretical Framework

Literature circles are consistent with the sociocultural and the New Literacy Studies. The

New Literacy Studies demonstrates that literacy is not only cognitive but also communicative

within small groups. (Larson & Marsh, 2005). The sociocultural theory is mainly based upon the

idea of community and how to get children involved in the world around them. Children are

Literature Circles 6

living in a society that is constantly changing and they need to know how to adapt and change

with the world around them. (Larson & Marsh 2005) According to sociocultural theory, children

are constantly interacting with the people around them, and this is an important part of literacy.

It is essential for children to learn new things and they need to learn them from an abundance of

resources. One way is that children need to learn from real-life situations that are happening

around them. This is the basis of the sociocultural theory, in that children are learning from their

everyday interactions, including their peers within their own classroom. (Larson & Marsh, 2005)

Literature circles are related to this theory in this particular way because students are interacting

and gaining new insight from their peers. When students choose their own books, it shows a

common interest among students. This common interest builds toward a community, which is

the basis of the sociocultural community. Larson and Marsh define this theory as, “theory that

presents a culturally focused analysis of participation in everyday life, in both formal and

informal settings.” (Larson & Marsh, 2005)

Review of Literature

Literature circles can be defined in several ways, but all researchers agree that student

choice is a primary factor as well as the need for a teacher to facilitate the development of a

successful group. Research indicates that literature circles are used inside of the classroom

within small groups that are based upon a student’s interest of literature. (Greef, 2002) Greef

also addresses the issue of using literature circles within the home by taking strategies learned

within the school setting. Casey (2008) uses the term literature circles interchangeably with that

of book clubs and states that these terms can be used to mean the same thing. She also uses

research from Daniels (2002) that states that student selection of the texts that they read are

Literature Circles 7

“among the key pieces.” Also, Casey (2008) enforces the teacher’s role as a facilitator within the

book clubs by providing the students with the tools that they need for a successful group.

Harvey Daniels is seen to be the “inventor” of the literature circles because he has an

abundant amount of research that is based upon this activity. He discusses the importance of the

“roles” and how they are used within the literature circles. Once the students’ start to use the

literature circles, it is important for them to use the roles that are given to them to help with the

organization. After a period of time in using them, the students will be able to interact and use

the literature circles to their benefit and they will be more independent. The main influence that

Daniels has is that he is able to fully explain what literature circles are and how they are used

within the classroom to promote reading comprehension Literature circles are becoming more

and more present inside the classrooms as a way of instilling the strategies of guided reading but

in such a way that students can interact on their own. Literature circles can even be compared to

book clubs in the way that students are choosing their own books and materializing their own

questions that will lead conversations. Harvey Daniels states, “the consistent outcome is that

kids are falling in love with books they have chosen.” (Daniels 2006)

Implementing Literature Circles

Implementing literature circles is a process that needs to be carried out over a period of

time in order to ensure the success of the groups, which includes teacher models and maps of

how literature circles will be ran. In contrast to guided reading groups, literature circles are a

way for children to share their thoughts and ideas about texts that are of interest to them.

According to research conducted by Lloyd (2004), implementing literature circles are a way to

engage students in reading as well as gain independence for their own reading. She argues that

Literature Circles 8

in using round-robin reading, students do not gain the understanding of engaged conversation

and in using small groups, students are more able to participate in conversation. She also found

that in letting students choose their own reading material, they became more engaged in their

reading and were more apt to comprehend the text. Lloyd’s (2004) research showed that using

interesting questions the students formulated, in turn, made the students anticipation grow. The

research by Berne and Clark (2008) indicated that by having the teacher model their own

literature circle prior to student literature circles, would be a benefit to implementation. Lloyd

(2004), Berne and Clark (2008) both show that using a chart to map out student literature circles

is a good structure to use throughout the meeting times.

Engaging Readers

Another study that was conducted has shown that in allowing students to engage in

literature circles on the very first day, students are becoming engaged in the learning process.

Lloyd (2004) engages students in the learning process on the first day of literature circles

whereas Berne and Clark (2008) implement teacher roles for the first two days and then include

students. Berne and Clark address the topic of teacher given prompts that are provided to the

students. Both researchers monitor one literature circle at a time, as this leads to only one

literature group working at a given time. Lloyd (2004), however, focuses on the idea that

students should lead their own conversations because they will engage more in the meaning

behind the text. Her approach to literature circles is that there are many groups that are working

at one time, while there is teacher rotation around the room to take notes. In using a simple

checklist or chart, the teachers are quickly and efficiently able to take notes of their observations.

Literature Circles 9

The importance of questions and how they are used within the literature circles are addressed in

Lloyd (2004) as well as Berne and Clark (2008).

Benefits of Literature Circles

The benefits of literature circles range from a number of different ideas but the main

focus of literature circles is reading comprehension. (Berne and Clark 2008) Along with reading

comprehension, Greef (2002) literature circles can also bring students together and this shows

how they are able to work in a community. Berne and Clark (2008) have conducted research that

shows the reading comprehension strategies that students gain from one another while

participating in literature circles. Berne and Clark (2008) also mention the increasing range of

text difficulty that will be accomplished by using literature circles within the classroom. Lloyd

(2004), however, believes that to solely focus literature circles on reading comprehension is not

the most effective way. Other strategies are important to use while in literature circles because

there are more aspects of literacy that can be addressed. She does agree with Berne and Clark

(2008) that reading comprehension is important to focus on, so comprehension will be used to

guide the literature circles.

The linking of one strategy to the next is another goal that Lloyd (2004) discusses and

also states, “a singular focus introduced each strategy, I was careful to return and link new

strategies to old ones.” (pg. 124) Other students are able to use the strategies within their own

reading and then this allows a time to engage in a meaningful conversation about the text.

Daniels (2006) uses a different approach to literature circles and why they are beneficial, using

four words: engagement, choice, responsibility, and research. He discusses these four aspects in

detail and states that students will want to join literature groups because there are fewer children.

Literature Circles 10

In regards to simplicity, children are going to want to join a group that is more student-

centered and not facilitated by a teacher. Teachers do, however, have some input, as to a

selection of books that students should read, but this is where choice is beneficial because

students will have chosen their own books. Daniels (2006) research demonstrates that once

students are given the task of being their own facilitator, they are more likely to take on more

responsibility.

Methods

Interviews

Teachers, enrichment specialist, and a special education teacher were informally

observed throughout this study. Each teacher gave their answers to specific questions about the

school, students, individual settings, curriculum, and instruction (Appendix A). For the most

part, I wrote down simple notes that I would be able to transcribe after our meetings. These

interviews were informal so I did not use a tape recording device .

When beginning this study, I had parent permission forms that were signed so that I was

able to work with students for the study. After receiving these permission forms, I then

informally interviewed a select few of parents to receive their input about their child’s reading

habits within the home. As a part of my selection process, I simply chose from a variety of

backgrounds of the students in order to get results that would be based within a dynamic cluster.

Some of these questions ranged from asking if their child reads at home to if they willingly read

or if they are prompted by the parent (Appendix B). For the most part, interviews were

conducted over the telephone because a one on one interview was not conducive for most

Literature Circles 11

parents. While on the phone, I was able to write down quick notes of what was discussed and

then I wrote down any of the information that might have been left out.

Observations.

The one fourth and fifth grade classrooms were observed two times a week for the one to

one and a half hour block schedules. While in the fourth grade classroom, I chose one literature

circle group that was in the study to carefully observe during their time meeting together. I

chose this group because there were a variety of learning styles that would provide me with

different results that would give me a lot of information. Some of the readers were at a lower

level and others were on the high end of the reading spectrum. While in the fifth grade

classroom, I chose one child that was participating in the study to observe closely during the

block of time. When I observed the enrichment specialist once a week for thirty minutes, I chose

one student that was included in this study to observe carefully and I chose this particular student

because they were below reading level and I wanted to observe how this time would be

beneficial to them and how literature circles helped or altered their learning.

While in each classroom or setting, I carefully monitored and observed the student or

students without interfering with their learning. I was able to take notes of the interactions that

they were having along with their learning styles and conversations with others. I also watched

for the type of books the students were choosing and the questions that they were inquiring

about. I chose a location within the classroom that would not be intrusive to their learning styles

and I would quietly take notes on the interactions that occurred. I did not actively participate

unless asked by a student or the teacher. Observation notes were continually checked by the

classroom teacher as well as by my graduate peers.

Literature Circles 12

Setting

School. Meadowbriar Elementary School was constructed and built in 1965 in the midsized

school district of a suburban town. The housing developments that surround the school include

homes, apartments, townhouse, and public/low income housing. Meadowbriar enrolls

approximately 391 students for the 2008-2009 school year in kindergarten through grade five.

Twenty percent of the children are classified as economically disadvantaged and receive reduced

or free lunches. Meadowbriar also offers breakfast services along with their daily lunch menu.

Twelve percent of the student population receive special education services or are classified as

limited English proficient. Twenty-nine percent of students are classified as the minority,

including African-American, Asian or Pacific Islander, and Multi-Racial. The other seventy-one

percent are classified as Caucasian students.

Contrary to the other schools within this district, Meadowbriar saw a dramatic change

within the demographics of the school’s enrollment of minority and low-income families.

Meadowbriar’s test scores have always been well above average and for the 2008-2009 school

year, it will be very telling to see how demographics played a role in test scores. This particular

school has been commended for teacher performance as well as student performance on state

tests and has never been under scrutiny for improving school programs. However, the school

does have an enrichment specialist along with four full time reading specialists, and three

reading teacher assistants. The enrichment specialist along with the reading specialists is

designed mainly as a pullout method of teaching. During this time, students are learning and

using new strategies that will help them in becoming better readers. As a result of the school

district, Meadowbriar was forced to cut the Reading Recovery program that was in place for

Literature Circles 13

kindergarten and first grade students. This was unfortunate for the school because there was

about 40 percent of students that qualified for this program.

Along with these programs, there were also professional developments that were made

readily available to the teachers. One of these workshops was designed around a downfall that

students had on the 2007-2008 New York State ELA test. Poetry was posing a problem for

many of the students on this ELA standardized test, so Meadowbriar designed a professional

development for teachers to attend that would enhance their understanding of poetry and how to

use it within the classroom. Meadowbriar also has a monthly school bulletin that is sent home

with the students to review with their parents and there are teacher designed websites and plenty

of support from the school district.

Classrooms. The observations conducted took place in a fourth, fifth and enrichment specialist’s

classrooms. The fourth and fifth grade teachers had their own classrooms to conduct the

literature circles and the enrichment specialist had her office to conduct her literature circles.

Inside the fourth grade classroom, there was plenty of space for the students to work and the

literature circle groups were conducted around the room. The fifth grade classroom conducted

their literature circle as a whole group because a number of the students received their services at

the designated time. The special education teacher pushed into the classroom at this time to

conduct the literature circles while the classroom teacher provided support. As for the

enrichment specialist, she conducted her literature circles using a pull-out method, in which she

took small groups of above level readers to her own office space. All of these classroom settings

provided the students with the ability to work in a conducive environment. The only downside

would be in the fourth grade classroom where the students placed themselves around the room.

Literature Circles 14

It was sometimes difficult to remain on task when there were distractions such as other students

and noise volume.

Participants

Teachers. During the school year, I worked closely with two classroom teachers, enrichment

specialist, and a special education teacher. In the fourth grade classroom and in the enrichment

room, the teacher was the only instruction that was being implemented. In the fifth grade class,

the special education teacher was co-teaching with the classroom teacher. There was an aide that

was in both classrooms for about a half hour.

Deidre Youngman has been a teacher for twelve years and has remained at the fourth

grade level for all twelve years. Her degree is for early childhood through grade 5 and she has

obtained a Master’s degree in Special education. It was very informative to observe Youngman

within her classroom because she has been teaching at this level for her entire career. There was

a lot of details that she was able to provide that I do not feel I would gain from a first or second

year teacher. She also provided a lot of resources that she has been using that was able to make

her somewhat of a master in using literature circles.

Sarah Diamond has been teaching for twenty years and ten of those years was spent at

Meadowbriar in which she taught fourth, first, and now at the fifth grade level. She has been a

teacher leader for all of the grade levels that she has taught and she is even on the intermediate

literacy team. She graduated with a degree in general education grades 1-5 and she obtained her

Master’s in literacy. This was her first year of incorporating literature circles within her

classroom, as well as, the special education teacher that pushed in during this time. This was a

learning process that was able to develop over the period of time that was spent within the

classroom.

Literature Circles 15

Julie Edwards has been the special education teacher at Meadowbriar for the past five

years and before that, she was a special education teacher within another school district. She

provides services to students who have Individualized Education Program or IEP. Edwards’

services are mainly inside the classrooms, however, at times she pulls students out to work one

on one with them. She has had many experiences with literature circles and was working with

the fifth grade teachers in helping to expand this program.

Susan Leonard has been an enrichment specialist for the past seven years and has taught

within the district for twenty-one years. Her main focus is to carry out the goals of the teachers

that use differentiated instruction. Susan is there to support all grade level teachers with helping

students with the information that they need to know at the end of each lesson or unit. By

providing enrichment opportunities to the students, they will be engaging in their own learning

by making choices that are of interest to them.

Students. During my first week of visiting the classrooms, I was able to identify one group of

students in each of the classrooms and one student in the enrichment room that I was observing.

Within those two groups, which consisted of five students in each, there were three males and

two females in one and four males and one female in the other. The student that was observed in

the enrichment room was a female student. All of the students were at different reading levels as

well as having different learning styles.

Once I was focused on these students, I was able to talk with their parents and ask them

certain questions about their child’s reading habits at home. Some parents came in for

conferences during the time that I was in the classroom so I was able to talk to them and ask for

their permission at that point in time. Five out of the eleven of these students did not attend

preschool of any kind and two of the students used English as a Second Language. Three of the

Literature Circles 16

students had an IEP, which provided them with certain services inside as well as outside of the

classroom.

Findings

What are Literature Circles?

This type of literary stance is one that is introduced by the teacher with a tool called role sheets.

In using these role sheets, the students are able to play different parts in order to increase their learning of

the text that they have selected. There are four to five students within one literature circle and everyone

in that group has a role to play. One student will play the connecter, connecting the text to other parts of

their own experiences or anything that will link something to the book. Another could be the visualizer,

who would visualize the text and what may be happening next within the text. Inferencing is another role

that can be played and the summarizer that would summarize the entire text so that it is clear to all

students what the book was about. These role sheets can be used in the beginning but it is important that

students do not become attached to them. This will help them to gain more of an understanding outside

of the roles. Teachers will then allow the students to work on their own within their groups by having the

students select the texts that they wish to work with. Students generate their own questions about the

piece of literature that they have selected and they also create their own tools for learning by finding what

parts of the book they feel are most important. During their time at literature circles the students are to set

in place their own plan of how the time will be spent and they are also responsible for creating rules and

keeping records of what they have accomplished. The students also are to create their own assessments as

a key component of their learning.

In my observations and understandings, I learned a lot about what literature circles are

and how they work within the classroom. Each teacher has a different way of using this literacy

tool, but in the end it all comes back to “children are allowed to be their own teachers during

literature circles and make up their own lesson plans.” (Youngman 2009) This really gave me a

Literature Circles 17

perspective on what literature circles really are and what they are able to do for children’s

learning.

Engaging Readers.

Engaging students to want to read can be a very difficult task, especially when children

believe that they are not proficient readers. In some of my early observations and interview

questions, I was able to uncover that students really are interested in reading; however, it

sometimes needs to be on their own terms. When interviewing one parent, I had come to learn

that their child loved to read mystery books at home and that they were always reading during

their free time. On the other hand, this same student would never show any interest in reading

during school and this was because the book that they were reading at the time was a historical

text. Once the student was able to choose a book for literature circles, I saw a tremendous

difference in the response that was given. Time after time we see students who become

uninterested in school and they then turn to other things to occupy the time that should be spent

focusing on schoolwork.

When I first interviewed the selected students, many of them stated that the books that

they read for social studies and during guided reading are not very interesting. This question led

to a conversation about a current book that they were reading and when I probed further, I came

to realize that they did not even know simple details about the book. This showed me a lot about

the level of interest that they had towards the material that they were supposed to be engaged in.

I could also look at it from a different standpoint and say that the teacher was not putting forth

the effort that is needed to engage the students in reading. Too many times, we look at the

students and why they are misbehaving in the classroom and too many times we blame them for

Literature Circles 18

their actions. The truth is, sometimes, we should look at the fact that they are simply bored in

school and have no other way of showing this then to act out.

In final, informal interviews with the students, I asked them how literature circles

affected their level of interest in reading. The answers that I received varied based upon each

student and the level of interest that they had before I even conducted this study. Some students

were already interested in reading and literature circles just gave them a different type of

learning. The other students showed a lot of emotion towards literature circles and their grades

proved that they were really enjoying this form of reading and learning. I even noticed that the

grades and effort in the other content areas was improving, which I did not think that I would

see. When I asked one of the students why this was, they responded with “I don’t know, I

usually get really bored because math is after reading, but after literature circles, I’m ready to

learn more.” This was a huge indicator for me because I was able to see that when students are

engaged, it will provide only a positive outcome for the other areas of school.

Overall, the students really enjoyed using the literature circles as a follow-up to guided

reading lessons. I found that other content areas were improving as well because the students

were not bored with their reading. I thought about it as a ripple effect and once they were

interested in one area, then they could use those skills to help them engage in another content

area. Grades were starting to improve in their reading and writing and the students were

showing a lot of enthusiasm towards reading.

Reading Comprehension.

Along with engaging the students in their reading, Literature Circles showed to be a good

tool to use in order to improve reading comprehension. Engagement and comprehension go

hand in hand because once a child is interested in reading; they are able to comprehend what

Literature Circles 19

they are reading. Connections can be made to the text and students are able to use those skills to

understand and interpret the texts that they interacting with.

I found that as the time went on and as the students became more comfortable with the

literature circles that they were beginning to understand a lot more of what they were reading. In

the initial stages of my study, I found that students were scoring poorly on their assessments and

towards the end; students were able to retell and recall a lot of important details. During

interviews, I was able to see that the students were really excited about what they were learning.

One student, in particular, who was not even able to tell me the main idea of a story before the

study; was able to tell me numerous important facts about the book he was reading during his

literature circle. Another positive goal that I did not set was the students were really being able

to interact with one another. I saw a lot of instructional conversations instead of students

becoming off task with the topic at hand. I was genuinely able to observe and discuss with

students of both classes, as well as, the enrichment room to see what they were learning and how

this new tool was able to help them understand and comprehend the texts.

One particular assignment was a real key indicator for me as to how much the students

were really learning. As a part of an assessment for the literature circle groups, the students were

asked to complete a worksheet along with a book report type essay of the book that they had just

finished. They were allowed to complete this assignment within the literature groups as long as

everyone was an active participant. This was the part that really worried me because I know how

easy it is to pass off an assignment to the other classmates in your group. I was completely

shocked when I actually saw each of the students participating within the group and adding their

own little piece to the puzzle. Some students were linking back to the text and thinking about

Literature Circles 20

other pieces that were important that some did not think about. This was the real indicator that

the literature circles were becoming a real part of working on their comprehension.

This was the main goal that I was trying to reach within my research and I was really

impressed with the way that students improved upon their reading comprehension. I could see

that they were becoming better readers not only within the literature circles, but within other

content areas as well. That was one thing that I did not expect because my main focus was on

the ELA and literature circles. Overall, I feel that the students were finally able to choose books

of their liking and in turn they were only improving on their success as students. It seemed like a

positive outcome for all parties that were involved.

Implications

This study gives a fairly good picture of literature circles and the reading comprehension

of students at the intermediate levels. The research and data documents that students are more

engaged in their reading when they are able to choose books of interest instead of being forced

into a reading that has no meaning to them. The literature circles give the students a choice and

this is an essential piece of their learning. I believe that if teachers implement literature circles

into their classrooms, they will see a tremendous difference in not only their reading

comprehension but also within their attitudes towards school. Students will continually become

engaged in the reading, their peers, and within other aspects of school. When students are able to

participate in literature circles, they are going to retain a lot more information and apply these

skills towards other areas of their learning.

My own implications of this study are ones that I will be able to take with me and use in

my own classroom. I was never a student that was able to read a text and immediately

Literature Circles 21

understand what I had just read. I needed to be engaged and reading something that was of

interest to me, that is how I learned best. I wish that literature circles were a part of the

curriculum so that they are able to help those students who were like me. They are a great tool

and should be used to foster the long success that teachers are always trying to give to students.

Conclusion/Limitations

In conclusion, literature circles can be a way of the future. More and more we see them

inside our classrooms and being used with our students. Literature circles are a great way to use

the skills of guided reading and apply them into working with others. When the students learn

from their peers, they are able to obtain more information than just reading a book on their own.

They are able to understand what they are reading at a much higher level and they are also able

to interact with the other students around them. Students are improving their reading

comprehension scores and are able to provide details that were never there for them prior to

using this new system of learning.

The limitations of this study include a range of things such as the fourth and fifth grade

classrooms to the needs of each individual student. There were only two intermediate

classrooms that were observed and researched at the fourth and fifth grade levels out of the seven

total, not including the three third grade classes, therefore the results cannot be generalized.

When teachers were having the consultant teachers and enrichment specialist interrupt

instruction, it became more difficult to stay on the same page. Proper planning between all

parties was scheduled, but sometimes there were conflicts and everyone was not acting towards

the same specific goal. I also did not observe any of the students outside of the school

environment. It was helpful to talk to parents about their child’s habits but I was not able to

Literature Circles 22

witness these actions first hand. Interacting with the teachers and students within the classroom

was the most beneficial to my research. Each child has a different learning style as well, so it

was more difficult to generalize each student in having the same attitudes and behaviors towards

learning.

Literature Circles 23

Appendix A:

Teacher Interview Questions

1. How long have you been working as an educator? Where?

2. How long have you been working within the district that you are currently employed with

now?

3. Do you have any experience with Literature Circles? In what ways?

4. Do you feel that the curriculum is conducive with your instruction within the classroom?

5. What is the environment of your classroom? Classroom management, procedures, etc.

6. What are the attitudes and different learning styles of your students?

7. What are some strengths and weaknesses? Curriculum, individually, collaboratively, etc.

8. Any other information that you would like me to know?

Literature Circles 24

Appendix B:

Parent Interview Questions

1. What are your child’s reading/writing habits at home?

2. Do you read to your child regularly?

3. What are your child’s strengths and weaknesses in school?

4. What is your child’s favorite genre or type of text to read?

5. Does your child read to you or anyone else within your household?

6. Does your child enjoy reading/writing?

7. Any other information that you would like me to know?

Literature Circles 25

Appendix C:

Student Interview Questions

1. Do you like to read/write? At home, in school, for fun?

2. What is your favorite kind of book to read?

3. Do you get to choose your books that you read in school?

4. Do you like to work by yourself or with your classmates?

5. Would you like to have more choice in the activities and books that you read?

6. What is your favorite subject?

7. What is the best part of your day at school?

Literature Circles 26

References

Berne, J. & Clark, K. (2008). Focusing Literature Discussion Groups on Comprehension

Strategies. The Reading Teacher, 74-79.

Casey, H. (2008). Engaging the Disengaged: Using Learning Clubs to Motivate Struggling

Adolescent Readers and Writers. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 284-294.

Daniels, H. (2006). What’s the Next Big Thing with Literature Circles? Voices From the

Middle. 13, 4, 10-15.

Daniels, H. (1994). Literature Circles: voice and choice in the student-centered classroom. New

York: Stenhouse Publishers.

Greef, E (2004). Lighting the Fire: Inspiring Boys to become Readers. International Association

of School Librarianship, 143-160.

Greef, E. (2002). The Power and the Passion: Igniting a Love of Reading through Literature

Circles. International Association of School Librarianship. 311-320.

Lloyd, S.L. (2004). Using comprehension strategies as a springboard for student talk. Journal of

Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 48:2, 114-124.

Neaman, M (2001). Literature Circles cooperative learning for grades 3-8. Englewood, CO:

Teachers Ideas Press.

Wies Long, T, & Gove, M.K (2004). How engagement strategies and literature circles promote

critical response in a fourth-grade, urban classroom. The Reading Teacher, 57, 350.