I don't have any research on the use of literature circles and strategic reading jobs. I have always done literature circles because I liked what I saw. Kids owned the planning of the reading, the thinking about literary analysis, and the actual discussion. It worked. If you look at Harvey Daniel's jobs, they really were an example of strategic reading. So here are the tweaks I made and the jobs I use I kept Word Wizard . It is a place to keep working on the idea of reading to write. That job collects the author's use of vivid verbs and one "new to me" or I just liked it word. We also collect "bits of language". The reader records a phrase, or sentence that grabbed him/her. I ask the kids to do a version of Save the Last Word for Me. Each member of the group tells the Wizard why he/she probably chose that bit of language. Then the WW shares, last, what was on her/his mind. Summarizer (this is the result of course of Determining Importance work) This person opens the discussion and all team members can help revise the summary if they feel the need. LOTS of great talk about what was truly important. Visualizer (records an imagery passage) They then underline the key words that helped the reader "see" and then illustrate their vision. The illustration should reflect the words the author used, but can have the reader's own twist. I am truly tough on looking at the underlined words and the illustration. I found in the past that kids weren't actually attending to the word choice of the author and were creating their own original images. Of course this changed the author's intended meaning. During the lit. circle everyone studies the picture and looks to see that the image indeed reflects the words of the author. I have heard interesting discussions, in which kids noted significant ideas were left out of a picture, which led to noting what was truly important. Self-Questioner. The person uses post-its to track the questions that pop into their mind. Even if they have arrived an their own answer, they still ask the question in group. This job often helps other kids realize that they too actually had a confusion or clunk that still hadn't been clarified. Traits Tracker: This capitalizes on making an inference. I have taught the kids a range of trait and emotion words and they keep this in their folder. This job asks them to find evidence (a character's actions or words) that caused them to make an inference about the character's personality or feelings at the moment. During the last discussion the kids are asked to write a paragraph for me noting the changes the character went through. As you can see they're very much tied to Daniel's jobs, but I find the kids take the jobs deeper when I tie them to the strategy unit we have been doing, as well. I used to just teach the jobs, without the emphasis on strategy lessons, and the discussion often fell flat. Gina 6th grade LA _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org.
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