Using Literature Circles in the classroom

“ To increase the number of ALL students reading at chronological age.  An emphasis on acceleration in Yrs 1 & 2 students as well as Maori students in Yr 3 - 8 to be reading at chronological age.” Glen Innes School BoT. 

This was one of the school goals formulated by the Board. This was in large part due to our PAT results and the research and data provided by Woolf Fisher Research Centre - as discussed in a previous blog entry (19/03/2020).
We talked to other teachers about what they are implementing in their classrooms, we also went online looking for strategies that we could use to improve our students' comprehension skills, vocabulary knowledge and to promote student agency. We came across Literature Circles, a reading approach, where students work in small groups, reading the same text but each student is given a special task to complete while reading the text independently.  A meeting time is organised where the students are involved in in-depth discussion. The discussion is led by the students. Literature circles involve communication, critical thinking and creativity with the opportunity for collaboration while working on their tasks.

According to DaLie, S.O. (2001) “The most important revelation I have had about what we do as teachers is the realisation that learning must be student-centered . Students, not the teacher must be at the heart of the learning process, and they must be active participants in their own learning process, not passive recipients.” I found this quite similar to what I often say to my students and what I truly believe - "Learning is not a spectator sport, you have to participate!"

The stakeholders for using literature circles was not just restricted to our students. It includes:
Local Audiences:
According to Shugan (2003), “Research will often be more interesting if it impacts a wider audience and has a greater impact on that audience.” This indicates that learning has is of greater value and more relevant if it extends beyond the walls of your classroom. The most important audience are the students and getting them to buy-in to the idea of literacy circles and to embrace it. The local audience also includes colleagues. Although we work in single-cell classrooms, our planning and methodologies align and we work well together but it is also important that we share our newly-acquired knowledge with our peers.Having supportive colleagues is important as they often work as sounding-boards for new ideas.
The senior management team and the BoT (comprising of whanau and community members) are ultimately responsible for student achievement and they will form part of the local audience. According to the Ministry document, Successful Home-School Partnerships,” Where teachers are committed to working closely with parents, and see this partnership as being beneficial to their own teaching as well as to student learning, the time and effort needed to establish such relationships is not seen by teachers as being a burden. For these teachers, home–school partnerships are not an optional ‘extra’ but rather they are integral and essential to their core work of teaching.”

National Audiences:
Our colleagues within our community of learning (CoL) form part of our national audience; as data from all schools within our CoL submit their data to the WFRC (part of the University of Auckland) to identify trends, norms and patterns. The Ministry of Education and the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) also form part of our national audience as all data ultimately ends up with them. This is were student norms and averages are calculated.
International Audiences
New Zealand education compares relatively favourably in world rankings (OECD). This is just one of the international audiences. International students and their parents often use this ranking to decide on an educational institution to attend. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),  Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) are all agencies that form part of our international audience. What we achieve in the classroom ultimately affects education not just within our school bubble but has international implications.

Reese (2019) pointed out that “many authentic tasks can be created for a local, national, and/or global audience. Our students need to create mental relationships for their existence in a global, interconnected world. Topic and audience can help to create the situation and require students to utilize practices and capacities, adapting as necessary for a global audience and/or an audience somewhere other than where they are familiar.”