Literature Circles Online
By Maddy Dahl
Literature circles are an excellent way to encourage a love of reading, while getting students to improve reading comprehension skills. Providing ample choice in reading options helps get students excited about the content and allows for them to read something that aligns with their interests. Though running a literature circle unit seems difficult to do online, it can be done! The following post walks through my experience with literature circles in an 11th and 12th grade English class.
Picking Anchor Standards and Skills
Before deciding on books and organizing groups, make sure to decide what skills you want students to demonstrate during this unit. When building a unit, I try not to include too many standards to keep from overwhelming the students. I generally try to have one standard for each week of the unit’s length. That way, I have ample time to revisit standards and ensure student comprehension. For my 5 week literature circles unit, I focused on the following standards:
RL.11-12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
RL.11-12.3 Analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama
RL.11-12.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful
SL.11-12.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
SL.11-12.4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.
These standards allowed me to focus my unit on both reading comprehension and group discussions. Throughout the school year, students had practiced writing about what they had read, but I wanted them to carry on conversations with their peers to make these literature circles effective tools for learning from each other.
Deciding on Novels
When creating a literature circles unit, I try to incorporate novels that relate to student interest. My literature circles unit is usually my last unit of the year, so I have ample time to get to know my students.
At the beginning of each school year, I have a survey that asks students what their favorite genre of literature or film is. Using that data and what I have learned about my students throughout the year, I try to pick novels that interest them while providing grade appropriate reading content.
For my classes, I picked 5 novels so the reading groups would have six to seven students in each group. I also tried to pick books that were relatively recent or had recently been adapted into a movie to help ensure student interest. The 5 novels I ended up choosing were:
Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (for the horror fans)
The Road by Cormack McCarthy (for the dystopia fans)
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (for the war buffs)
Where the Crawdads Since by Delia Owens (for those wanting a love story)
Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (for the social justice and historical fiction lovers)
Though some of these books deal with difficult content or have strong language, I could argue for the literary merit of each of them. After creating this list, I emailed it out to both students and parents with a preemptive “content warning” for the novels. This way, I avoid having any parents being angry with the novel their students are reading, as I have provided a warning ahead of time and given them several options for reading. I also prepared students ahead for potentially upsetting content so they could make sure they were choosing the right book.
Organizing Groups
For each novel, I wrote out a small description and developed a weekly reading schedule. Then I created a Google Form that asked students to pick their top 3 choices for novels to read. I tried to keep everyone in their top choice, but also tried to ensure that the groups would work well together and not cause too much distraction.
Asynchronous Discussions and Notes Assignments
Since my unit focused mainly on reading comprehension and speaking and listening skills, I designed two main assignments to be completed each week that focused on these areas. If you are using different standards for your unit, your assignments could look drastically different.
One of my co-workers had created a Google Slides “notebook” that had several pages focusing on different topics for note taking each week. I adapted this assignment to match the standards I was teaching. Each week, students would complete a couple notebook pages based on that week’s reading. These ranged from taking notes on characterization to setting to drawing connections to the real world. Students could then use these notes to assist them with their other major weekly assignment, the video discussion board.
My class is housed in Canvas, which allows students to record videos as part of their discussion board. Each week, students would post an initial 3-5 minute video on Tuesday based on the reading for the week. I matched the prompt for each week to the general topic and provide an outline for their video. On Thursday, students would watch the videos of their peers and record 1-2 minute responses to at least 2 of their peers.
I wanted to ensure students recorded themselves speaking clearly and included their faces on camera, but I also didn’t want to completely penalize students who were too nervous to be on camera. To deal with these issues, I created a sliding grade scale that looked like this:
Speaking on microphone and appearing on camera the entire time can earn up to 100% on the assignment (This was because I was measuring those speaking and listening skills).
Speaking on microphone but not appearing on camera can earn up to 90% on the assignment
Typing your response in 3-4 complete paragraphs can earn up to 75% on the assignment
This grading scale created enough of an incentive for students to at least speak on the microphone, but ensured that all students were able to complete the assignment, regardless of their anxiety about speaking on the microphone.
Reflections
I try to have some sort of reflection at the end of every unit. My purpose in doing this is so I can improve on these units in the future based on the student feedback. This unit ended with a unit evaluation where I asked how they felt about the assignments and the novels. Most students liked both the major weekly assignments and the novels, though the students who read The Road through the novel was not a particularly “fun” or engaging text for the end of the school year. For this reason, I am removing this novel from my future assignments.
Overall, students enjoyed the literature circles because they were able to choose their reading and could discuss in small groups. I had more success with students completing the assignments on time during this unit, which most students attributed to enjoying what they were reading and having the added pressure of not letting their peers down.
This is a unit I definitely plan to continue using each year.
Maddy has been teaching English online for a decade. She has developed curriculum and taught classes ranging from reading and writing intervention to advanced placement courses. As an Instructional Coach for SYS, Maddy helps teachers build online content that is both rigorous and engaging for students.