Literature Circles

I have a few of my reading groups that are really ready to be more independent.  Right now they are meeting with me and then meeting as a book club group, but I really want them to have a specific goal and activity they can do without a lot of direction from me.  I also wanted them to really get into the text and have some deep discussions. 

I have done a little research on literature circles, but I have changed some things to customize it so it will work better for my 2nd graders.  Here's what I came up with:

Literature Circle Jobs:

View the pages below to see what each job is responsible for and the pages they will complete and discuss during their group meeting.

Discussion Director:

 

Summarizer:

 

Connector:

Illustrator:

 

Word Detective:

 

 

Character Captain:

 

 

Thinking About My Thinking (Journal Page):

 

You can download all of these pages HERE.

 

 

As I was researching, I came across a great site by Laura Candler with a lot of information on literature circles. The site includes helpful videos and a few free dowloads.  My favorite downloads were the question starters for group discussion as well as the guidelines and rules for polite conversation. 

 

Click HERE to visit her site!

 

Here are a couple other sites with some free literature circle downloads:

 

charmed in the 3rd grade

 

mrs. cowan