Getting Started: Using Literature Circles in the Classroom

Gilbert, Lori. “Getting Started: Using Literature Circles in the Classroom.” Primary Voices. Urbana: Aug 2000. Vol 9, Iss 1; pg. 9.

Gilbert is a 5^th grade teacher who introduced literature circles to her students. She wanted to make her students better readers and writers, so she used this method to teach her youngsters basic reader-response criticism. She tells how she started group reading with picture books to pique their interest and moved into more difficult books and concepts. One of the response techniques her students enjoyed was using sticky notes to keep track of their ideas while they were reading. She describe and defends her use of “stickies” and even what she does with the submitted ones. When she collects her students stickies, she uses them to help plan future mini lessons based on what the kids don’t know. She also discusses her method of implementation and what the experience was like, and expresses her frustration with assessing the project. She gave a self-evaluation and conducts individual conferences with the students to discuss that assessment.

The author of this article was a first year teacher at the time she wrote this article, and she was quite idealistic. She does express some frustration with the process and the need for more reflection and tweaking to perfect the use of literature circles in her classroom. Ultimately, I think I’ll use her experience more in action than in writing. Some of the problems that plagued her have also been plaguing me, so I’ll learn from her mistakes. I will not likely use her findings in my report though.