Not the Class Novel: A Different Reading Program

Simpson, Anne. "Not the Class Novel: A Different Reading Program." Journal of Reading 38.4. (1994): 290-294.

This author of this brief article is a teacher in Australia who implemented literature circles in her classroom in order to develop new reading strategies with her students. Her article defines literature circles and their purpose, how they work, how to implement and run them, and how to assess and use sticky notes. She outlines a weekly response assignment that could be useful for students while participating and easy to assess for the teacher. Instead of assessing the students on their participation, they are graded on their written responses each week, as well as their final response assignment.

One of the things this author takes into consideration in her practice of literature circles is that this method of discussion is "less threatening" for many students who are uncomfortable speaking in front of a group. Students felt they actually got to know the other students and the teacher better through the process of small group discussion.

This author is a teacher, who claims to have successfully transferred a middle level method of teaching into a high school setting, which is also what I’m aiming to do in my research. She backs up her methods with a section of student evaluations, which were all positive. I wish she would have alluded to the negatives, just for argument’s sake, because it appears that nothing went wrong for her in this process. I will use her information as a guide for the transfer of practices from middle to high school students.