I’ve always wanted to incorporate literature circles into my classroom. But as an eighth grade teacher, I found it a challenge. Only with select groups did I feel it would succeed. And even then it was only towards the end of the school year.
This year marks my first starting the school year with my high schoolers. I moved to our high school this past January.
With mostly sophomores and one section of Advanced sophomores, I knew it was the perfect time to try literature circles. I chose to do this with our Holocaust unit centered around Elie Wiesel’s Night.
Here are some of my tips and successes from using literature circles with my Advanced sophomores in our Night unit.
Literature Circles: What Are They?
If you’re relatively new to the literature circles party, it would benefit you to share a little bit about them.
At the heart of literature circles is student accountability and student-centered learning. In short, the focus shifts from the teacher as “knowledge source” to the students being active participants in how they discuss what they’re learning about.
You, the teacher, prepare a general lesson plan and have an idea of what you want students to do. But it’s important to pass the torch to your students who are coached ahead of time on how to best carry themselves. While you might provide a general framework for students to follow, they’re the ones who hold the power in the activity.
For my unit on Night, our literature circles depended first on students’ reading of the assigned chapters. From there, I provided suggested discussion questions as a way to inspire student engagement. But from there, I let the students take control of the conversations.
Literature circles often promote student engagement and responsibility in the various roles students play. I suggest brainstorming a list of roles you wish students to fill. In general, those might be a leader-type role, a note taker, and a researcher. But one of the unlimited benefits of literature circles is the flexibility and customization possibilities. Basically, you do what works best for you students.
How I Grouped My Literature Circles
As mentioned, I’ve considered literature circles in my classroom when I taught at the middle level. While my eighth graders had a lot to contribute in terms of their strengths, they weren’t developmentally ready for literature circles.
To be honest, I’m not sure the majority of my sophomores are ready, either – yet. Later in the year, we’ll cover other profound texts like Oedipus Rex and Dante’s Inferno. I hope by that point, my academic classes will be ready for literature circles.
But for now, my group of Advanced sophomores was the perfect group to try this out on. Another factor working in my favor: Night is so universally-engaging and begs to be discussed. With those two things in play, it seemed the perfect time to try literature circles.
It’s worth noting the size of my class. I am lucky enough to teach 30 sophomores in my Advanced class. So, it’s a large group. Ideally, I wanted groups to be 4 students, max. But numbers-wise, I had two groups of 5.
I thought it was important to group heterogeneously. With a group like this, it wouldn’t be fair or accurate to say there were lower-level thinkers as I might have in another class. But I will say that while I had strong thinkers overall, different students certainly brought different strengths to the table.
For example, I knew the students who were natural leaders. I also knew those who were more introverted. Some were more sociable and prone to be distracted. So although I don’t necessarily have a wide range in terms of ability, it’s fair to say I have a healthy mix of strengths and weaknesses.
I also think it’s really important to offer voice and choice whenever possible and appropriate. With my Advanced sophomores, I tried to put pairs of friends with other pairs they might not otherwise choose to work with. I knew ahead of time these literature circles would be heavily discussion-based. And, at times, those discussions might get heated. So I wanted students to feel comfortable with at least one person in their group to help encourage them to speak more freely and honestly.
Night Overview and Daily Agenda
If you’re unfamiliar, Night by Elie Wiesel is a Holocaust memoir. It documents Wiesel’s survival of anti-semitism, Jewish ghettos, concentration camps, and liberation. This short but immensely powerful book never ceases to amaze me. As simple as it appears in its language, Wiesel’s detailed accounts will leave an impression with you that I promise will never leave.
When I taught eighth grade Language Arts, I also had a Holocaust unit. I taught Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. Though my shift from eighth grade to high school was easy in a lot of ways, I was reluctant to leave Anne behind.
So when I found out I’d have the honor of teaching Elie’s memoir, I knew I had to do it justice.
As short as the book is, we take our time with it. In all, it takes us about two months to cover the memoir and write an analytical essay about one of five teacher-selected motifs.
If you’ve read some of my previous work (specifically about Hamlet), you know I find a lot of value in planning a unit “backwards.” Meaning, I start with the assessment and work backwards from there. I try to figure out how I can best set up my students for success in the lessons and activities I incorporate before the assessment.
For this unit, I knew literature circles could be the perfect way to set up my Advanced students for a deep, insightful essay thanks to rich, powerful conversations with their peers.
Each day, we’d follow the same general structure. Another simple but invaluable quality you can offer your students: consistency.
It’s also worth sharing that I expected Advanced students to read the assigned chapter(s) outside of class. I did not assign the same homework for my academic classes. Requiring this double-entry reading journal of my Advanced kids was a labor of love for most. Though they begrudged its existence, they appreciated its value throughout the unit and for the assessment.
The Power of Surprise
To help settle all my students down and get them ready for the day, I require a Bell Ringer response. I project this on my board, and students record their entries on a diary-style note sheet. While they can write freely and honestly, I expect at least three complete sentences for each entry. Usually, the Bell Ringer prompts are tied in to what we’re doing that day.
Then we transition into an activator or a warm-up. One of the best things my mentor teacher taught me when I student taught was the value of surprising students. Sometimes that was getting them up and moving. Other times it was dressing in character or behaving strangely. Basically, you wanted to grab your students’ attention.
One such example in this unit came early on. To help students better understand the crowded and uncomfortable nature of the ghettos and transports, I taped a box on the floor. Now, I had done a lot of research ahead of time, finding out the exact measurements of cattle cars as well as the average number of victims transported. I then scaled down that square footage to suit my group of 30.
Without giving any specific details, I had students stand inside the taped area, one-by-one. A lot were confused, wondering if they should bring anything. To that, I was vague, suggesting they could bring whatever they wanted.
At first, students enjoyed being able to move and stand with their peers. I allowed them to talk freely and comfortably for a few minutes.
But as more and more entered the area, things became a little tight. Those entering later chose not to bring anything with them. There wasn’t room.
Eventually, we put all 30 students into the taped area. Things were tensely funny. On the one hand, students were nervous and unsure what they were supposed to do. And a lot didn’t like having their personal “bubbles” breached. But a lot used laughter to help calm their nerves.
In all, I had them participate for about five or six minutes. Some thought it was an eternity. But it was a relatively short exercise that left a pretty deep impact.
That’s the kind of activator I love to do in my classroom, especially with something as powerful as literature circles.
The Heart of the Literature Circles
Once I had students’ attention, I knew they were ready to return to their seats and get to work. I’ll certainly cover our literature circles more in-depth shortly, but before I do, some general information.
Our school implements block scheduling. I see my classes every other day for 84 minutes at a time. If our Bell Ringer takes 5 minutes and our activator takes about 10, we have a little over an hour for the activity and summarizer. More to come on the summarizer.
But I set aside a solid 35 or 40 minutes a day for our literature circles. We sometimes took 5 minutes to review expectations or settle any concerns from the previous class.
Here’s a breakdown of how I used literature circles this year, including some tips and my successes.
Folder System for Organization (and Personalization)
On the very first day I was to use literature circles, we took a great deal of time to cover the purpose of literature circles, expectations, and their folders.
Each group was given a pocket folder. I gave them time to come up with a group name and to decorate their folder. It’s such a simple thing. For many groups, it meant being able to be silly and color. But they loved it. A little teacher tip, no matter what age you teach: let kids be kids every now and then.
Ahead of time, I personalized the insides of the folders. On the left-hand pocket, I taped a laminated sheet that briefly covered the expectations for literature circles. On the opposite side, I did something similar but with the literature circles roles. Each day, I also stocked the folder with a few resources.
Literature Circles Questions
One of those resources was the day’s questions. We basically broke down the unit so we focused on one chapter a class. On a few occasions, it was two or three chapters. But, in general, it was just one. I found that to be most manageable.
I also found ten questions per day to be quite manageable. It was definitely enough to keep students busy, but it didn’t overwhelm them.
When designing the questions for my literature circles, I tried to keep in mind three core values:
- Focus on the most poignant moments of each chapter
- Keep them open-ended
- Gear them towards the motifs available for our end-of-unit essay
As I said, it’s hard to read Night and not take pages and pages of notes. So finding questions that deeply reflected on the text came naturally.
Sometimes, admittedly, I find it a challenge to relinquish control. I don’t think I’m alone in that. It’s comforting to know that all will go according to plan. Change isn’t just scary for our students, after all. I say all this because posing open-ended questions that have no “right” answer can be daunting for a teacher. But it’s so crucial for your students, especially during literature circles. You want them to feel empowered by their own responses. And you want them to have multiple answers so they can benefit from hearing multiple perspectives.
The motifs for our essay include religion; father and son relationships; kindness; dehumanization; and guilt and inaction. So a final lens I used when designing my literature circles was using these motifs. I tried to find strong moments from the text that harkened back to these motifs so when it came time to write the essay, students would have a lot of material to build on.
If you’re interested in my discussion questions, check out this resource. I made all the discussion questions we used in our literature circles available for you.
Literature Circles Roles
Part of what we covered on the first day of literature circles was the various roles students would fill. It was an expectation of mine that everyone rotate through each role once before repeating a role. Here’s a breakdown of what those roles included.
Moderator
Essentially, the moderator was the leader of the group each day. This person was in charge of reading the question to group members. And they were responsible for keeping the conversation on task and flowing naturally. If need be, they would peaceably announce the end of one question so they could start another. I had no instances of serious argument on any day of our literature circles. But in the event we did, the moderator’s job was to steer the conversation in a healthier direction.
Timer
The role of the timer is a relatively straightforward one. But it’s also one that cannot be underappreciated. Especially with Advanced kids in a text this powerful, you run the likelihood of conversations going very deep. And that usually means taking a lot of time. Sometimes it’s time we don’t. While I encouraged quality over quantity, I did suggest timers keep track of the conversations. They were coached to let the moderator know when a particular question took more than three minutes.
A quick note on devices. We have an open policy on cell phones at our school. While teachers are 100% supported if they decide to prohibit the use of them in their classroom, I find that my students, for the most part, can handle the responsibility.
Ahead of time, I asked my Advanced students to put their phones away during literature circles. I had no pushback on this. The timer was one exception; they were encouraged to use their phones during the literature circles purely to keep track of time.
In the future, I anticipate putting into my budget a few digital timers that I can keep on hand for literature circles so we don’t need cell phones.
Recorder
Part of our folders was a notes sheet for the day. It included a rundown of which person filled each role. It was the recorder’s responsibility to take these notes. And I also asked them to provide a brief overview of how the conversation went each day. While I did my best to rotate throughout the room, I didn’t always visit all groups for an extended period of time. The notes sheet helped hold all members accountable. And it helped me understand how the groups spent their time.
Vocab Expert
The final role, then, is the vocabulary expert. If at any point in the literature circles discussion new words were introduced, the vocabulary expert researched the meaning. Possibilities varied from content-specific vocabulary in the book (i.e. blockalteste) to unknown words in the text or the questions I presented.
This person was the other role permitted to use their cell phone.
Admittedly, this was the role I felt was the least duty-laden. In the future, I might look to replace this role with one that is more challenging.
If we have a group of five, I expected two members to take notes on the day.
Literature Circles Expectations
As mentioned already, I hold very high expectations of my students. And with literature circles, it’s important to stress the importance of these standards from the first day.
Here are the expectations that were consistently espoused and also prominently included in their literature circles folders.
- Maximize your time with rich discussions about the text. It was important that students kept their focus on the text. Occasionally, their conversations would veer in appropriate ways. For example, this unit occurred at the same time conflict arose in Palestine in October 2023. So students wanted to talk about the parallels to our Night unit. This expectation is meant to remind students to talk primarily about the text at hand. And to keep other classes, events, classmates, etc. for another time.
- Ensure equal participation of all group members. Some kids love to talk. Some kids really do not. It was important during literature circles that not one person dominate the conversation or that no one didn’t offer their insight at least once.
- Keep an open mind and remain free of judgment. The discussion questions I designed are heavy and meant to call attention to diverse perspectives. Early on, I espoused the importance of acknowledging others’ opinions in a respectful and healthy manner.
- Quality over quantity but work productively. I don’t mean for this to sound paradoxical. But each day I encouraged students to get through as many of the ten questions as they could. However, I did not want them, under any circumstances, to rush through the questions. The last thing I wanted was for students to finish early. I found we were able to strike a healthy balance between quality discussions and covering enough material each day.
- Make the most of your literature circles discussions, whether that means actively listening only or taking notes. Another resource I provided in students’ folders was a notes sheet. I encouraged, but did not require, students to take notes on the day. This might include meaningful quotes (page numbers, as opposed to entire quotes) and thoughtful interpretations of the questions. Doing so would set them up for success not only on the day’s summarizer (short-term) but the unit’s assessment (long-term).
All in all, I found the literature circles to be some of the most insightful, thought-provoking, and wholesome conversations I have ever been privy to. Truly, the quality of my students’ discussion had me shook. Thanks to careful planning, high expectations, and a truly remarkable group of students, I don’t regret a single minute of these literature circles.
So How Did We Wrap It Up?
First off, it’s worth noting that I did not grade the literature circles discussions. I certainly informally assessed students as I traveled the room, popping in to various groups to listen in. But the literature circles, decidedly, were designed to be a more laid-back and (hopefully) stress-free way for students to prepare for the graded portion.
At the end of each day in the literature circles unit, students would write one, analytical open-ended paragraph. Remember what I said earlier about planning with the end game in mind? Well, here’s where it starts to really make sense.
Each day of the literature circles, I would choose one of the ten questions from the day. That would serve as the prompt for our open-ended summarizer. Besides the first day of literature circles, on which I announced the question they’d write about, I kept it a secret.
With approximately 25 minutes left in class, I’d give a worksheet to each student, quickly cover the prompt, and let them write. You could have heard a pin drop. That’s how seriously they took the task and how hard they worked.
I expected students to write at least 10 sentences. They should have had a topic sentence and an elaboration of that concept. Then, they should include a direct quotation with citation before paraphrasing and contextualizing the quote. The majority of their paragraph should be devoted to analysis. This means exploring the quote (its literary devices, if present, word choice, and tone). It also includes making connections between this quote and other moments in the book. And it asked students to synthesize all that information, to cohere it all together before wrapping up the paragraph.
If you’re interested in learning more about my writing expectations, stay tuned for an upcoming blog post.
Now, don’t get me wrong: students did not write these 10 sentences the first time. Or the second. Or even the third. But their writing steadily improved. Why?
Well, first off, I established very high expectations. I graded them hard. But I also took 10-15 minutes per student response because I wrote commentary – the good, the bad, and the ugly – all over it. It was so incredibly time-consuming. But it was so worth it. Students might not have appreciated their lower scores the first times through, but they sure did appreciate the feedback.
I also took a few minutes the following class to show examples. At first, I wrote my own example paragraph to offer one possibility for students. But as the writing improved, I started using students’ paragraphs as model examples. And, man, was that cool. It was so rewarding to not only see the writer glow but also to see his or her classmates read the paragraph in awe and congratulate the writer if that person revealed his or her identity.
This summarizer also better prepared students for the analytical essay at the conclusion of the unit. Most students took my advice and held onto their open-ended responses. They then could use them for their essay since all were based on the motifs for the final essay.
The open-ended summarizer was slow-going and rocky at times, but by the end of our literature circles, the improvement in student writing was pronounced. Without getting too cheesy, seeing that kind of improvement is one of the main reasons I teach. Pretty awesome stuff.
Concluding Thoughts
All in all, the literature circles in my Advanced class were a resounding success. I could not believe the quality of discussions my students brought to the table each and every day. And to see their growth from the first day of literature circles to the end was remarkable. I cannot encourage you strongly enough to consider literature circles in your secondary classroom. Plus, I’d love to hear about it, so leave a comment or reach out on social media to let me know how it went!
And if you’re interested to know about some other successes with my Night unit, stay tuned for future blog posts. But if you can’t wait – check these out in the meantime.
- ELL Accommodation: Spanish Translation of the Abbreviated Book
- Night Group Analysis Paragraph
- Hexagonal Thinking Activity for Night
- Night Comprehension Questions (Perfect for academic-level courses!)
- Night Quotation Bank: The BEST resource if you have your students write an essay about Wiesel’s memoir
- Night Bell Ringers
- Holocaust Introductory Jigsaw Activity
