Here is an example of a literature circle. Listen to it and write what you think worked. What didn't work? What do you want to remember for our own literature circles?
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_audio_book_club/2011/07/the_audio_book_club_on_harry_potter_and_the_deathly_hallows.html
I think the questions were thought-provoking and well-crafted. Good questions provide central topics of discussion for a literature circle, and these questions accomplished that purpose. The debate over Harry’s goodness is especially interesting. Also, there were several interesting tangents to the conversation that were interesting. I especially liked Simon’s question regarding how Dumbledore was able to defeat Grindelwald. It is amazing that Simon can remember so many details from the book. He even ends the podcast with a Harry Potter song. However, I do believe that the literature circle was a bit too structured. It was still mostly held in a question-and-answer format, and I got the sense that they were going through a checklist of questions. For our own literature circles, I think we should feel free to go off on tangents occasionally, as the tangents often make the discussion more interesting. On the other hand, I like our literature circles more than theirs because we pick and rotate roles. We also comment on each other on the blog. In this way, everyone has an opportunity to experience a different role and voice their views about the same chapters. I think that this will foster critical thinking skills.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the questions were thought provoking and were overall good questions. I think that is would have been interesting to have different roles like we do. A good role I think would have been to have someone defining words. There are a lot of words that are complicated in the Harry Potter series. This literature circle was on the entire book, which is a lot for one literature circle, I think that it would have been better if the book was broken up into sections. I want to make sure that there are multiple different roles within the literature circle and that there isn't too much of the story covered in one meeting.
ReplyDeleteI know I listened to this a while back (when it was originally posted) and I can still remember how intelligent the young boy sounded in this podcast. It was hilarious! Overall I think this podcast/literature circle was really well done. The whole conversation and not all the questions were run by the two adults in the talk and it was great to see that the kids had a big voice in the questioning and answering. Letting the students have a voice and pose questions is a great way to get them thinking about what they read and what they understood from the reading. I also appreciate how involved the adults are in the talk as well. By that I mean how they were able to read the book as well provide their input for the children so they too can understand a different idea of topic of the book. Overall I think it was a great lit circle! I do like the concept of the roles but I think since it was parents and kids, it may be easier for them to kind of free lance the discussion and talk about what they please. I think they hit many different talking points and it was very effective at answering the many questions and topics proposed in the book.
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