one of the most popular ones in my classroom is literature circles.

And my students love literature circle so

much, not only because the books they're reading

are so great, but also because they have a lot of choice in their learning.

First of all, they're allowed to choose the book they'd like to read.

Second of all, although there's are, there's a

lot of structure within the group, they're allowed to

choose which job they would like to do.

There are five jobs, and they're allowed to pick which one.

The students also as a group decide, how much they're going to

read in the book, and when they're going to discuss the book.

So today in your groups, I'd like you

to concentrate with your jobs on character development.

For example, if you're the summarizer, you're going to sp-, pay

special attention to summarizing the things that the main characters do.

If you're the discussion director, you're going to be asking

questions tomorrow of your group, that are specific to characters.

For example, a question like, what did Sophie do as soon as she saw the BFG?

How did she act?

What did she think?

If you're the passage master you're going to picking out passages that focus on

the characters, things that show: what they're

doing, what they're thinking, what they look

like, how their facial expressions are changing.

And if you're the character captain, you have lots to do, because you'll be

hitting on all four of these things, on how your main characters are developing.

Now what I'd like you to do, is get out all

of your lit circle stuff, and you may move with your groups.

Although there's a lot of choice in the

literature circle discussion groups, there's also a lotta structure.

For example, one of the jobs is

discussion director, and it promotes leadership, because

there are specific questions and things that

the dis- discussion director has to do.

One of them is, have all of the students speak In the group.

There's also a lot of choice with that job,

because that discussion director gets to choose what questions will

be asked, and how much they would like to share,

or if they would even like to share with the group.

I choose to do self-directed learning

activities, because it promotes social skills

with the students and how to get along and how to resolve conflict.

The students learn so much more from each other than they

do from me standing up, and lecturing at them all day long.