USING LITERATURE CIRCLES TO SUPPORT STUDENT LEARNING Doug Kasselberg Differentiation in the Middle School Classroom

COMMON LANGUAGE DEFINED  Differentiation instruction is “shaking up” what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn.  A differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content, processing or making sense of ideas, and developing products so that each each student can learn effectively. Tomlinson, C.A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

IT WASN’T WORKING…  Traditional teaching doesn’t work for me, didn’t show all students challenging themselves  I wanted:  Students to have choice because it leads to better results  Choice = student interest and engagement  Wanted kids to enjoy reading  Kids like working in groups (plus, it can be an effective learning tool!)  Increase autonomy AND responsibility among my kids

STRATEGIES AND IDEAS USED  Literature circles (small group book study) to teach concept and skills  Choice of novels with a variety of interest  Check in daily with every student group multiple times  Variety of activities during small group discussion time for different learning styles

STRATEGIES AND IDEAS USED  Role sheets  Blogs  Written responses  Graphic representations  Post Mortem activity  Create a song  End of Unit Assessment  Choice

LITERATURE CIRCLE UNIT  Setup  Book choices Lexile Range:  2 nd -4 th gr reading level Lexile Range:  4 th -6 th gr reading level Lexile Range: : 7 th -11 th gr reading level

LITERATURE CIRCLE UNIT  Setup  Voting Sheet  Schedule of reading and discussion days  Team and self evaluations after each discussion day  Activities Role Sheets (oral discussion) Student-generated questions One Pager (graphic activity) Edmodo blog (online discussion) Reader Response (written response) Character cut out/Post Mortem of a character Fake Facebook activity (interactive tech) Questions in envelope (oral discussion with less help) Create a song

LITERATURE CIRCLE UNIT  Activities  Edmodo online discussion sample joshua1 | 1:10 pm The outsiders so far has been a pretty good book. Dallas has not changed yet but Johnny has because he stood up and ran into the burning chuch.That was on page90. Johnny especially changed because he killed a man. kennedyn | 1:21 pm no DAVID for your information i dont agree with you in a polite way. they were thinking of other people for a change, they just trying to be sweet. tell me why you don’t think they should have not gone into the church?? just curious )

LITERATURE CIRCLE UNIT  End of Unit/Novel Assessment  “ Squares”  Think of Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs for assessment ideas (design, create, etc.)