ANN
BIANCHETTI
Diary #27
Encircling
the Textbook:
Literature Circles in History Class
Whenever I ask my students to open their textbooks I am met with a few groans. I have to admit, I understand their pain. The textbooks my district has chosen are boring. I have a passion for history and social studies and even I can't find something to get excited about in the textbooks.
As a result I rely heavily on supplementary materials of my own; some from websites, some from trade books, and a lot of primary documents. I began to question my avoidance of the textbook as my students did the same: "Why don't we ever use the textbook anymore?"
I have come to realize that by not using the textbook I am not serving my students well. For the rest of their school career, even through college, they will have to deal with textbooks and they will need the skill of reading for information, even when the text is not that thrilling.
A fresh approach to textbooks
As I began to use the textbook more, I came to the conclusion that I needed more ways for students to engage the text. Having my students read sections and then answer the section questions was not interactive enough. I wanted my students to stretch, mold, bend and use the text as a living document, rather than as stiff, dead words on paper.
I decided to ask for help. Most good teachers know that it is through collaboration and the willingness to be taught by others that we become better teachers. I went to two talented people: the language arts teacher in my building and our whole school reform mentor from the Coalition for Essential Schools (CES). After all, if I was looking for ways for my students to bite into the text with relish, who better to ask than the teacher who helps students engage with writing day after day — the language arts/literature teacher. Our CES mentor had worked with the language arts teacher extensively and I was eager to learn from her as well.
Through them I learned how to do Literature Circles with my students. They are a wonderful way for students to engage the text. Literature Circles require that the class be divided into groups of five students. Each group of five students works on the same passage of text and does activities. Here's how it works: 1. Divide the class into groups of five students to form Literature Circles. 2. Assign each student a job for the Literature Circle. There are a number of jobs and the teacher can decide which five he or she wants to use by adopting the jobs that best fit the text passage. I will discuss the jobs below. 3. Each student reads the text passage alone. This can be done in class or assigned for homework. Each student then uses the text to perform his/her assigned job. 4. The five students come back together in the Literature Circle and engage in a discussion, using their prepared job assignments to reflect, question and debate the text. A rubric is given to each student to see what they will be graded on. It includes: use of text, referencing the text, building on each other's statements, and clarity of position. I watched my students engage a passage of text in our social studies textbook on Copernicus and Galileo in the Renaissance. I was surprised by how much more they absorbed from the text using the Literature Circle jobs and small group discussion. Since each student had a specific job to do for the Circle, they each read with a purpose. This translated into reading with attention to detail and understanding. The specific jobs also were distributed among the various learning styles and were, frankly, fun! They included: Party planner. This person reads the text and plans a party for a character in text. In my case, they planned a party for Galileo. The party had to have food, decorations, music, etc. that matches the character. This forced the student to read carefully to get insights into Galileo. Discussion leader. This person reads the text with an eye for writing questions to spark the literature circle discussions. Again, this forces the student to read carefully to create probing, open ended questions for the discussion. For the Galileo passage the discussion leader came up these questions, "Why do you think Galileo said he was wrong in front of the Inquisition?" and "What would you do if you had to choose between the truth or jail or death?" Connector. This person reads the text and comes up with ways to relate it to students' lives. The student for my Galileo circle came up with examples of kids 'getting in trouble' with teachers for stuff they didn't do and having to choose whether to take the punishment and admit you were wrong when you weren't (like Galileo) or fight back even if it meant detention. Passage picker. This person selects one sentence from the text passage that they feel sums up the main idea of the whole passage and gives reasons why. Artful artist. This student creates two sketches that they believe illustrate the main ideas of the passage. They show them in the circle for the other students to figure out what they represent. Fact finder. This person is responsible for finding any vocabulary words and important facts that the group needs to know from the passage.These are just some of the jobs in the Literature Circle repertoire. I observed as each student actively and excitedly read the text in order to prepare for their jobs. Once they met back in the literature circle they engaged the text even more since they had prepared so well for their jobs.
I saw students questioning each other's interpretation of the text, clarifying points and absorbing the important factual, historical information that they would need. It was a teacher's joy to hear things like, "Well, I agree with Tanasia when she said that Galileo was a coward, where it says in the book he gave in and said he was wrong", and "The text said that Galileo tried to prove this theories with the new telescope, I wonder what would have happened if he didn't have a telescope?"
I took the artful artist idea mentioned above and expanded on it. For my eighth graders studying state government (which can be very dry reading), I divided the sections of the textbook among small groups of students. Each group was to read their section and create a giant poster (I used the wonderful 3M Giant Poster Sized Post-it Pad). Each poster had to visually represent one role of state government from the job of governor to executive committees and departments. The posters were wonderful, creative and factual. They clearly demonstrated mastery of the material. Some of them were so interesting that I plan to send them to our governor's office for his perusal.
I knew that
at this level of engagement, both in the Literature Circle and the Poster
Making, the material would stay with them long after the chapter test.
