Megan Purcell Expanding Instructional Repertoire: Reflection Heres what I had hoped to do Idealistic, lofty goals are the

curse of a first year teacher. I think that when new teachers come fresh out of college and enter the profession from a classroom perspective, they have so much they want to accomplish that they dont see the potential obstacles that will surely arise; as was the case with me when I too readily assumed my students would be able to successfully participate in literature circles. What I hoped to accomplish by implementing this type of activity was to get students to take more ownership over their learning while discussing a text on a deeper level. I wanted my students to learn from one another and reach their own conclusions about the text, rather than just have me spoon feed the answers to study questions after I have already read the novel aloud to them in class. Heres what I did For my first attempt at literature circles, I handpicked all the groups (thinking I had separated the talkers enough that each group would be able to stay focused) as well as strategically designed which roles I would give to which student; some students would be challenged to move outside of their comfort zone, while others were asked to practice their emerging skills. I then had each student read one chapter on their own, and then fill out their literature circle role sheet. The following class day I had students get into their group and I led them through the literature circle process as best I could. I would call out one role member and asked them to share with their group what they wrote/drew/connected, while their peers listened. After a few minutes I would call out another role and have them share with the group. I continued on this process until I realized it wasnt working; more than one group member was talking at one time and the groups were not on task at all, some groups were not speaking at all, they were just sitting in silence and then is when I realized I just needed to I scrap the activity and reevaluate. My new approach, after this blunder, was much more simplistic. I began giving each student the same literature circle role and asked them to fill out the worksheet after I had shown them a model of my own. As Hartman describes, at the beginning of the process, the instructor models the task in its entirety. Having observed their instructors model, the students begin guided practice by performing parts of the task independently (Hartman 3). I found that the modeling took away a lot of the I dont understand or I didnt know what to do questions from students. I would then have students perform a think-pair-share to simulate mini literature circles so they could practice sharing their work with limited distractions. I got this idea from Weinstein as she notes, groups of two maximize students opportunity to participate*providing+ students with experiences in pairs before using cooperative groups (248). I would then give my students a pop quiz after this activity in which they had to answer two questions: what their partners name was and what their partner talked about. I got this idea from Weinstein as she notes, one way to encourage the participation of all group members is to make sure that everyone is held responsible for his or her contribution to the goal and that each students learning is assessed individually.You can require students to take individual tests on the material and receive individual grades (254). I found this to be a good way to keep students on track and practice the conversational aspect of literature circles. My students and I have completed this sequence for four of the literature circle roles (the fifth of which has been discarded altogether). I have only recently given out two different literature circle roles at once and had students think-pair-share with someone possessing a role different from their own. By adding another variable, students are progressing toward the ultimate goal because they must communicate with their partner to understand the chapter from both perspectives.

Heres the good news about student responses The good news in all of this, is that my students are starting to get the idea. I am not saying they can successfully participate in literature circles yet, but they are starting to think of the text beyond the literal level. I know my students are progressing because I can see it in their role sheet assignments. First, my students are giving me more developed responses (which could be due to my institution of sentence minimums) above and beyond what they first gave me. In the beginning, students would give me one or two sentence responses, summaries, or connections to the text; in the later assignments, students are giving me full paragraph responses to the text that are good and developed, not just repetitive to fill space. More good news about their responses is that they are making connections or are completing roles on their own without my prompting. I can remember one day when we were working on the literary luminary role for the particular chapter of the day and one student says to me are we doing connector today? I had to respond with no, we did that last time so we are going to try something new today. My student then replied awe man, I had such a good connection for this chapter too. To me, this tells me my students are engaging with the text, they are thinking about the text in relation to their own lives or other experiences and they are understanding the text beyond the literal meaning of the words on the page. Heres the bad news Heres the bad news, my students still struggle with the communication in a group setting and havent quite gotten the grasp on how to analyze. One of the literature circle roles requires students to pick out passages from the text and tell me what it means to them or how it struck them in some way (was it funny, interesting, important, weird, scary, etc). I notice that many of my students do a great job picking out passages and then telling me what the passage says or what is happening in the story around that time, but they stop at that. My students arent quite to the point where they tell me what the text means to them or how it moved them in some way, which I know is more on the analytical side of things. Also my students, still, cannot work cooperatively in larger groups. Students get distracted or off task and would rather chat with their friends then discuss what happened in the text. Therefore, the whole literature circle activity, in its traditional sense, has not happened yet but I do consider the think-pair-share or 3 person groups to be a mini literature circle of sorts for my students. Heres what I conclude about this experience so far What I have concluded about this experience so far is that I cant just assume my students are ready or prepared to handle new activities or situations. I have found out or figured out that students need things broken down for them and if youre going to be looking for a certain result, you (meaning I) should probably show them an example first. I have discovered that students dont often know when they dont understand something, so modeling and scaffolding are crucial in new situations. I have also concluded that my students can and are making progress, it may be incremental, but it is progress nonetheless and watching their faces light up when they get into a book or have that light bulb moment, is really what teaching is all about. Heres how I would change it if I were doing it again If I were to do literature circles again, I would start off the same way I did when I redesigned the activity. I would introduce each role, one at a time and have students practice those roles, as well as how to discuss each role, before letting students go off on their own. I would also give more instruction on what a proper group discussion looks like or sounds like so that students do not just merely read what

they wrote down, but they know how to respond to or question their peers to sustain a conversation. Ultimately, I would do more scaffolding instead of just diving right in and getting frustrated when students dont show the intended result. Hartman, Hope. (2002). Instructional Scaffolding: A Teaching Strategy. (Verna Leigh Lange). Weinstein, Carol Simon. Middle and Secondary Classroom Management. McGraw-Hill Humanities (4 ed). 2010.