Literature+Circles

=Literature Circles =

Sharing understanding to build meaning, literacy circles play on the 4 resources model of Luke and Freebody, assigning readers a role in a co-operative interaction with the text in a group, working with readers with specific responsibilities.

Literacy circles can assist in developing literacy skills and strategies for reading for meaning, with a shared responsibility for creating that meaning, therefore giving students support and a safe learning environment. This is especially valuable where multicultural mixed ability classes come face-to-face with students whose reading ability has not kept up with their progression through the school. Making meaningful discussions, sharing responses and working co-operatively make the experience meaningful. this may be especially worthwhile when working with confronting texts such as //Let the Celebrations Begin,// or //Home and Away.//
 * Artful Artist - depicts an element in the reading and offers a statement justifying why it is important eg character, moment, setting
 * Word Wizard - selects 4 words that might be interesting or challenging and provides a definition of each, an activity and a justification as to why the words are important
 * Creative Connector - linking the reading to life experiences, world knowledge or other texts
 * Passage Picker
 * Repertoire of practices
 * decode - meaning making potential of the signs and symbols in the text
 * participate - personal significance to attach meaning to the graphophonic codes
 * use - socially appropriate responses to the text

Teachers can put together other roles to challenge higher order thinking, which meets the text analyst role from Luke and Freebody, such as
 * Paradigm Profiler
 * Investigator / Interviewer

Reading is a social activity, reinforced by the literature circle
 * have to have critical as well as personal responses
 * have to have balance between affect and intellect