Oprah is on to something. In 1996, she adroitly read her TV audience and came up with an idea that improved her show’s ratings as it awakened thousands of us from a self-imposed literary torpor, the Oprah Winfrey Book Club. In the process, she has bolstered the publishing industry, made celebrities of several writers (GO OPRAH!!) and made us sharper, more literate citizens. What did she see when she examined her viewers several years ago? An enormous, diverse group of people hungry to read and think about great books, but one that needed some guidance in selecting titles and a structure for reading.

As teachers, we know that our students often share traits similar to those of Oprah’s fans. They may love reading a great book, and even want to talk about it, but they often need help finding the right books. They also need structures for the act of reading itself and for thinking about what they’re reading, so as to expand the richness of meaning a book can provide. In addition to this, students often need tips on how to engage each other in socially appropriate, friendly ways while discussing books, so their meetings are productive and positive.

Wish your students could run their own little “book of the month” clubs? Try to develop literature discussion groups in your class. There are different ways to organize and structure the process. Most involve assigning specific roles to students and/or establishing clear steps, so there is a structure to ensure a good discussion.

Response Journals
One simple approach first sets up structures within which students carefully choose the books that are right for them. Then students keep a response journal as they read. The response journals can be answers to questions posed by the teacher or brainstormed by students after they’ve read a selection. The entries can simply be a response to a general invitation to write about something memorable or something about which the book made them wonder. The journals should not be merely short, “correct” answers to informational questions. Open-ended questions are the ones that stimulate thinking and discussion.

Students then bring their response journals to their small groups and share them either by reading aloud, or reading each others’ journals. Chapter by chapter they read, respond, and share their responses. After sharing, they discuss the different interpretations and reactions that individuals had to the chapter.

Roles
Other approaches use clearly defined roles. For example, process-management roles might include:
Facilitator: Leads discussion
Recorder: Takes notes on what people say during the discussion
Observer: Makes sure that the process is followed
Reporter: Shares with the whole class some of the ideas in his/her group’s discussion

Other roles can be designed to both provide direction during the reading process and give each group member a chance to contribute in a different way to the group’s understanding of the book. The following roles are some of those used in the approach described by Harvey Daniels in Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Literature.

Discussion Director (DD): At meetings, the lit circle member with this role goes first. He is responsible for bringing eight engaging, open-ended questions from the previous reading assignment to ask of the group. These questions should be central to the story, and specific. For example, Why do you think Carolyn made the decision to call her mom from the recording studio? is fine, but Who is your favorite character so far, and why? isn’t. These eight questions need to be written neatly in his notebook, with at least three or four lines of empty space left for answers to each question. At first Discussion Directors asked one-dimensional, fact-based questions only. After I modeled how to ask open-ended questions, Discussion Directors came up with better ones.

Teach your Discussion Directors to carefully read a question, turn to a group member, look at him/her, and say, “Let’s start with you, Sam,” or “What do you think, Barb?” Have the DD continue in this fashion, asking each member to respond, until all group members have had an opportunity to answer. At any point, he encourages the responders to elaborate if he feels they could say more. If someone needs think time, he allows this, but makes sure to get back to that group member. To wrap up each question, the DD offers his response. Only then does he move on to the next question.

While this methodical approach to discussions may seem awkward or forced at first, it’s important to teach all group members how to get along in a friendly, lively, but somewhat formalized way, so that each group member is on a level playing field with the others. Make sure they know how important it is to answer thoroughly, and to go slowly. If you don’t insist on this, you’ll soon have one or two members of each group dominating, and rushing through the meeting, while others drift along, disengaged. The DD follows this procedure for each of his eight questions. As his questions are answered, the DD quickly jots down at least some of the responses to each question in his notebook in the space he reserved for this purpose.

Passage Picker (PP): The student assigned this role comes to the discussion having selected four salient passages from the previous reading. She has the page and paragraph number and a first few words of each passage written in her notebook, followed by an open-ended question about the passage to be answered by each group member. Like the DD, she leaves three or four lines of blank space after each question so she’ll be able to write the group’s answers in a convenient place.

She begins by telling the group to open their books to the exact location of the first passage; when they’re all there, she reads the entire passage aloud. She then reads her open-ended question to the group, turns to one of the group members, and says, “What you think, Douglas?” When Douglas has finished, she turns to Monica and asks her to give her input, and so on, until all have weighed in. As they respond, she quickly writes some of their thoughts in her notebook. She adds her own answer to the question last, and explains to the group why she chose the passage. She continues in this fashion until all group members have listened to each passage and answered each question.

The Passage Picker needs to explain why she chose that passage, not just ask the other kids to guess why. If we don’t do this, we run the risk of having some lit circle members scratching their heads, wondering why their Passage Picker chose the passages she did. Passage Pickers also need to have prepared a plan for discussing each passage, so the rest of the group has some direction for discussion.

Perhaps most important, Passage Pickers need to select passages that move them deeply on an emotional or stylistic level, or that seem to capture an essential story element in some way. Often, kids need to be taught how to do this before they begin, so when we select a short story to use as a model at the start of the year, we select our passages carefully and lead a discussion about why we chose each passage.

Vocabulary Enricher (VE): The Vocabulary Enricher brings to the group eight words gleaned from the reading assignment. In her notebook, she has written each word, the context in which it was used, and its exact location in the book. Also, she has included its dictionary definition and an original sentence that uses it correctly. Finally, she has written an open-ended question that requires each lit circle member to use the word, or create a self-to-word link as part of a response to each word. She, too, has left space under each question.

Bookish Vocabulary Enrichers will sometimes have difficulty finding words to use because they already have an extensive vocabulary. To accommodate them, we quickly adopted a “reverse” alternative to the VE role, and asked them to take a word from the reading and discover a more challenging, vivid word to use for discussion. It’s nice to have thesauruses handy.

Like the DD and PP, after she asks a question, she turns to a group member and asks for a response by saying something like, Why don’t you begin, Martha; when were you last in a ebullient mood? When Martha has given a complete answer, she might thank her, move on to Malcolm, and say, And you, Malcolm? and so on, until all have contributed. In the blank space after each question, she quickly pens in answers from some of her lit circle mates.

Summarizer (S): The summarizer goes last. He comes to the meeting with a well-crafted paragraph about the previous reading assignment written in his notebook, and reads his summary to the group, asking for additions or corrections. His summary contains the names of the important characters that emerged, the settings visited, the plot developments, critical dialogue, etc.

While the other lit circle members listen, he reads his summary slowly and clearly. Then he asks the group if he has left out other essential developments. He asks each member, one-by-one, for feedback. He writes anything the others believe he has missed in his notebook under his summary.

Writing a concise summary to 20-40 pages of reading is no small task and requires lots of practice. Summarizers need to get this practice before lit circles begin in September and October so the year’s meetings go well. The fact that the summarizer’s role isn’t as interactive as the others nagged at me for many weeks. I tried various ways of getting the other group members more involved in this part of the meetings, but wasn’t able to find a way that worked well. Finally, I decided to dump the role, replacing it with the role of Scene Setter.

Amber Place, my colleague, loves to include the role of Illustrator in her lit circles, because the kids do such wonderful things with it. She’ll often form groups of five to accommodate the extra role. Other cool role possibilities include Researcher, Connector, and Historical Expert. (See Daniels book referenced at the end of this article, for detailed descriptions of all these roles.)

Practice first
By following this approach to lit circle roles for the past two years, I’ve watched kids engage in rich conversations about books time and again; but each role brings with it pitfalls that teachers can help students avoid. The roles within each group need to be clearly defined, modeled and practiced before the first month’s book is chosen, as are the steps of the routine before and during the meeting. Using a short story as the reading material, practice a lit circle with everyone together, assigning each member a role. Have them read, prepare and discuss. After this abbreviated practice, they’ll be better able to tackle their first “real” lit circle.

Four Guidelines
You can do other whole class lit circles, switching roles so that students have the opportunity to practice the different roles. As a general rule--
1) model and practice the way you want things to be before you start
2) be flexible with roles
3) problem solve with the kids as you develop your lit circles and
4) keep the requirements in front of the kids at all times as you aim for success.

Procedure
The procedure for literature discussions using this approach includes the following 10 steps:

1. Get a reading journal for each student to use all year.

2. In the front of the notebook, have students write job descriptions for each of the roles (they’ll have to understand each of these roles before they start their first book).

3. Gather four or five copies each of books you think will engage your students, ones most of them can read fluently and ones that are more or less the same length. You may have to level the books and establish your groups with reading levels in mind when there is wide variation. Show students a copy of each book, tell them what you know about it, read the back covers, and invite those who have read a book to share their thoughts about it, so that everyone gets at least a general idea about whether s/he might wish to read each book.

4. Offer enough choices so that groups can choose a book they want to read. If you have more books than groups and the reading levels don’t vary too widely, invite students to vote for their favorites by a show of hands to eliminate the least popular titles until you’re left with a 4 or 5 to 1 books to groups ratio. Then, at random, invite students to select their book for the month, one at a time, until all have chosen. The student who chooses last can be invited to go first next month.

Middle school students are sure to let you know what they think of the titles you are offering each month. Cries of approbation or disgust are common. In their emotional, pure, all-or-nothing way, many thirteen-year-olds can’t help but react spontaneously to what they might be reading in the near future. Rather than be turned off by moans and groans when kids don’t react warmly to a book, keep track of the reception each book gets. When groups present books at the end of each month (see steps 8 & 9 below), note their recommendations and compare them to the initial reaction each book received. Talk to your class about your findings. What you’re trying to uncover for them is the degree to which peer pressure is valuable or not in this context.

5. When the groups are formed, have students staple a calendar for the month’s schedule. Students read, prepare for the first discussion in the way that their roles require, discuss, then read further into the book for two days. They continue with this 2/1 schedule until the book is finished and discussed. With every group following the calendar, and plotting out exactly how many pages to read each day to keep on schedule, everyone will finish on time.

6. During discussion days, have students form their lit circle in groups of four. They open their notebooks to the page they’ve been preparing, and begin. This is where all your planning pays off. Make Oprah proud!!! The Discussion Director starts, followed by the Passage Picker, the Vocabulary Enricher and the Summarizer. Your role is to move from group to group, monitoring the quality of each circle’s discussion. You really have two major considerations: the academic rigor with which they’re discussing the book, and the sociability of the group, i.e., the degree to which they’re including everyone, speaking one at a time, being friendly yet formal, etc.

7. Our team settled on the above-mentioned pattern because it seemed to meet our readers’ needs. Initially, we had an extra reading day before each discussion day but found our students were finished with their reading and were ready to discuss a day early, and the resulting “down time” was a disaster! So we adjusted the calendar. By following the reading calendar, you are locking in reading assignments for the month for everyone, and certain books—Jurassic Park, for instance—are long. So before students select a book, make sure they have a general understanding of whether reading outside of class might be necessary.

8. After groups have finished their reading and discussing, they spend one or two class periods preparing a presentation of the book to the whole group. Before work begins on the first set of class presentations, students and teachers work together to decide what makes a group presentation wonderful. Requirements for presentations are agreed upon and implemented. Presentation options might include: a flow chart, puppet show, mock-up of the setting, interview of the characters, or even an original play based on the story.

9. Presentation day comes next. Plan for each presentation to take ten minutes, with extra time for Q and A. Depending on class size and time available, presentations may run to two class periods.

10. The final step is to collect the books and reflect on them, the efficacy of the lit circle of which each student was a member, and the quality of the presentations. Again, this assessment time can take many forms, written and/or oral.

Groups plan their work, read, prepare to discuss, discuss, plan a presentation, and present, at the rate of about one book per month. At the end of this month-long process, books are returned, groups are disbanded, new titles are placed before the class, and the process begins again.

Worth the Effort
My colleague, Amber Place, whose hard work and determination helped develop the Literature Circles program in the middle level grades at Barton, is committed to them:
When we set up lit circles, I found the students were much more engaged in their reading. Because they’re reading stuff they like, it’s hard getting them to stop reading at the end of the class period! A real plus for kids are the leadership opportunities lit circles provide. On discussion days, everyone leads a part of the meeting. On presentation days, kids are leading their classmates to books they like.

Students develop a greater sense of confidence in their own reading abilities as a result of being in lit circles over time. For many of them, the confidence comes from their seeing this mental picture [of] a stack of real books that they’ve actually read from cover to cover as the months go by. And, hey, some of them are long! By April or May, I see kids choosing tough, lengthy books for the class that they wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to get through in September or October.

A short list follows of some of the books middle school students have been enjoying this year at my school, Barton Open in Minneapolis.

The Thief Lord -- Cornelia Funke
The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe -- Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe and Everything -- Douglas Adams
So Long, and Thanks, Fish -- Douglas Adams
Death on the Nile -- Agatha Christie
And Then There were None -- Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express -- Agatha Christie
Eragon -- Christopher Paolini
Into Thin Air -- Jon Krakour
Jurassic Park -- Michael Creighton
Finding Laura Buggs -- Stanley Gordon West
Amber Spyglass -- Philip Pullman
Subtle Knife -- Philip Pullman
Golden Compass -- Philip Pullman
Artemis Fowl -- Eoin Colfer
A Series of Unfortunate Events -- Lemony Snicket
Ender Wiggin series -- Orson Scott Card
Rag and Bone Shop -- Robert Cormier
To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
The Cage -- Minsky Sender
I Have Lived 1,000 Years -- Livia Bitton-Jackson
Maus I -- Art Spiegelman
Maus II -- Art Spiegelman
Milkweed -- Jerry Spinelli

Chris Hagedorn and his colleagues are using the approach to literature discussion described in Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups (Harvey Daniels, Stenhouse Publishers, Portland, Maine, 2002). See Daniels’ website, for more support.

Chris Hagedorn teaches middle-schoolers at Clara Barton Open School in Minneapolis. He is a nationally certified presenter of Developmental Designs for Middle School and Literacy in a Responsive Classroom.