Artifact #1
Artifact one
The Literature Circle Unit is an interdisciplinary unit in which students are grouped based on reading levels. This activity uses different books of a common theme, to guide children into better understanding of the literature they are reading.
Context
This project was a major focus in my Language and Literacy in the Elementary
School course at Appalachian State University in Fall 2001. The unit was
created on Netscape Composer and is posted on the web for easy access by
students and other teachers. My unit was on Ecology and created for
a fourth grade level reader. This artifact also includes one unit
below, for third grade readers, and one unit above, for fifth grade readers.
Impact
The Literature Circle is designed to be used in both Social Studies
and Language Arts. Classroom teachers can access the unit and can
modify it to fit the needs of their classroom. The unit is very detailed
and includes an outline for the eight sections of a book and examples to
help the reader and teacher along. Because the unit ranges across
three different grade levels all the children in the classroom can be working
on the same project but within different books. This allows all of
the students in the class to be at an instructional level in their books
while eliminating any feelings of inferiority.
Alignment
This unit allows the children to take responsibility of their learning
because they are required to alternately lead and participate in group
discussion. After the child is given his or her job it is up to them to
continue with the job without teacher assistance. (Tech
Comp VI B) The students are in the reading groups where they feel most
comfortable, this allows the students to be more open about sharing their
ideas. There are three different levels of groups which can excel
at an appropriate rate. This produces optimal learning for every
child whatever level and the teacher can circulate and monitor the discussions.(III
B) There are four core jobs and a fifth that may change from section
to section. This set-up of jobs allows students to approach the same
section of literature from many different perspectives The jobs in
the unit includes that of an Investigator, this job instructs the student
in one area of the section to further delve into the subject by researching
in a variety of ways. The student can use the World Wide Web, books,
magazines, or any other form of media to fulfill his/her investigation.
After researching the student will come back and share their findings with
the rest of the group. While creating this unit I was required to
use many different resources including the World Wide Web, many different
books to facilitate my lessons and ideas from lesson plans accessed through
the web.
This lesson is posted where others can access it on the World Wide
Web, and modify it for their needs in various classrooms. Through
doing this I have demonstrated that I can use technology as a medium for
communication in my classroom (II A)
The Literature Circle unit allows students to approach learning in different
ways through the different jobs. As we all know everyone learns in
different ways, through different experiences. This unit is directly caters
to the needs of diverse learners, through multiple representations and
explanations of jobs. (INTASC 3)
The students are responsible for creating their own questions as well as
the answers to these questions in the unit. This demonstrates that they
must first understand what they are doing, as well as helping the rest
of the class understand their job in the section. (INTASC
1)