Artifact 1

The Literature Circle Unit was created in a reading and language course in Block 436 at Appalachian State University. Under the instruction of Beth Frye, we created a literature circle unit on a children's literature author.

Impact

I plan to use this project in my classroom to help the children become aware of the importance of understanding the literature they read. Literature circles help children acquire skills and strategies such as picking out important information, cooperating in a group, focusing on a specific task while reading, learning new vocabulary words, asking questions about the reading, and reading material on the student's instructional reading level.

Alignment

As the children participate in the literature circles they might want to create a web page that shows their work on all of the jobs for books that they have completed. Each child will do the same job differently, so there would be diverse examples of the same job on this web page (Tech II A). This project can show the students learning in a technology-enchanced environment by having them create a web page that demonstrates their creativity and understanding of the different jobs in the literature circle (Tech II E).
The teacher will have a complete understanding whether the child understands the main ideas of the jobs that are demonstrated in literature circles. Literature Circles give students opportunities to learn about different topics and issues raised throughout the books they read by reading different genres. The students will independently infer and draw conclusions that create a meaningful learning experience for them and the members in their group. Connecting the literature to their own lives, the students will take away much more than from simply reading the book and writing a book report. Literature Circles encourage a lot of discussion and thought (INTASC 1). As the teacher uses the literature circles, they create a variety of instructional strategies to encourage the development of the students. They will begin to think about what they read differently through strategies and they will be able to choose passages based on criteria related to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. They will also practice their performance skills by sharing with the group their thoughts and ideas, leading discussions, and asking questions about the particular sections of the book. This will create a learning experience that they will remember (INTASC 4). Literature Circles provide the opportunity for group and cooperative learning. The groups must work together to function effectively. Each person in the group has to contribute actively to the group in order to help self motivate the other members of that group (INTASC 5).