The Cornerstones of the Shepard Academy
What Are Literature Circles?
What Are Literature Circles? In literature circles, small groups of students gather together to discuss a piece of literature in depth. The discussion is guided by your response to what you have read. You may talk about events and characters in the book, the author's craft, or personal experiences related to the story. Literature circles provide a way for you to engage in critical thinking and reflection as you read, discuss, and respond to books. Collaboration is at the heart of this approach. You reshape and add onto your understanding as you construct meaning with other readers. Finally, literature circles guide you to deeper understanding of what you read through structured discussion and extended written and artistic response.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand what literature circles are is to examine what they are
not.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand what literature circles are is to examine what they are
not.
Literature Circles are . . .
Reader response centered
Groups formed by book choice Structured for student independence, responsibility, and ownership Guided primarily by student insights and questions Flexible and fluid; never look the same twice |
Literature Circles are not . . .
Teacher and text centered
Teacher assigned groups Unstructured, uncontrolled "talk time" without accountability Guided primarily by teacher- or curriculum-based questions Tied to a prescriptive "recipe" |
Meet Our Books
The Help by Kathryn Stockett [Lexile 1300]
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey [Lexile 1110]
An inmate of a mental institution tries to find the freedom and independence denied him in the outside world.
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest recounts the events of a psychiatric inpatient ward in the early 1960’s. Chief Bromden, also known as “Chief Broom” our narrator, is a paranoid schizophrenic who pretends to be a deaf-mute in order to be left alone. He has been committed since the end of World War II, the longest-residing patient. R.P. McMurphy, our hero, shows up one day fresh off the work farm. It is suspected that he merely pretended to be insane, in order to escape the hard labor he was subjected to there. Chief Boom takes an immediate interest in McMurphy and begins to recount us a story of his exploits.
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest recounts the events of a psychiatric inpatient ward in the early 1960’s. Chief Bromden, also known as “Chief Broom” our narrator, is a paranoid schizophrenic who pretends to be a deaf-mute in order to be left alone. He has been committed since the end of World War II, the longest-residing patient. R.P. McMurphy, our hero, shows up one day fresh off the work farm. It is suspected that he merely pretended to be insane, in order to escape the hard labor he was subjected to there. Chief Boom takes an immediate interest in McMurphy and begins to recount us a story of his exploits.
The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner [Lexile 1540]
The astounding yet true rags-to-riches saga of a homeless father who raised and cared for his son on the mean streets of San Francisco and went on to become a crown prince of Wall Street.
At the age of twenty, Milwaukee native Chris Gardner, just out of the Navy, arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. Considered a prodigy in scientific research, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm than Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him as part of the city's working homeless and with a toddler son. Motivated by the promise he made to himself as a fatherless child to never abandon his own children, the two spent almost a year moving among shelters, "HO-tels," soup lines, and even sleeping in the public restroom of a subway station. Never giving in to despair, Gardner made an astonishing transformation from being part of the city's invisible poor to being a powerful player in its financial district.
At the age of twenty, Milwaukee native Chris Gardner, just out of the Navy, arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. Considered a prodigy in scientific research, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm than Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him as part of the city's working homeless and with a toddler son. Motivated by the promise he made to himself as a fatherless child to never abandon his own children, the two spent almost a year moving among shelters, "HO-tels," soup lines, and even sleeping in the public restroom of a subway station. Never giving in to despair, Gardner made an astonishing transformation from being part of the city's invisible poor to being a powerful player in its financial district.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien [Lexile 880]
They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros [Lexile level 870]
The House on Mango Street is the coming of age story of Esperanza Cordero, a pre-adolescent Mexican American girl (Chicana) living in the contemporary United States. A marked departure from the traditional novel form, The House on Mango Street is a slim book consisting of forty-four vignettes, or literary sketches, narrated by Esperanza and ranging in length from two paragraphs to four pages. In deceptively simple language, the novel recounts the complex experience of being young, poor, female, and Chicana in America. The novel opens with a description of the Cordero family’s house on Mango Street, the most recent in a long line of houses they have occupied. Esperanza is dissatisfied with the house, which is small and cramped, and doesn’t want to stay there. But Mango Street is her home now, and she sets out to try to understand it.
The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie [Lexile score 600]
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by acclaimed artist Ellen Forney, that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan [Lexile score 930]
The Joy Luck Club tells of the intricate relationships between two strong-willed generations, four tough, intelligent Chinese women and their equally tenacious daughters. The four families are connected through the Joy Luck Club, a mah jong group that meets each week. After its founding member passes away, her daughter is asked to take her place at the table and the stories begin. Each of the eight women narrates two stories from her own point of view except for the deceased whose daughter tells her stories for her. The mothers relate stories about their lives in China, and the daughters tell of the trials that they face growing up as first-generation Chinese-Americans.