Overview

Book clubs are forming in classrooms all across the country, with small groups of students from kindergarten through high school leading their own lively literature discussions. This promising movement has drawn many of its key ideas and management procedures from Harvey Daniels' book, Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups, second edition. But teachers who are new to literature circles sometimes have questions that no book can quite answer: What do the groups look like? How do they operate? What kinds of questions do students raise when running their own discussions? What is the atmosphere in the room during literature circle meetings? And what is the teachers' role in all of this? Looking into Literature Circles fills that gap, providing a window into book clubs in action. Rather than focusing on management details, this video conveys the feel, the atmosphere, the climate, and the energy of literature circles at work. We visit three public schools: a third-grade dual-language program, a high school English class, and a parent book club meeting. In each location, we see and hear students (and parents) running their own conversations, digging into books, and connecting them to their lives. Along the way, Harvey Daniels points out some key organizing structures, including response logs, role sheets, and Post-it notes. Kids tell us how they feel when working in a book club, enjoying natural, open-ended conversations about books with their friends. Teachers show how they form and support groups, keeping the structure fresh and productive. And parents testify not just about the benefits of their own literature discussions but also about how school book clubs can cause a rebirth of reading by all family members at home. Shot in documentary style in busy inner-city classrooms, this video captures kids' spontaneous and authentic conversations about books and the ideas they find in them. For teachers who believe that producing life-long readers is their primary educational mission, Looking into Literature Circles is an inspiring and concrete look at what can happen when kids and books come together.

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9781571107275

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Harvey ""Smokey"" Daniels received all of his degrees--B.A., M.A. and Ph.D.--from Northwestern University, which finally urged him to leave campus and get a real job. He began teaching at Westinghouse Vocational High School on Chicago's West Side, later moving to Lake Forest High School. Smokey is currently on leave from National-Louis University in Chicago to work with schools and teachers around the country on literacy-centered school improvement projects. In these efforts, he serves as a guest teacher in classrooms, leads seminars and workshops for teachers, and consults with school leaders on long-term change efforts. Smokey has authored or coauthored thirteen books on language, literacy, and education. Among these are Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups and Teaching the Best Practice Way. Smokey has been struck by the range of the ""book club boom"" that his book helped initiate. ""Not only have literature circles spread through U.S. schools,"" he notes, ""they have taken root in schools around the world, including Japan, where there is no cultural precedent of adult reading groups to build on. In fact, some Japanese parents are now learning about book clubs from their school age kids and starting reading groups of their own. That's pretty amazing."" After living in Chicago for many years, Smokey and his wife, Elaine, recently moved to New Mexico where they enjoy seeing the sky again, walking the desert at dawn, and hoarding green chili peppers for the winter. What's The Next Big Thing With Literature Circles? Copyright 2006 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.

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