Pros and Cons

[Tracy]

What do you feel are the pros and cons of using a literature circle within a classroom?

[Aknipfel]

I feel that there are many pros to using the literature circle in the classroom . Literature circles gives each child a specific job. I feel this helps the children because it gives them preparation time and they can feel confident about their position. This gives the children a learner centered approach versus a teacher centered approach. I feel that this strategy could be used with any grade level. Also, I think this can help children to love reading. I know for me it was much more enjoyable being able to share my thoughts about the book Wonder during our literature circle. I can't think of many con's to the literature circle. An alternative would be to use the Bloom's Taxonomy. As with any class participation I think literature circles would be successful with appropriate supervision.

[Jordan]

The only con I could see with a literature circle would be the preparation and maybe the amount of time it could take. Outside of that it is really a great tool to use for closing on the book. It gives students a chance to share their thoughts and opinions. It also allows students to think outside of the book by comparing the story to situations they have experienced (text to self). Students could also talk about other books or movies that have a similar message (text to text). The literature circle really gives students a chance to talk about what it may be like to walk in someone else's shoes who experiences some of the things that Augie did (text to world).

[Michaela]

I thought that this had a lot of pros. One pro is that every student is given a different job to do about the book and doing this the students get more views on the different parts of the book because instead of them all just doing one part and helping each other they have to do their own activity and get more information. This to me helps children get more information then just the general, what was the book about. I think this will also help children see the book from different points of view by what job they do. If they do the director of discussion part they have to think of questions that someone would have about the book while the illustrator will draw what they imagine the book to be about or the characters and this could be totally different then what the discussion leader's idea of the book was and letting them see these other ideas and discuss them would be very educational for them. The only con I can think of is the time it would take. It would take a lot of prepping time to get the students ready and having them understand each specific job and what is required of them. Also it would take awhile to get them going and you would need to give them time to present so a lot of class time would be used up.

[Megan]

I think using a literature circle in a classroom would be very beneficial for students as well as the teacher. Students have the opportunity to voice their opinion about books and also have the opportunity to listen to others ideas. I think giving each student in a group a different responsibility allows students to think about a book in different ways. For example, the illustrator gets to be creative by drawing what the story is about and share their creativeness with the members of his/her group. I think having that discussion director is very useful to get conversations started about a book. Literature circles overall help students hear others students point of views about a book. Literature circles are also beneficial for teachers because by walking around the classroom the teacher can listen to discussions and be able to tell if the students understood the story or not. The only con that I can think of is that assigning groups and roles for each student would take a lot of time, but, it would be well worth it!

[Karen]

I would definitely use a literary circle in my future classroom. I believe my students would enjoy discussing a book they read with their peers like I enjoyed discussing “Wonder” with my fellow students.
A literary circle would benefit every type of reader. The avid readers would enjoy the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the book. The weary readers may find literary circles to be a fun new perspective on reading. The students who struggle with comprehension would have parts of the book broken down into simpler ideas.
Many students would love having to work on the different literary circle jobs. The Illustrator, Connector, and Discussion Director are just a few of these jobs. Students would be motivated by the fact that they would get to present their fun ideas to a group. A job like connector could help students think of other books or movies they are familiar with that relate to the book they are reading. One example would be how our connector related Auggie in “Wonder” to Harry Potter. The boys in both books struggled throughout the story but ended up being heroes.
The literary circles would benefit the teacher as well. Students could be divided into reading level groups. Every student in a particular group would be given the same book based on their reading level. The teacher could have several different literary circle groups going at one time in the room. The teacher could sit in on each group to assess their comprehension of the book. Some groups will need more time than others from the teacher.
The only drawback, however, to having a literary circle would be that it would take some time and a lot of work to explain the process to the students and then get them set up in their circles. The students would definitely benefit from the teachers time and effort.
Literary circles would be a great addition to any classroom reading program. They will help all types of readers increase their understanding of a book and increase their ability to apply the knowledge they gained from reading the book to real world situations.

[Jennafer]

I think that the literature circle activity provides many pros. This gets each student involved in the reading by providing them with different roles. I like how you would switch up the roles with every reading so that each student would get the chance to be everything at least once. This experience allows students to discuss many aspects of the book, while only having to focus on one thing while actually reading. Not every student is going to shine in every one of these roles, but it does get their minds thinking in different ways. I also like how the connector can use all three of the "text-to" strategies. This would be an easy way to tie this into the literature circle, but could also be done by asking students to provide a "text-to" example that connects to their own roles.
The only con I could see in doing this activity is the amount of time it would take to explain everything to the class and for them to get a hang of it. However, once this is done, it would be very beneficial for both the class and the teacher.

[Lindsey]

Overall, I feel that there are many more pros to using a lit circle in the classroom than there are cons. One advantage is that each student is assigned one specific task in dealing with a certain part of the story. For readers who may have problems connecting all of the dots, this gives them one thing to focus on while reading or after reading. And by switching up roles with each new part of the book, it gives students a chance to be able to focus on different parts of the whole book with each changing position in the group. By delegating tasks children get to see the story in a different way with each position within the group. Another advantage is that by getting to discuss the story with their peers they will gain the varying viewpoints of several others, which could open up ideas and questions they had not previously thought about. Instead of just reading the book, a literature circle allows students to gain a deeper understanding of the text. As the students mature, and can take on more complex thinking while reading because they have taken on the different roles within the lit circle. In my opinion, this will make them more well rounded readers than those who, perhaps, were not involved in such activities in the classroom.
The only disadvantages that I can think of is the amount of time that it takes to set up these literature circles. This disadvantage only happens once as the students are learning each role and how to present it to their peer. With more experience in a lit circle, I can see things going smoother for teacher and students. The other disadvantage that I thought of are for those students who are very shy or who are not sure about their position when it comes to thinking critically about text. Non-readers or those less confident students may feel a certain anxiety about presenting their ideas. Hopefully the more experience those students see in lit circles the more comfortable and confident they will be in their ideas, questions, and interpretations.

[Claudia]

The greatest pro of the literature circle is that the students get to voice their opinions. Each student gets the chance to lead the discussion and state their point of view for each role. Unfortunately, not every student will like to be each role. Some students will also do better at some roles over others. A major con of the literature circle is the amount of time that is need to teach and carry out the different roles.

[Amanda]

There are many different pros with having a literature circle in the classroom. I think it's good for the students to each get to share their ideas and hear other student's ideas. I think that people get a lot more out of a book when they have something they are watching for or paying particular attention for. This is achieved threw having different roles. It is also a good way to assess student learning by walking around listening and then collecting their work. Some con's to having literature circles in classrooms would be things such as students getting off task. Some students will be more into having a discussion about a book because all students have different opinions about reading, therefore some will get off task and rush threw the discussion.

[Jaden]

I think the most important pro of a literature circle is a better understanding of the story. Because each person is assigned a specific role, they are able to become very familiar with that role. This allows students to educate their group in detail about all of their findings regarding that role. This gives each student a more in-depth knowledge about the story than if they were on their own. However, literature circles can also have cons. I know that putting children into small groups can often times lead to off topic discussions. You get a group of four children together that would rather talk about the latest video game or movie rather than the book they were forced into reading. It may be difficult to keep students focused and on topic while in large groups.

[Brittany]

I feel that there are certain pros with the Lit circle which is a great way for the students to learn in depth and discuss what they think is important. Giving them jobs also helps them get that little bit more of information to share with their friends. The cons would be the time involved in setting up the Lit circle and picking out the certain text for it. I think that it would be hard and time consuming for students in the younger grades to grasp all of the things right away and that would maybe make me shy away from using a Lit circle unless a really cool teacher gives me an example of their lesson plan for using one!

[Maddie]

I really like the idea of lit circles. I think that some pros are; When children get into groups and discuss different aspects of the book it can give you a new perspective that you may not have had before. I like that there are set jobs for each person. I think that wonder is a great book for a lit circle. I think that one con would be maybe if the other students knew they were doing group work about the book they may tell someone who didn't read the book what happened. I know I used to do that in high-school and a lot of times teachers did not pick up on it. Another con is this may take time for a new teacher to set up, once you get the hang of it it may start to go quicker.

[Colin]

I'm sure that there are pros and cons of using a literature circle within a classroom, but if managed properly the pros far outweigh the cons. The cons of using a literature circle would include unpreparedness of one student in a group bringing the rest of the group down. Another con would be if all of the students in the group are not on the same reading level. Both of these instances could be handled with careful planning. A way that a student that is not necessarily at the same reading level as others in the group could still be a valuable member would be with a good group assignment such as an illustrator. Another way would be to choose a book that all members could read and appreciate. An example of this could be a wordless book. I believe the pros far outweigh the cons when a literature circle is modeled and managed in the right way. Literature circles give students a chance to gain a deeper understanding of a book by bringing about other points of view that possibly had not been thought of previously. Students almost unknowingly practice relating text-to-self when contrasting the book to their real life experiences, text-to-text when comparing the book to another book or maybe even a movie, and text-to-world when students discuss a part of the book that reminds them of something that is happening or has happened in the world at large.

[Rachel]

Using literature circles in the classroom gives students to think about the book on a different level or from a different perspective than just by reading it and discussing what they liked/disliked. By pursuing many different literary roles students are able to understand the story and focus on a particular part rather than just gathering general surface information. This gives students the opportunity to read in between the lines and it focuses their thinking. A downside to using literature circles is the amount of time it would take to discuss them in class granted that students would start preparing for their role in class and finishing at home. The next days in school would focus on discussion and rotating roles again. It also would take a long time to teach students how literature circles work by after rotating a few times students should catch on.

[Justin]

There would be several pros and cons of using a literature circle within a classroom. The first pro that I recognized was the literature circles ability to place the students in responsibility of their own education. This gives the students the opportunity to pick out pieces of the text that they deemed important, as opposed to the one-sided teacher interpretation. A second pro would be that students that have a more difficult time reading would have the opportunity to discuss the text with their peers. We know from research that peer interaction encourages learning. A third pro of a literature circle would be that students would be able to create their own references to the text, which might be more meaningful than anything that the teacher could create.
One of the cons of the literature circle might be that the students would have a difficult time making connections to the readings the first few times that the teacher used this tool. In this case, I would give the students specific connections for the students to look for until they got the hang of things. An example would be, “Which character do you feel that you relate to the most and why?” (text-to-self). “How are Jack, in Wonder and Mac, in The Fourth Stall similar?” would be an example of a text-to-text connection. “How do we make sure that this situation does not happen in our school?” would be an instance to use a text-to-world reference. Another con that I could foresee in using the literary circle would be that more aggressive students could overshadow quieter students’ contributions. I could also see where some information might not get shared in some groups if not all students participate, finish their homework, and put for an effort in this project. Overall, there were many positives and negatives to this activity.

[Emily]

There are many pros to using literature circles in the classroom! For those students who have a hard time reading, this is a good way to get together with other classmates and review the book. The students will get a chance to share their opinions by being assigned a certain role. It will be beneficial for the students to talk to each other so they are exposed to views other than their own. There aren't many cons to the literature circle besides the fact that it could take a lot of time to get organized. The students will also either need time during class to work on their assigned roles or need to put in extra time at home. Some students may not be confident with reading a book and talking about what they got out of it, so it may be hard for some students to open up. With practice, I think all the students would eventually become comfortable with the process and literature circles would be a very fun way to discuss books.

[Kelsey]

Some pros to using a literature circle in the classroom are it gets everyone involved, it allows students to use their talents to analyze a book, it opens up great opportunities for discussions, it allows teachers to see who really read the book and who didn't, and it allows teachers to see where individual students are at in reading comprehension tasks. By giving every student involved an individualized task, no student is left out of giving their feedback about the book. Also students can pick literature circle assignments that actually interest them instead of just writing a paper which might not be something they like to do in the first place. For example, if a student likes to draw they can choose to be the illustrator or if a student has strong leadership skills they can choose to be the discussion leader. This gives the student the ability to display their true understanding of the book without the possibility of being limited by a weakness in writing or communicating. Literature circles give students the opportunity to run the show which gives them more confidence to share their own opinions and freely discuss. They also are great tools for teachers to evaluate how well a student is doing in reading comprehension because it puts all students on level fields and forces every student to share some amount of information.
I can't think of many cons to literature circles. The one con I can think of is that not all of material of the book could get covered. If none of the students feel like a certain part of the book is worth taking note of and discussing, then it is left out of the discussion. But these parts that the students miss could be very vital parts to the book as a whole and should be discussed.