Several sections will be introduced in this chapter. The first one is the literature circle. In this section, the definition of literature circles, discussion roles, and studies of literature circles will be introduced. Then the following are theories underlying literature circles. Finally, reviews of the literature circles conducted in Taiwan will be presented.
Literature Circles
What Are Literature Circles?
According to Daniels’ (2006) definition, literature circles refers to small
student-centered discussion groups who meet temporarily and regularly to talk about the books they read. Each group reads different books they choose, and each student is responsible for a specific role in helping the other members discuss the text
collaboratively. While reading independently, students can write down their questions and opinions about the books on response logs, Post-it notes, and role sheets as prepared materials to bring forth during the literature circle. Then, they can use their notes to initiate the conversation and share with other peers in group meetings. After
that, the new rotated roles and new groups will be formed based on the selection of new books.
In literature circles, the teacher is expected to be a facilitator and a fellow reader.
His or her main jobs are observing group meetings, writing records, collecting books, making assessment notes, and assisting the students who have any problems. A literature circle is a reading strategy to support students to develop their skills of analysis, more profound thinking about the texts, and ways to read through supportive and cooperative literature circles. Further details are listed below.
Eleven elements below are vital factors of literature circles to turn a class into a less aggressive and more cooperative peer work. All the components are adjustable for a literature circle’s curriculum so that they can be either all manipulated or partially omitted.
(1) Students choose their reading materials.
(2) Small temporary groups are formed, based on their choices.
(3) Participants can choose the books they would like to read as a group.
(4) The participants meet regularly for discussion.
(5) Drawings and written notes can be used to guide their reading and initiate discussion.
(6) Students figure out topics to talk about.
(7) In group discussion, students are expected to hold a positive attitude toward all potential subjects, including “open, natural conversations about books, personal connections, digressions, and open-ended questions”.
(8) The teacher is not supposed to instruct the students, but to facilitate discussions.
(9) The teacher’s observation and the students’ self-evaluation are crucial elements.
(10) The atmosphere for a literature circle should be pleasant and relaxing.
(11) When readers finish reading the book, they share with their classmates and then form new groups for new reading choices.
(Daniels 2002a, p18).
Discussion Roles
The critical elements for discussion in literature circles are nine discussion roles (Daniels, 2002a). Depending on the kind of literature studied, the parts chosen can be adjusted for literature circles. However, some elements cannot be omitted. For
example, the first to the fourth roles listed below are essential in literature circles, but optional from the fifth to the eighth roles. The task descriptions of the roles are listed below.
(1) The connector is responsible for connecting their lives, feelings, experiences, related books they read and the authors to the texts.
(2) The questioner/discussion director tries to ask questions to help peers to get further reading comprehension or mention some issues that the other members may be interested in discussions.
(3) The literary luminary/passage master searches for crucial, notable, unique parts or passages to analyze and reread.
(4) The illustrator needs to create visual objects such as graphic arts to respond to the text.
(5) The summarizer should offer a brief description of the reading.
(6) The vocabulary enricher/word wizard seeks for the essential and unfamiliar vocabulary of high importance.
(7) The travel tracer/scene setter designs a diagram to describe the story’s setting like action occurrence and story transition.
(8) The investigator looks for background information of the book and any related information about the book.
(qt. Daniels, 2002a) The primary purpose of discussion role is to assist students in getting
well-prepared for related discussion topics when they discuss in literature circles and
set better cognitive reading goals to respond to the texts. Through the interactions with other participants by playing distinct roles, students can express their viewpoints in different ways collaboratively.
Studies for Literature circles
Literature circles are widely adopted as a reading approach for supporting language learning, learning attitude, and motivation. For language learning, many types of research employed literature circles to enhance students’ reading
comprehension. In Widodo’s empirical study (2015), the implementation of a literature circle in an intensive English reading class promoted students’ content knowledge building and reading engagement through dialogic discussion. Learning through discussion with peers is a crucial element for literature circles (Carrison &
Ernst-Slavit, 2005). Many studies have shown that the participants could benefit from literature circles. When students inquire, they have a chance to clear their doubts, and their misunderstandings of the texts could be corrected through interactive discussions (Avci & Yüksel, 2011). Through discussion, participants are exposed to different opinions and various responses, which can also help them to enhance their fluency, literacy skills, and high-order thinking (Elhess & Egbert, 2015).
King (2001) also mentioned that reading could be recognized as a dynamic, pleasing, and creative activity through students’ exploratory talk during literature
circles. When interacting with others, one’s ideas, opinions, and meaning-making are developing and deepening. The engaging process allows children to think in different ways. Therefore, students can strengthen their text comprehensions, meaning
searching skills, and effective communication abilities through group interaction and collaboration (Ragland & Palace, 2017). To encourage students to read, we shouldn’t neglect children’s interest and desires of meaning-making from texts. The application of the literature circle not only assists on people’s language learning but also the changes of viewpoints. For example, Madhuri, Walker, Landmann-Johnsey, and Laughter (2015) maintained a group of preservice teacher candidates who would teach various races from a different background of culture and economy changed their racial opinions after they joined literature circles to talk about social justice. During their discussions, the candidates were found to be more self-questioning to their preconceived stereotypes and beliefs. Thus, the literature circle helped these candidates to overcome their thinking habits.
In the study of Carrison and Ernst-Slavit (2005), a Ukrainian fourth-grader who thought English reading was stupid, time-wasting, and unwilling to read had a
considerable improvement in his attitude toward English reading. After this boy’s first book reading in a literature circle, he actively asked a teacher for a book for silent reading. Then, he asked for the teacher’s permission to bring the book home for
further reading. After that, this boy began to visit the school library to read books.
From the cases mentioned above, no matter what a person’s linguistic background is, literature circles indeed help people to involve themselves in reading and alter their reading attitude.
Apart from adopting literature circles for students' independent learning, it is also utilized for preservice teachers to learn the benefits of literature circles to teach
literature efficiently in the future. According to a study conducted by Bennett, Gunn, and Leung (2016), a professor from an urban university in the Southeast United States investigated 62 preservice teachers. The study aimed to find out how much
understanding these participants derived about reading comprehension strategies which they learned and applied them on a multicultural text in literature circle’s discussions. In this study, these preservice teachers said literature circles allowed them to produce deeper thinking and stimulated them to understand their thinking process better in reflective journals.
Besides, the preservice teachers also redefined what reading is through
cooperation in the literature circle. First, it enriched one’s reading by sharing thoughts with each other. Second, interactions with others quickly solve one’s confusions about a story. Third, critical thinking, diverse perspectives, and meaning-seeking were naturally developed through literature circles.
Some literature circles had been conducted in Taiwan in the different educational stage. It showed that this reading approach helped students to improve their English interests and reading comprehension. For example, in primary schools, Fan (2010) conducted his study with English picture books to 26 fifth graders, and he pointed out that the students would be more willing to read and discuss the texts. Besides,
students had improved their reading comprehension, especially for high-level comprehension through group discussions. The same result also occurred in Cheng (2010) who conducted her study with five electronic books (E-books) to exam 61 sixth graders’ reading comprehension and perceptions toward literature circles. The students agreed that cooperative discussion would help them to produce a deeper understanding of texts and finishing one’s discussion role task would not only offer them a chance to express their opinions but also have more confidence. Besides, as a ranking for discussion role in Cheng’s study, Word Checker was the most popular discussion role and then was Summarizer, Illustrator, and Luminary. The role of Illustrator was also loved by another sixth graders from Wei’s (2013) study. However, the role of summarizer was the most disliked. Although some studies had proved the literature circle could have positive effects on students’ reading comprehension and attitude, it did not present a significant improvement on 15 sixth graders’ reading attitude in Wei’s study.
Literature circles were also applied in Taiwanese high school students and college students. Having a conversation in literature circles provided time and a chance for readers to clarify their thinking. They did not only have their talk with texts and authors but also with themselves while they were writing. They interacted with their peers while they were sharing their perceptions. Therefore, the dialogue might bring more than pleasure. They developed different aspects of thinking through exchanging ideas with others, which might guide them to different interpretations for the texts. Therefore, Lin (2013) investigated how ten female senior high students interacted in literature circles. She found two types of topics were discussed by students. One was topics for understanding the text, and the other one was for an extended discussion. Main characters were talked about most frequently, then word meanings and plots. As for broad topics, a reader’s associational life experiences were the peak for a mention, then, the empathy to express personal emotions for characters.
Wang (1999) also explored 15 female senior high school students’ written responses.
The result showed that students tended to have their interpretations of the story’s moral lessons, related personal experiences, emotions, and character’s behaviors.
Interestingly, the results from the two studies were nearly the same as what students reflected in their written responses. Therefore, discussion with peers in literature circles played a vital role in one’s reading comprehension. Chen (2016) indicated that
reflective sharing and discussion in literature circles could enhance 19 university students’ reading comprehension. Meanwhile, literature circles facilitated students’
reading motivation with a non-threatening atmosphere to learn from other members.
Literature circles were not implemented widely in junior high schools, especially for ninth graders. Cheng (2007) studied how junior high school’s students gave their responses and personal understanding after reading stories. It indicated that students could gain more aesthetic stance and expand their reading comprehension more than literal meanings of the texts through literature circles. Discussion role sheets could be replaced with a reading journal, and it promotes students to state more in-depth personal responses. Besides, a group report and play would enhance the students’
verbal abilities (Chen, 2013).
Theories Underlying Literature Circles
Zone of Proximal Development and Collaborative Learning
Vygotsky (1978) defined Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as the room for improvement between one’s levels of practical and potential development. The actual development level means a person’s current problem-solving ability and the potential development level means the capacity which can be reached or raised by assisting a grown-up or a capable peer’s collaborative interaction to solve a challenging problem.
A learner shortens the distance between the two levels through imitating and learning
with peer assistance. Then, he or she owns new independent problem-solving capacities.
From the socio-cognitive viewpoint of literacy, literacy is not only about reading and writing but also abilities which combine higher level of literacy, and socially interactive progress (Langer, 1986). In the literature circle, Vygotsky’s ZPD theory is in accordance with collaborative learning framework. Cooperative learning is a teaching approach for the teacher to arrange a small group work with student-centered and higher-order of thinking activity. Each member from the group has a target task to finish, and all the members accomplish their learning goals (Cuseo, 1992). Several elements foster positively cooperative learning such as interdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual responsibility, collaborative skills teaching, and discussion for group processing (Johnson & Johnson, 1990). When students have a positive
relationship and face-to-face interactions, they know if one gives a member a hand, he helps everyone. On the contrary, if one hurts another’s feelings, everyone will get hurt.
Reader Responses
Based on Rosenblatt (1995), every text is interpreted by readers. Even the same word, symbol, and paragraph could have different meanings for each reader. A transactional process is the factor that contributes to different interpretations.
Therefore, according to the differences of readers, including imagination, life experience, knowledge, religion, gender, and age, each reader produces various responses to texts after reading. Then, readers get different expressions, feelings, and experiences. Rosenblatt (1994) marked a reader’s reading purpose of efferent and aesthetic reading. If a reader takes an efferent stance, he or she will strive to keep useful information for later use after reading. In contrast, more related emotions, life experiences, and images with reading texts appear in the reader’s mind if he takes an aesthetic stance for reading.
Cox and Many (1992) mentioned three pieces of evidence when a reader gives aesthetic responses. First, a reader tends to describe how their mental pictures are created when he involves the narrative world through reading. Second, distinguished from the actual meaning the author means to express, another sense will be formed by a reader through an extending story and a hypothesis. In that way, a reader attempt to find out the differences there will be in the story. Third, an evocation of feeling, past experiences, and association will be recalled.
Sometimes, we might put too much effort on the importance of reading, but a reader’s responses are crucial for supporting one’s passion for reading. If the teacher gives too many instructions, it may interrupt the reader’s engagement. By meaningful transactional progress with texts, it not only helps readers to figure out what they are
but rethinks what they have experienced (Galda, 2013). Many and Wiseman (1992) administered reader responses pedagogy to 220 fourth graders on three picture books.
In their study, the students could produce more responses from the literary-experience group. Students can involve themselves in the story and analyze similarities between characters and people around them. Besides, students viewed literature as an aesthetic experience rather than a subject.
Nonetheless, the group of students who did not receive reader response
instruction are more likely to retell the details of the story. Living through texts brings every reader a personal and unique meaning. If teaching in the English class only focuses on linguistic knowledge, students might have less chance to live-through the text.
Independent reading
Reading is a way to show someone about global knowledge and literacy (Singh, David & Choo, 2012). One of the benefits of independent reading approach is
cultivating one’s abilities to choose appropriated reading material by themselves.
Moreover, readers also have opportunities to open a window in their mind for understanding themselves better and seeing how the other people around them read, respond, and share with others (Noortyani, 2018). Independent reading also fosters one’s appreciation toward reading for his lifetime and reading development (Burns,
1998). In general, unsuitable reading materials might lead to difficulties in reading comprehension and lower self-learning motivation. Finding joy from reading and establishing values of books motivate one to become a lifelong reader and learner.
Therefore, since a reader knows the way to find suitable reading materials by themselves, cultivating one’s independent reading benefits his/her independent learning, social interactions and content acquisition.