Our First Literature Circle was a Success!

We had our first literature circle today.  The class read the poem, “My Parents have the Flu Today,” by Jack Prelutsky.  Everyone had 25 minutes to prepare for a discussion.  Word Wizards worked together on finding definitions for new words and identifying words in the poem that are funny, important or interesting.  The Positive Profilers made connections to the PYP learner profile.  Meanwhile, the Artful Artists busily worked away on 3D sculptures (they could have chosen to make a cartoon, drawing, write a song, etc… but the clay was too tempting!) and Capable Connectors thought outside of the box to connect the poem to their lives or to other pieces of literature.  Last, but certainly not least, Discussion Directors wrote open-ended questions and thought about strategies to make sure that everyone had an equal chance to share ideas and ways to keep groups on task.

We regrouped to have 4 discussions simultaneously.  Each group had a Word Wizard, Positive Profiler, Capable Connector, Artful Artist and Discussion Director.  Alastair, Chiho, Svea and Gordon were our first discussion directors, and thanks to their leadership, all of the groups had a productive and purposeful discussion about the poem.  Some groups needed a bit of assistance from Mrs. Jansen and me, but for the most part the Discussion Directors took charge. 

It is important for the children to learn how to discuss literature independently and in a meaningful way.  The children are looking forward to our next literature circle in order to further develop these skills.