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Goal

The goal of Literature Circles is to increase student motivation, allow for choice, engage students while developing social skills and better discussion habits, and improve attitudes towards independent reading.  

What will be done with my students

Literature Circles are an effective and efficient strategy practiced in schools to promote independent reading, cooperative learning and student engagement. Choice is the key word! Students love to be able to choose what they are going to read. This allows students to take ownership of their own reading, as well as creates a more engaging learning environment for students. Students will participate in weekly literature circles using a book of their choice. Students will form small group "book talks" based on their choice of reading material and meet regularly to read and orally discuss the novel. Book talks are intended to be a natural conversation based on discussion about then previous night's reading, as well as predictions for the future. Group meetings allow for students to focus on cooperation and team work. Each group will be reading a different novel. Throughout the discussion process students will be taking on different roles, as well working on higher-order thinking activities that focus on developing vocabulary, summarizing key-points, making real-world connections, creating challenging questions, and analyzing the text. The teacher serves as the facilitator and meets with students to offer guidance and support throughout the week. Students will be given opportunities to share their novels with their classmates, promoting speaking and listening skills, as well. All of these skills correlate with our new Florida State Standards for Language Arts and will help to prepare students to analyze literature for the Florida State Assessment. Independent reading and cooperative learning are key elements in a successful and innovative reading program. The timeline of this project will start in October and continue throughout the entire 2015-2016 school year. Students will have the opportunity to read multiple books throughout the year. This project will be monitored weekly and evaluated through teacher evaluation and student self-evaluation. The opportunities for Literature Circles are endless and open the doors for students to read new and interesting novels that they might not have chosen to read otherwise.  

Benefits to my students

This program will benefit approximately 350 middle school students. Novels will be shared among multiple English/Language Arts classrooms to promote a greater love for reading! Providing time for independent reading, book talks, and cooperative learning will benefit students in the following ways:
-Builds reading fluency, as well as student confidence
-Increases comprehension skills and readability
-Increases vocabulary instruction
- Improves higher-order thinking skills, including critical and creative thinking
- Improves student test scores
- Allows students to make connections to the real-world
-Enhances social interaction with peers
-Improves speaking and listening skills 

Budget Narrative

The following request is for multiple copies of engaging, high-interest novels to be used in several middle school Language Arts classrooms. The novels will be housed in one location and shared among multiple Language Arts teachers throughout the school year and upcoming years. Each teacher will utilize these novels in small-group literature circle discussions continuously throughout the year. The books will be purchased at Barnes and Noble using the 20% teacher's discount.  

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