Adapted from Literature Circles:  Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom, Harvey Daniels (1994)

Summarizer:  Your job is to prepare a brief summary of today’s reading.  Your group discussion will start with your 1-2-minute statement that covers the key points, main highlights, and general idea of today’s reading assignment.  List your key points to remind you.

Discussion Director: Your job is to develop a list of questions that your group may want to discuss.  Your task is to help people talk over the big ideas in the reading and share their reactions. Write down at least 5 questions.

Sample questions

·      What was going through your mind while you read this?

·      How did you feel while reading this part of the book?

·      What was discussed in this section of the book?

·      Did today’s reading remind you of any real-life experiences?

·      What questions did you have when you finished this section?

·      Did anything in this section surprise you?

·      What are the one or two most important ideas?

·      Predict some things you think will happen next.

Literary Luminary:  Your job is to locate a few special sections of the text that your group would like to hear read aloud.  The ideas is to help people remember some interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important sections of the text.  Some reasons for choosing a passage are that it is important, surprising, controversial, funny, well-written, confusing, thought-provoking, or something else. You can read the passages aloud yourself,  ask someone else to read them, or have people read them silently and then discuss.  List the location (page/paragraph) and reason for picking for at least 5 quotes.

Connector:  Your job is to find connections between the book your group is reading and the world outside.  This means connecting the reading to your own life, to happenings at school or in the community, to similar events at other times and places, to other people or problems that you are reminded of.  You might also see connections between this book and other writings on the same topic or by the same answer.  Make a list of at least 5 connections (text-self, text-text, or text-world).

Illustrator: Your job is to draw (or find) some kind of picture related to the reading.  It can be a sketch, cartoon, diagram, flow chart, or stick-figure scene.  You can draw a picture of something that’s discussed in the book or something that the reading reminded you of.  You may convey any idea or feeling you got from the reading. Make your drawing on a sheet of plain paper.

Investigator:  Your job is to dig up some background information on any topic related to your book. This might include the following:

·      The geography, weather, culture, or history of the book’s setting.

·      Information about the author:  his/her life and other works.

·      Information about the time period portrayed in the book.

·      Pictures, objects, or materials that illustrate elements of the book.

·      The history and derivation of words or names used in the book.

·      Music that reflects the book or time.

Travel Tracer:  Your job is to track carefully where the action takes place during the reading. Describe each setting in detail, either in words or with an action map or diagram you can show your group.  Be sure to give the page locations where the scene is described.  Make a list of settings encountered in this part of the text.  Tell us where and when this scene occurred.  Provide any other environmental issues that are important to setting.  This may be a list or a diagram of some kind.  Include at least 5 bits of evidence, including page numbers.

Vocabulary Enricher:  Your job is to be on the lookout for a few especially important words in today’s reading.  If you find words that are puzzling or unfamiliar, mark them while you are reading and then later jot down their definitions, either from a dictionary or another source.  You may also run across familiar words that stand out somehow in the reading – words that are repeated a lot, used in an unusual way, or key to the meaning of the text. When your circle meets, help members find and discuss these words.   Create a list of at least 5 words, including the page number where you found the word and the original sentence from the text, and the definition of the word.