Literature Circles

We have been working on reading strategies in Spanish III, using an embedded reading and an Anticipation Guide and citing evidence from the text to support the statements. For the final reading, the students did an activity called Lit Circles. This goes back to the days of cooperative learning, but also gives a purpose for their reading.

The students had been through the first 2 versions of the embedded reading text and we had done lots of circling of the information with it. They were divided into 4 groups according to what they felt were their strongest skills or learning styles: Director, Dibujante, Diccionario, Resumen (sorry I couldn't get another D word in there lol). All the directores were in one group; all the dibujantes were in another group, etc. As they read through the final version, they used the filter of their job to read. The directors were the strongest students who felt like they really had a grasp on the chapter. The dibujantes did a pictorial summary of what was happening in the chapter. They diccionarios understood every word of the chapter, looking up any vocabulary or structures they didn't know or were unsure of. The resumenes were similar to the Dibujantes, but did a written summary of the chapter.

After doing a "cold read" of the full chapter with their group members, one person from each was reassigned to a new group so that there was only director, one dibujante, one diccionario, and one resumen in each group. They then read through it again, collaborating with their new partners. Moohaha, I just snuck in another repetition! As a whole group, I added yet additional reps by doing a Q/A a la Carol Gaab style.