Literature Circle Reflection

Overview: The book that I chose is one that I bought when I was visiting Napa, CA. The name of the book is Esperanza by Sara Donnelly. The story is about a little six year old girl who is dying to read. However, the school that she would have attended was destroyed in a war. As the story progresses, some workers from the U.S. come over and help her village re-build the school. Esperanza finally gets her dream-come-true once school begins and her teacher gives her her first book to read. On the left hand page, the text is written in Spanish and on the right is English.
I thought that the implementation of this book went very well. I chose to do this lesson with my middle reading group for several reasons. Most importantly, was that they are all Spanish speakers, which my other reading groups are not. They are also a very verbal group which would provide ample opportunity for discussion. The students participated well and wanted to discuss the book and then some!! I liked having the booked "chunked" with my questions prepared in advance. I also liked having the vocabulary picked out in advance so that we could discuss the words before we read the text. The students were excited when I came to a vocabulary word and almost always pointed it out during the reading.
The students liked the story and I think it made them think about how fortunate they were to have a nice school to go to. We made a Circle Map about all we knew about school before we began the book. Then when we finished the book we added to the circle all the things that we knew about Esperanza's school. What struck me was that they were able to point out all the things that Esperanza's school was lacking. They said things like, "no library", "no centers", "no playground", etc.
I felt like the Literature Circle technique was very appropriate for my ELL's. It was great for them to see the Spanish in print even though I didn't attempt to read it. However, one student even offered to read it for me! The illustrations were wonderful, showing the typical life style of an Hispanic village. I think it was wonderful for these students to see their race represented in books. I thought that having the vocabulary words discussed before reading the book, helped to clarify these words that could have been a stumbling block to their comprehension if left unmentioned. Preparation was key to making this activity meaningful.
If I had this lesson to do over again, I would have changed my graphic organizer to a compare and contrast Venn-type diagram. The students tended to take the thinking in that direction. Otherwise, I think that it was a very successful lesson and technique that I plan to use again.
I would strongly advise other ELL professionals to cosider using the Literature Circle technique. I thought that for my younger/pre-readers it worked well as a read aloud activity. For older children it would work just as well to have them read on their own if possible and then meet for discussions. Either way I think that it is a valuable language tool that helps to validate the culture and heritage of our students.



MTSU Honor Statement:

This assignment/assessment was solely written by me. In no way have I plagiarized (represented the work of another as my own) or otherwise violated the copyright laws and academic conventions of fair use. I know that violations of this policy may result in my being dismissed from Middle Tennessee State University and/or appropriate legal action being taken against me.
Signed (submitting this statement to Teaching Faculty with student's name typed
below constitutes signing):
Celia Denney
Date: April 21, 2010