Cassie Manley: Question and Philosophy & Profile

Disclaimer: This is a first, rough draft. I've already modified my question. It and the adjusted (and fully hashed out) philosophy & profile to follow.

In other words, please don't judge me.

Cassie Manley

N. Votteler

SHSU Writing Project

8 June 2011

The Teacher Exploration Workshop (The Question and Philosophy & Profile): Literature Circles in an Unlikely Place

The Question:

How do I incorporate successful literature circles into a World History class?

Philosophy & Profile:

This matters to me because I have tried various, mainly homemade, approaches to literature instruction in my previous two years as an English teacher and had very mixed results. When I tried a version of literature circles, some groups sailed along beautifully, digging deeply into challenging texts and engaging in inspiring dialogue, with little to no input from my co-teacher nor me, and some groups struggled with the text and each other all the way through. These groupings were changed at the start of each quarter, so I can’t attribute their respective successes or challenges to particular mixtures of students. I suspect that particular students’ leadership was a factor here, but I feel certain it can’t be whole explanation. This is also important to me because next year contains a lot of change, and consequently a lot of opportunity, for both me and my school. Among the changes in store is an adjustment to the length of time of the World History block: four hours. My principal has expressed a desire and my co-teacher and I are excited by the possibility that this change allows for the World History class to become more of a Humanities class, to incorporate literature, art, and music. This obviously leaves plenty of room to incorporate meaningful literature study in the class, and it allows the English class to be more a composition class, which is something the lower level English teachers have desired for some time.

The question then is how to do this well. I am grateful for the opportunity to research this topic and gain knowledge about what has worked for others in the past. I believe that literature circles are a fairly common practice in the inspired English classroom, so my solution may be as simple as incorporating tried and true practices here. I’m not sure if the subtle twist of setting will factor in at all.