There's no better way to deepen children's comprehension and appreciation of books than with literature circles. But let's face it, it's not always easy to plan, manage, and evaluate them—until now. Whether you're starting from scratch or just looking for new ideas, Moving Forward with Literature Circles provides all the tools you need—guidelines, minilessons, booklists, checklists, and more—to maintain a successful program in your classroom.
I have done lit circles a few times now, but would like to take them farther, especially since next year I will have a wider range of readers and thus might do lit circles more than once. I plan on reading Mini-lessons for Literature Circles before I read this one though since that book seems to be more about basics, and I already own that one.
I would recommend this to elementary teachers, for sure. Not so much for middle/high school teachers. I also only gave it 2 stars because it only based its research and presentations on ONE classroom. And... it was the author's classroom. It was odd reading about it in the 3rd person, as Jeni the author talked about "Jeni's classroom."
A good outline for doing literature circles. Comes with assessment ideas and rubrics and checklists you can photocopy. It even discusses ways to reach diverse learners during lit circles. I like that they used a real classroom to discuss their ideas, which made them all seem more legitimate.
Good book but geared towards lower grades. I think I'll be able to take some of the information and tweak it for my students. However, I found a lot of the book discussed strategies and concepts I already did and/or knew.