Teachers: Miss J.

Nason
Grade: 6A

School: Harvey High School

Date: March 11, 2014 (Period 1)
Lesson Map

Title of Lesson: Introduction to Literature Circles

Curriculum Outcome:
Speaking & Listening
1. Students will be expected to speak and listen to explore, extend, clarify, and reflect on their
thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
contribute thoughts, ideas, and questions to discussion and compare their own ideas
with those of peers and others
listen critically to others ideas or opinions and points of view
2. Students will be expected to communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly, and
to respond personally and critically.
contribute to and respond constructively in conversation, small-group and whole-group
discussion
give and follow instructions and respond to a variety of questions and instructions
Reading and Viewing:
4. Students will be expected to select, read, and view with understanding a range of literature,
information, media, and visual texts.
select, independently, texts appropriate to their range of interests and learning needs

Class Objectives: Big Ideas, Key

Assessment:
Questions:
Formative:
What is a literature circle?
Teacher Observation
What does it look like? What happens within Class Participation in Discussion
in?
What books are available? What are they
about? How many copies of each?
What are some behaviours needed to have
successful literature circles?
Time Required for this Lesson: 60 minutes (one class)
Materials/Resources: PowerPoint with bullet points on literature circles. Book talk notes for
each novel. Basic points on behaviour you may want students to hit when constructing success
criteria for the literature circles. Picture for starter (warmuplesson2 file on USB).
Methods/Structure: Lecture, class discussion
Text/Audio/Video Based
Features:
Vocabulary:
Resources:
Picture for a writing prompt
for sacred writing time
PowerPoint of information on
literature circles.

Instructional Strategies/ Procedure for the Class:

Intro/Warm-up: Sacred Writing Time: (warmuplesson2.jpg) Picture prompt if they wish to use
it. Provide some time at the end for sharing if they wish to share.
Time: 10 minutes

Knowledge Content: Ask if anyone has been a part of a literature circle before. Ask based on
the name alone what do students think a literature circle is or share their experience with them.
Have short discussion about what students think literature circles are. Open PowerPoint to
quickly go through the structure of a literature circle, what roles there will be in the circles,
how they alternate each week. Inform them that we will explore the sheets more in depth the
next day. Book talk all the books they have the option of reading for the literature circles
(sheet with book talk info) display the books as they are described. Have a list on PowerPoint
with all the books listed on the board, so that students can refer to them when writing out their
top 3 picks. Give students a recipe card. On top of card they will write their name and then
their top three choices. They will get one of their three choices guaranteed. Once the recipe
card are collected move into a discussion in small groups.
Time: 30 minutes
Activities: Get students to sit in pairs and discuss the question of what kind of behaviours they
need to display to have successful literature circles. This will be done for about 10 minutes,
then we will discuss their ideas as a class and create our expected behaviours. They will be
posted in the class so we can remember them when we are having out literature circles.
Time:19 minutes
Close: Let students know that the next day they will know their book and group.
Time:1 minute
Differentiation: Clarification on literature circles, a lot of discussion based learning. Students
will not have to learn this through reading a lot of sheets rather they will learn about LCs
through whole class discussion and the behaviours they will construct with peers.
EA- During the group discussion making sure students stay on task, are coming up with
reasonable behaviours.
Teaching Method and Strategies: Whole class discussion, group discussions and mini-lesson
References: