Virtual Circles: Using Technology to Enhance Literature Circles & Socratic Seminars

Virtual Circles: Using Technology to Enhance Literature Circles & Socratic Seminars

Johnny Walters

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Inquiry Question

Will merging technology (on-line discussion board) with Socratic or Paideia seminars assist my students, especially the lower skilled ones, in enhancing their book discussions, their visualization of the text, and their overall engagement with the material?

Introduction

This inquiry project is about a fusion of three distinct strands:

technology, reader response theory,and Socratic seminars.

I have many lower-skilled students, many of whom may not attain the required "threes" to be promoted to the eighth grade. It was mostly for them that I launched this inquiry. I wanted to find out whether or not meeting the students on turf that was familiar and safe to them, i.e. on-line discussion boards, would assist them in talking about, responding to, and picturing

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what they read. Would on-line discussion boards do a better job of facilitating discussions than would, say, the last four or five cycles of literature circles I have used with my students? Would reader-response (Rosenblatt, 1983) and visualization techniques (Wilhelm, 1997) allow space to increase if students could go on-line, respond to my prompt, and then reply to each other's responses?

Flat Literature Circles

I first heard about literature circles at the 2001 North Carolina Middle School conference in Greensboro. A fellow Appalachian State University graduate, Kelly Sechrist (2001), presented her techniques of literature circling based on the research of Nancy Atwell and Harvey Daniels. I was immediately hooked. I borrowed Sechrist's (2001) role sheets, introduction letter, project proposal list, the entire package. Ahhh, I thought, students will love me for this. They get to choose everything: the book they want to read, the character they want to portray, the role they want to be, the project they want to design - everything!

But soon, I found gaps. First, being able to choose everything isn't always such a good thing. In the Dave Matthews (1994) song "Typical Situation" there's a line that says, "It's a typical situation of these typical times: too many choices. It all comes down to nothing." Matthews' song echoes the fourteenth century philosopher, John Buridan, whose "logical ass" dies of starvation due to being placed between two equally large and equally succulent bales of hay, but is not given any criteria by which to chose one over the other. Many of my own students were caught up in the Matthews/Buridan dilemma of choice paralysis: they viewed reading a book and discussing it meaningfully as one succulent bale of hay, and neglecting the book, ignoring it and goofing off as the other. Soon it became clear to me that if I didn't do something soon, starvation would soon ensue.

Also, questions soon arose. I noticed that the role sheets were being completed haphazardly, with students making little or no effort to go beyond the very basic, obvious answers. And though I would meet with each group repeatedly and explain that the discussion leader needs to ask open-ended, controversial questions rather than factual, knowledge-based ones, the latter continued to dominate most discussions. And so, I would say it again: "Open-ended questions, guys, open-ended questions!" Things would be great and I would leave.

Then I would eavesdrop on the group behind me and hear those boring, factual questions springing up like mushrooms on nice green lawn, poisoning the discussions with a monosyllabic yes's or no's. They'll get better at this the more they do it, I told myself. But after four circle cycles, the students were still beginning and ending discussions with questions like, "How did Billie Jo's momma get burned?" or "Where was Janie stolen from?" And these were from the groups who were actually staying on task long enough to ask the basic questions.

I knew things needed to improve for everyone: Students needed to improve their handling of book discussions, and I needed to improve my ability to come up

Winter 2003

Winter 2002

Children's Literacy Perceptions as They Authored with Hypermedia

with solid evidence that real thinking and questioning was going on, I needed effective techniques to facilitate meaningful discussion.

THE THREE STRANDS

Technology

Jeff Wilhelm (2000) refers to research by scholar J. David Bolter, who suggests that "…if our students are not reading and composing with various electronic technologies, then they are illiterate…right now…". Wilhelm (2000) goes on to say that the much more potent, revolutionary writing and reading space known as hypermedia will soon replace print media. This means that as the winds of change sweep through our schools and homes, if we do not ready our students for this radical break from the old paradigm, we do them a great disservice and send them into the future ill-prepared for what they will inexorably meet. This factor intrigued me and inspired me. I want my students to be prepared for the future, to be able to move and breathe easily in the forest of the World Wide Web, to be as comfortable composing on a word-processor as I used to be with a blue medium-tip ballpoint bic pen and lined yellow legal pad, my former favorite writing materials.

Reader Response

But Wilhelm's inspirational ideas didn't end with the technology strand. I also have the perennial struggle to teach my students how to read, how to interact with a text and ways to make meaning from it. Low reading skills, I'm afraid, were one contributing factor to my punctured and deflating literature circles. Perhaps the main reason the literature circle discussions floundered was that many of the students weren't struggling to make meaning from the book, or weren't reading the book, at all. It seemed the higher skilled students would succeed no matter what I did, and my lower skilled students would flop no matter what I did.

And then I read Wilhelm's (1997) It helped me see that

readers who don't picture what is going on in the text, can't relate to any of the characters or events, or fail to find any method of accessing Benton's "secondary world," - these were the readers who aren't getting anything out of the literature circles. They don't "see" anything when they read, which is sort of like watching a television show with the screen black; this "black screen" in turn prevents them from

identifying with any of the characters, which shuts off their sense of interacting with different roles, which excludes them from the conversation, which introduces confusion, restlessness and boredom, which encourages off-task behavior in literature circles, which starts the process all over again. Then I found myself saying, "Get back to work; if you haven't done your reading, leave your group, sit quietly and finish it up!" Talk about cycles of perpetuated failure! But Wilhelm's (1997) work armed me with a fusillade of reading methods, all of which I was confident would help me help my lower-skilled students.

You Gotta Be the Book.

Socratic Questioning

With the flat literature circles I had been doing with my students, and with Wilhelm in mind, I wanted both to prepare my students and encourage them to improve their own discussions. But while it is true that we need to teach students about these new avenues of technology, it is not true that many kids aren't already technologically savvy. Many students couldn't tell you the price of a stamp, since their primary form of communication is email or chat rooms. And so I wanted to meet my students on their own turf and use a means, which they are both attracted to and comfortable with to create a space where they could work hard, yet have fun. And so I proposed the on-line discussion board. Here my students could talk about what they see, what they don't see, what they agree with, what they don't, what they have questions about, what they have opinions about, and what is happening to them as they read. Based on the philosophical musings of Bernard J. F. Lonergan, 1904-1984, who points out that "Unless one inquires, one does not give insight a chance to arise" (Carley, 1980), I reasoned that the students would have nothing to discuss if they did not first have questions. This truth led me to introduce the third strand of my inquiry proposal, Paideia or Socratic seminars. Perhaps by winding together the technology and the reader-response methods with the Socratic seminar, I could help my students to improve their reading and book discussion skills. Here is how it all played out...

Book Choice

In Carlesen and Sherrill's (1988) , there is a study which charts the types of activities that are most likely to

produce readers. Not surprisingly, one of the most important experiences is the allowing of individual freedom of choice in the books they read. I have found, however, that freedom alone hasn't always helped my students become better readers; so for this study I chose one of my personal favorites, by Louis Sachar (1998). Perhaps this was not the best choice for a book, because my project was so successful in generating reader response both on-line and during the seminars that I can't be sure it was a result of the seminar techniques or the wonderful book.

Voices of Readers: How We Came to Love Books

Holes

Set Up

First, I set up a Zoomerang survey ( ) that I hoped would give me good student feedback on prevailing attitudes about reading in general, and my literature circles in particular. I asked each student to respond to the questions before we began the book. I also asked each student to complete an exit survey so I could observe any growth they may have achieved.

zoomerang.com, Appendix C

Next, I created a handout for a that began on Friday, April 12, and ended Monday, April 22. Students were to read roughly twenty pages in class every day, except for Wednesday, April 17, the first "practice" seminar, and twenty pages for homework each night. On the exception day, Wednesday, I planned to go over the requirements and expectations I tailored specifically for our seminar on , preparing the students for the second, and final seminar to be held Tuesday, April 23 ( ).

reading schedule

HolesAppendix A

Third, I created my on-line discussion board and posted the first question. I tried

to upload the link onto my Web-folio so that students could easily access it from there, but I reconsidered when I realized that both links were just as difficult to type in. I ended up copying the link onto a document page and telling the students to type in the address to the minute dot and hyphen, to ensure they arrived at the intended Web destination. This method worked well.

Fourth, I created a , on which I kept track of where the students were in their reading. Although I intended to check this daily, I ended up checking only five times.

status-of-the-class keeper

Fifth, I created a roster for each student to inform me which homeroom they were in. This was important because it was during homeroom that the students who didn't have access to the Internet at home were to complete their on-line responses. Students signed this roster and informed me of the name of their homeroom teacher, whom I then contacted and secured permission for the students to go to the computer lab and work.

Sixth, I readied things for the Socratic seminar. I created a seminar guide, a question guide, a point keeper with both positive and negative points, and an . (I posted the entrance ticket questions on the discussion board, and would have liked to have done the same with the exit ticket; time restraints, however, made the old-fashioned paper exit ticket quite useful.)

exit ticket

Seventh, I created a handout with different ideas for different types of learners (Most of these ideas I borrowed from a teaching strategy book called

by Paula Rutherford [1998] .) The presentations themselves would be done in front of the class in a forum called a "Know Show," taken from the idea that as an alternative means of assessment, a project needs to show what the learner has learned about the material. Thus, students will show what they know.

Instruction for All Students,

Student Response

My project consisted of students with average to low reading and writing skills. All AIG (Academically/Intellectually Gifted) students are sifted out of the regular language arts classrooms, leaving the students who really do need to enhance their reading and writing skills. Although the study was originally to consist of eighteen students, one student went in for heart surgery, leaving seventeen. Another student was away on vacation to Mexico for the first week of the project; this left him considerably behind, though not out of the game. When he returned, he was very excited about the unit. This small number is a statistician's nightmare, and it certainly does need to be expanded to larger sample size; but I am confident the range of students' skills is a fair representation of my overall student population.

I introduced the students to the unit by taking them to the computer lab, where they completed the on-line Zoomerang survey ( ). The responses they gave confirmed some of my suspicions. First, although 39% of my students claimed they enjoyed reading on their

Appendix C

own, 33% said they felt from neutral to very negative about reading. This ratio certainly reflects the quality of literature circles I had been having. Strangely enough, however, only 22% of the class (4 students) reported feeling slightly negative about literature circles. When asked about what students like most about literature circles, ten out of eighteen students said they most like the fact that in literature circles, students can choose the pace they want to read the book. The next most likeable thing was the fact that the teacher allows projects to compose a sizable portion of the student's grade (33%). When it came to drawbacks of literature circles, once again ten out of eighteen students reported feeling most frustrated with the fact that not everyone reads the book. There was a tie for second place between the fact that many students would rather work by themselves, and the fact that many students do not understand what the teacher (i.e. Mr. Walters) expects from them. One question reached a high level of consensus; when asked whether they felt group interaction helps the students to better enjoy and understand the books they read, thirteen out of eighteen students said yes. Furthermore, twelve students agreed that it is their responsibility to help others around them understand the books we read in class.

Combined with the students' responses on what they liked about literature circles, these last two pieces of data helped me see that most of the students were in favor of interacting with a group in order to better understand the literature they read. Armed with this data, I resolved to do things differently. I was chagrined at the number of students who listed one of the top negative things about literature circles as not understanding what the teacher expects from them, so I determined both to clarify the goals of the project with the students, the reading schedule (which goes directly against the higher rating students gave to setting their own pace), the concept of Socratic seminar, and the use of technology as a means of moving the discussion about the book outside the classroom.

The students were immediately engaged in the book. On the first day of in-class reading, which was Friday, April 12, all students present left the class excited about their reading. I heard comments like, "I'm going to finish this book over the weekend," and "This is really interesting." I told the students to be thinking about their personal response to the book so that they could prepare themselves for the on-line message board.

The first day of on-line discussion presented problems. On Friday, I told the students they needed to finish the discussion thread before they came into the classroom. Although many students did go to the computer lab to type their message, some didn't. I allowed the ones who didn't complete theirs to respond during the first part of class. Before I allowed the students to read, I gave them a mini-lesson on flashback. This was a literary term they knew from previous short stories, but many had forgotten what it was, and even some of my better readers were mildly confused at the movement of the story from the present to the past, then back to the present.

Then came the reading. I went around and logged the page numbers each student had read, and used this as a daily class work grade. Not surprisingly, there was already a wide disparity between my more skilled and the less skilled

readers. The target reading completion for Monday was up to page forty; actual pages completed ranged from twenty-two to sixty-five. Although I was loath to require such a rigid reading schedule, I kept remembering the languishing literature circles where I allowed students to choose their own schedules. This more defined method seemed both to provide some of the structure absent from my literature circles, as well as to keep the students accountable for their work ethic. (Readers who were not at the target page were only marked down if I knew their effort was to blame rather than their skill.) The daily reading continued on until Thursday, April 18. On this day, I walked the students through a "practice" Socratic seminar, defining and clarifying our purpose, our methods and our procedures. Students reported feeling a bit anxious about the seminar, but excited about it nonetheless.

On-line discussions dipped both in quality and consistency. Although Monday was a productive and meaningful day, Tuesday and Friday were particularly disastrous to the progress of the project. On Monday I was reminded that our school was chosen to participate in a field test for the EOGs (End of Grade Tests), and because only the sixth and eighth grades were involved, and the exploratory teachers were proctoring the exams, the seventh grade

would have to hold all students in the classroom from 8:00 am to 12:45 pm. This meant no second block for two days out of the week, and thus no meeting with my second block project group. Needless to say, most everyone fell behind.

But not everyone. I had five students who informed me at the introductory seminar on Thursday that they were finished. I hadn't thought of this...or, well, I guess I did. But I was too busy to worry about it. I wish I had worried a little more, because suddenly, I had five students who were bright, needed a challenge, and were most willing to engage. The only problem: I hadn't thought of the next stage for those who finished early. And so I improvised. I told them about the projects, allowed them to respond to the online prompts, encouraged them to take the Accelerated Reading (AR) tests on , and even worked with them as an attempted source of inspiration. My on-the-fly projects were successful, their endeavors weren't. I published something, they didn't. I knew what I wanted to see, they had little idea. I learned to plan for the early finishers; they learned that finishing early means they get to play. Here, I can truly say, you live and learn. I should have had materials, project samples, proposals and ideas ready for them. Next time, I will.

Holes

On-line Message Board

One of my objectives was to determine if using technology would assist my students, especially the lower skilled ones, in enhancing their book discussions. I can truly say it did.

High Successes

First of all, some of the responses I got were direct displays of what Wilhelm

would refer to as visualization techniques. Most of my stronger readers had comments that pointed to the vivid imagery Sachar uses. For example, in response to my prompt, Stephen writes,

- Stephen, response 1

I don't know what it was that did it but something cught [sic] my interest. I feel this will be a very good book. Sometimes I can feel the heat that Stanley felt while digging his first hole. I could see the blisters on his hand. This book has some good concrete imagery.

Stephen was allowing pictures to form in his head, images that show he's "getting it." Stephen, by the way, scored very high on the AR test, and came up with a fabulous technology project using images to bring to life the "If only, if only" poem.

Holes

Unwittingly following Rosenblatt's (1983) cue that "...the literary experience must be phrased as a transaction between the reader and the text" (p. 34 - 35), David, who was late starting because of his vacation to Mexico, began to identify with characters in the book, and, following Wilhelm's cue, also began to see things in his mind: (Note: his writing on the discussion board was really, really tempting for me to clean up, but I have left it just as he said it.)

- David, response 1

So far this book is realy cool. That dosent happen alot with me and other books. when I first started to read this book I thought of stanley as a short skinny kid. But as it turns out stanley is a kind of chubby kid.I fill sorry for stanley cause of all the people who pick on him even his teachers. In a way me and stanley are the same in a way. We both get blamed for all the things I dont do!

David, by the way, is a short, skinny kid who is sometimes picked on by teachers who think he's guilty of sedition. (He rarely is, but he associates with those who are guilty. ) Thus, his quote completely reflects his life. He is truly enjoying and understanding this book because he is able to see what is described, able to discuss what he sees, and able to relate to the character. As Wilhelm (2000) puts it, he is "becoming the book."

Low Successes

But just as the high successes with Stephen and David prove Wilhelm and Rosenblatt true, so do the low successes. Some students failed to "see" anything, or even to try to see anything when they read. These same students had little they thought they could relate to in the book, and as a result didn't enjoy it as much as those who did see and could relate. Take Alison, for example. She has mixed up visions of what is happening in several of her on-line responses:

I liked uhm when the he told the storie about the stolen sneakers. there isn't nothing in the storie that I didn't like. What made me laugh was when he told the storie about the stolen sneakers and the boys he told said theres no such thing as sneakers falling from the sky. the part when he said that the sneakers fell from the sky It must have been a gift from a god and the sneakers was worth a million

- Alison, response 1

dollars.Why does he have to go to CampGreenLake if they fell from the sky? I really cant say because i have no things that have happened to me or I can amagine like that In my life.

In her response, Alison shows she doesn't quite make the inference that the shoes fell off of an overpass because somebody threw them off. Nor does she identify with any of the characters, or events that have taken place so far. She does, however, ask a really good question--a question that shows me she is struggling with the text, attempting to make meaning out of it. In short she is transacting with it. Her other responses show similar patterns, and her AR test score is a passing grade. I see Lonergan's (1980) statement about inquiry at work in Alison. She inquires, which prompts her to see into the situation (insight).

But some of my other lower skilled readers proved Wilhelm and Rosenblatt right by exemplifying what happens when no visualization or transacting with the text takes place. Take Maria, Jose, Gary and Cherrie, for instance. None of these students passed the AR test at the end of the reading unit, and during the seminar, few of these students had anything to say. What interests me the most, however, is the absence of their on-line responses. If responses are given, they are very weak, contain little if any real substance, and are so general as to raise questions about the completion of the actual scheduled reading. For example, in her first response, Maria says,

- Maria, response 1.

This book is okay and I feel you when you said that the story gets off the subject becase they do start talking about how and what his great great grandpa Well this is all i have to say.

Enigmatic in both its content and its brevity, Maria's reply shows me that in her mind she didn't "see" anything. Jose's responses are similar to Maria's--vague, brief with little indication of visualization:

- Jose, response 1

I think that this book is pretty cool. so Stanley is going to a camp. The name of the camp is camp green lake.They make him dig holes all day and dont let him drink any water. I also think that he sould tell some one that he didnt do what he did. The kids are dumb to have them wierd names that they have. He should get biting by the snake and go home. I think that I am goin to like this book. This will be the frist book that I will actully read and enjoy.

Gary doesn't bother to post any responses, but does miss passing the AR test by one question. Having been to wilderness camps himself, he did confess that "he knew how some of those guys felt".

Summary of Online Responses

In summary, Wilhelm and Rosenblatt, and even Lonergan are validated with almost every student

response, be it positively or negatively. The students who were able to visualize what was going on in the story or identify with characters, and were able to have what they saw prompted out of them and written down on the boards2go message board--these were the students who did really well on the AR tests. The students with milder successes were those able to do some Wilhelmesque visualizing, Rosenblattian identifying or even Lonerganian questioning. The students who showed evidence of little to no success were those who failed to engage in any of the above activities.

Socratic Seminar Success

After giving the students close to a week and a half to finish the book, conduct a practice seminar, take the AR test, and begin working on their projects (which I called their "Know Shows"), it was time for the penultimate activity of "The Seminar." Having researched the ins and outs of the Paideia or Socratic seminar with the packets fellow classmates, Paige and Yvonne gave me, and having plundered several other seminar-friendly Web sites, including North Carolina State University's Literacy Junction ( ), I created seminar guidelines , questions for students who may need prompting during the discussion, an on-line entrance ticket, a paper exit ticket, and a point keeper with space for both and . To be as unobtrusive as possible, I told the students that the discussion was completely theirs. I videotaped the seminar while the students ran it.

www.ncsu.edu/literacyjunction/

positive negative marks

[See a Quicktime Movie of students leading a seminar (1.7 MB)]

The effectiveness of the seminar was mixed. I had students who said nothing the entire time, as well as some who spoke so often it seemed as if the others didn't exist. Most of the comments were on task and reader-response based, although a few students made statements that were silly, fluffy, or way off-task. The students who de facto led the discussion (I didn't assign any leader because I wanted to see if leadership would emerge naturally, and it did) typically refocused the questions by moving on to something else, or restating the question and giving their own response. Most of the students did make comments, and many replied

thoughtfully to other students' comments, building on ideas or amending their opinions. Although text-based comments were present some of the time, the majority of comments were either clarifications of events, characters or situations in the story, or personal responses to them.

One of the factors I thought of after the seminar was Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: To observe is to alter. I began to wonder how much of the discussion was for the camera, and how much of it was made up of the real conversations I had heard the students engaging in on their own at lunch, as they left the classroom to go to their lockers, or walking down the hall, not knowing they were in my earshot. I do believe I taped some natural, even honest discussion, but much of the dialogue was not. For example, I had one student who adopted a ghetto ebonics dialect merely for the viewing pleasure of her audience, saying things like, "Me think he up to sumthin" or "What up with dat?" Typically very well-spoken, she led me to conclude that she was putting on quite a show for the camera. But though it had its negatives, I will say that video-taping the seminar sure made keeping points easy.

All in all, the Socratic seminar was much more orderly, effective, and according to the exit surveys completed by the students, desirable than the discussions found in our previous literature circles. Students said they liked the format, enjoyed the discussion and found that they had much more to say about the book than they previously thought they would. Some did comment that they wished all students had a chance to say something about each question, but while this is true, I happen to know based on the students' reading schedule updates that most of the students who didn't speak during the seminar were ones who didn't finish the book. Thus, for now I will keep the process as it is.

Conclusion

I began by postulating my inquiry project question: Will merging technology (on-line discussion board) with Socratic or Paideia seminars assist my students, especially the lower skilled ones, in enhancing their book discussions, their visualization of the text, and their overall engagement with the material? I end now by concluding that those who actively transacted with the book, attempted to visualize the book's content, sought a personal connection with the book's characters, or began their reading with a question--these were the students who ended the project with reading skills enhanced by this experience. Although not as elaborate as I would have liked, the on-line message board gave students a space they could discuss their ideas and have a record of it afterwards. The prompts I used assisted some in reporting these visualizations, connections or inquiries. The Socratic seminar gave the students who read the book opportunities for increased comprehension, personal enjoyment of dialoguing with others about the book, and by logging their personal responses onto an Internet discussion board, an opportunity to discuss their insights, comments or inquiries.

Ultimately, I still need to figure out better ways of eliciting stronger reader-responses and visualizations from my lower skilled students. The stronger skilled students will develop with or without my guidance. It's the lower skilled students that my efforts need to continue to be expanded. But while I didn't see the immediate results I had hoped for--all students being held spellbound by the book, acing the AR tests, creating beautifully written on-line entries and cracker

jack alternative projects - I did see success. Students did talk about the book to each other and responded to higher level thinking questions. They entered conversations about issues relevant to their own lives, and even began to learn to see things from another's view point. In her exit ticket, Cherrie admits that she learned from the seminar that Stanley was "chubby." She concludes that she had pictured him "skinny." Like David, who also made a picture of the character out of his own image, Cherrie, a slight girl herself, projected overriding images onto a character that was clearly portrayed by the author in a different way. She also reveals that students are looking for ways to relate to the book. The seminar helped her see things she hadn't, to picture images that Wilhelm (1997) would say are the sine qua non for making meaning from a text. Thus, I feel that this project was a success. In the future, I plan to begin using these techniques at the start of the school year instead of at the end.

Acknowledgments

When I began this inquiry project I knew nothing about Paideia seminars. I found a well-worn copy of Mortimer Adler's and perused it; after reading it, I realized I still knew nothing about merging seminars with novel reading and seventh graders, a potentially volatile combination. This is where my ECI 521 colleagues came in. Paige provided a packet of Paideia information, which proved enormously useful to conducting a seminar, and Yvonne gave me a similar packet full of background information, which helped me understand more the goals of a seminar. Thanks.

The Paideia Proposal

About the Author:

A 1994 graduate of Appalachian State University, teaches 7th graders at Cedar Creek Middle School in Youngsville, North Carolina and is currently pursuing his master's degree at North Carolina State University. He lives in Louisburg with his wife Paula and their daughter, Sophie.Email:

Johnny Walters

[email protected]

Appendix A: Virtual Literature Circles Definitions

Welcome to the virtual literature circle, the place where the majority of your work will be completed on-line! This, by the way, is going to be fun--so much fun that you‘ll almost forget this is even school!

What is a Virtual Literature Circle?

Virtual literature circles are small groups consisting of four to five students, that read the same book and discuss it with each other. They also work together on a big project that shows the rest of the class what the group knows about the book. Doesn’t seem much different that small group reading, does it? Well, it’s not--except for the fact that your discussion will be online!

How does it work?

You will choose a book to read. Up to four other people in your block will also read the same book. During class, or at home, or during

advisory time, or after school--it really doesn’t matter when or where--you are going to go to an on-line discussion board and discuss your reading. The discussion board will be the record of all the discussion you do about your book. Remember that you should be using the following techniques to read your books:

Thoughts, Opinions & FeelingsQuestionsInferencesPredictionsVisualizationsClarifications (summarizing and clarifying)Connections: Text-to-text, Text-to-self, Text-to-World

These techniques also give you things to talk (write) about as well as help you better understand what you read. I will give you space to free-write about your reading, as well as space to answer a prompt. You will have class time to work on your responses and your reading.

Socratic Seminar

Once everyone has finished the book, we will conduct a Socratic Seminar in class. In order to be admitted to this seminar, you will have to complete your entrance ticket on the discussion board.

Appendix B: Virtual Literature Circle Procedures

During class I will:

1. Have my novel with me at all times during every class while this project is going on.

2. Work on reading my novel, completing my on-line discussion entries, or work on my culminating project.

3. Give this project all I’ve got. (No cheap last-minute posters to show Mr. W what my group has learned about our book!).

4. Follow the reading schedule as closely as I possibly can, so that I will contribute to others, and they will in turn contribute to me.

5. NOT WORK ON ANY OTHER PROJECT BUT THIS ONE IN CLASS! 6. Use stickies (post-it) notes to record my thoughts, opinions, feelings,

questions, predictions, visualizations, text-text/text-self/text-to-world connections, and summary/clarifications. I will then use the alphasmart 3000s to write out my formal ideas and send them to the computer via the online discussion board.

On the On-line Message Board, I will:

1. Daily record at least one entry about my reading as well as at least three other replies to others in my reading circle.

2. Seeing as how this site is open to anyone in the world who wants to visit it and seeing as how I really don’t want to be embarrassed by my own public

sloppiness, I will use the best English I know (grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation).

3. (Knowing that Mr. W can trace my comments, block me and delete my posts, I will never make rude, impertinent, irrelevant or mean comments on any discussion board entry.

4. Only, only, only use my first name and last initial to identify myself when I post my replies. This keeps me safe!

5. Make sure my replies are a minimum of around fifty words each.

Appendix C: Survey Questions

Pre-seminar Survey Questions

1. Do you like to read? Yes or no?2. When you do read, what kind of reading materials do you most enjoy ?

MagazinesComicsGraphic novelsPoemsShort storiesMysteriesRealistic fictionFantasyHistorical fictionOther

3. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you enjoy literature circles? 4. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rank your reading skills? (1 being the

lowest, 10 highest)5. How important to you is each of the following benefits of literature circles?

Freedom to read the book at your own paceFreedom to choose the book you want to readNot having the teacher tell you what your book meansTime to meet with your friendsThe fact that the teacher allows you to do projects for your test gradeThe fact that your grade is dependent on the group’s grade

6. On a scale of 1-10 rank how much each of the following things bother you about literature circles: Not everyone reads the bookYou feel you do more work than others in the groupIt’s too loud and noisyYou don’t understand the book and no one else does eitherIt’s hard to get the teacher’s attentionYou feel like you didn’t learn anythingYou would rather work by yourselfPeople are too serious about the workPeople aren’t serious enough about the workYou don’t know what the teacher expects from you

7. Do you think group interaction helps you better understand and enjoy the books you read? Yes or no?

8. Do you feel that it is your responsibility to help other students around you understand what you all are reading?

9. Do you think literature circles have a positive, neutral or negative effect on how much you enjoy the book you choose? Positive, negative, or neutral?

10. What do you think would make literature circles better for all classes?Open response

11. Do you think you have a really good understanding of how plots work?12. What mostly do you think makes a book really good to read?

The writer doesn’t confuse me with big words and long sentencesThe story has a lot of exciting action The characters seem real and believable The characters seem a lot like meThe story has a lot of really nice descriptionsThe story makes me feel like I am there.

Post-seminar Survey Questions

1. On a scale of 1-10 how much did you enjoy Louis Sachar’s book Holes?2. Is this the kind of book you would naturally pick up and read on your own?3. What did you like most about the book?

(plot) The way the story fit together like a puzzle(character) The way the characters seemed real(style) The way the story sounded natural and simple (setting) The way the story helped you see where it takes place(theme) What the book was about

4. How much do you think our seminar discussion questions helped you better understand the book? A whole lot, a lot, some, a little, none

5. How much do you think the seminars helped you see things about the book you didn’t see before?A whole lot, a lot, some, a little, none

6. How much do you think the book Holes helped you better understand how plot works? A whole lot, a lot, some, a little, none

7. How much do you think you contributed in a meaningful way to the seminar discussions?A whole lot, a lot, some, a little, none

8. How much do you think you learned from reading the book Holes? A whole lot, a lot, some, a little, none

9. Overall, rate how helpful the seminars were to your understanding the book.Extremely helpful, helpful, somewhat helpful, a little helpful, not helpful at all

10. Would you read other books if they were similar to Holes? 11. What did you like most about the seminars?

Open response

Appendix D: Handouts

Holes Socratic Seminar Questions [pdf format] [rtf format]

Pre- and Post-Seminar Survey Questions [pdf format] [rtf format]

Status of the Class [pdf format] [rtf format]

Virtual Literature Circle Bookmarks [pdf format] [rtf format]

Socratic Seminar Positive Points [pdf format] [rtf format]

Socratic Seminar Negative Points [pdf format] [rtf format]

Socratic Seminar Exit Ticket [pdf format] [rtf format]

References

Adler, M. (1982). . New York: Collier Books.The Paideia Proposal

Carley, M. (2002). Lonergan. .Bernard Lonergan and the Catholic Teacher

Carlsen, G. R., & Sherrills, A. (1988). . Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English.

Voices of Readers: How We Came to Love Books

Literacy Junction Tools. (2003). . Retrieved April 14, 2002, from the World Wide Web:

Socratic Seminar: Tutorialhttp://www.ncsu.edu/literacyjunction/html/

tutorialsocratic.html

Lonergan, B. (1980). . In A. M. Olson (Ed.). Notre Dame, I.N.: University of Notre Dame Press.

Myth, Symbol and Reality

Matthews, D. (1994). . New York: RCA Records.Typical Situation

Rosenblatt, L. M. (1983). New York: Modern Language Association of America.

Literature As Exploration, 4th ed.

Rutherford, P. (1998). . Alexandria, VA: Just Ask Publications.

Instruction for All Students

Sachar, L. (1998). . New York: Frances Foster Books, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Holes

Sechrist, K. ( 2001, March). . Paper presented at the North Carolina Middle School Association, Greensboro, N.C.

Literature Circles

Wilhelm, J. (1997). . New York: Teachers College Press.You Gotta BE the Book

Wilhelm, J. (2000). Literacy by design: Why is all this technology so important?, 7(3), 4-6.Voices in the Middle

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