Literature Circles to Share

 In Advanced Government this year we combined the instructional strategies of literature circles and socratic discussion to give students multiple opportunities to synthesize the concept of citizenship, and what it means for them in a practical sense.
They selected books from the following list:

• Please Stop Laughing at Me
• No Impact Man
• One Size Does Not Fit All
• A Place at the Table
• Working Fire…
• The Port Chicago 50

We asked them to work with others in their class who had chosen the same book, and develop a reading plan, with three different deadlines. For each of these three deadlines we used a different question lens for them to focus on:

1. What are the rights and responsibilities of a citizen?  
2. As citizens how does US History apply to our lives today?  What, if anything, still needs to be done?  (Political Ideology)
3. What would attract or deter people from wanting to become a US citizen? (Role of government)

The deadlines for reading were spaced out across a few weeks, and for each deadline and discussion lens the students gathered first with their literature circle and explored their book for evidential support for the application of these questions.  They were also encouraged to look beyond the pages of their book to apply each question to the greater context of the world related to their topic.  

Following these literature circle discussions they gathered as a whole class and had a socratic discussion hearing from all different groups to explore their question lens.  This was a new learning strategy for them, and took some modeling and practice for them to discuss rather than argue, but in the end they had some great discussions.  

Using this combination of reading, literature circles, and socratic discussion gave students multiple opportunities to think critically about how to apply and understand the application of the concept of citizenship.