Findings

Analysis

The importance of choice

In the students’ interviews, students thought that it was important for them to be able to choose a book they liked to read; otherwise, they would get bored and fall asleep.

Teacher began the class with a short book talk that whetted students’ appetites to read. Students were given 10 books to choose from using a book pass game. Then they could prioritise three books according to their own interests. Here students were able to make their own decisions, which gave students a feeling of control over a part of their learning.

Using roles in Literature Circles

Students were given 5 roles in Literature Circles. They were the Discussion Leader, Summariser, Illustrator, Connection Maker, and Word Wizard. Each meeting students would take up one role in their discussion.

Discussion leader
The class had practised different roles using the story Jack and the Beanstalk. They were taught how to set higher order thinking questions like “Predict what …” , “What do you think …” or “What would you do if …” However, formulating high level questions was not a skill that came easily to students.

Students were asked to perform different roles so that all learned to analyse the text from different perspectives. At first, students showed they had learned how to set higher level questions. (Evidence)
However, after a long holiday, many of their questions remained at a factual recall or comprehension level. i.e. answers were easily found in the passage. (Evidence)
This shows that teachers need to re-teach the lesson on setting “fat questions” and let students practise regularly.

Summariser
Students were asked to summarise the section of the text they read. Most students were able to perform well in this role. (Evidence)

For most students, understanding the main idea of the book was not a challenge to them because the books chosen were of their reading ability level. All books were for S1 and S2 students and for some books, students could check the meaning from the glossary.

Word Wizard
Students who played the role as Word Wizard were asked to identify some difficult words in the section. Then they needed to find meaning, make sentence and illustrate the word. The majority of students were able to do it well. (Evidence)

It was easy for students to look up the meaning of the different words in the dictionary. For some groups, members were able to apply the word by making a sentence immediately during the discussion. (Evidence) Word Wizards are like a young teachers who teach their groups something they know.

Illustrator
The illustrators were asked to illustrate a scene that impressed them most. Again, all students were able to play the role well. (Evidence)

Most students were able to draw a favorite scene due to the fact that they understood the text quite well.

Connection maker
The connection makers were asked to connect their reading with their own experience so that they could understand and remember the text better. It was an effective way to make meaning of what they had read. Surprisingly, many students were able to manage the connection. (Evidence)

Many groups tried to connect the reading with their own experience. For example, when one group read a book about a school bully, they mentioned they had had a classmate in primary school who was always bullied by another classmate.

The importance of social skills

To facilitate discussion, social skills were taught. Using a role play, students were asked to pay attention to the following:

• Listening carefully
• Taking turns
• Keeping eye contact
• Respecting differences
• Discussing politely

Generally speaking, students had no difficulty in turn taking. However, many of them did not make eye contact because they were quite shy. Some of them just read from their own role sheets. Students were advised to write in note form so as to avoid reading the paragraph from the role sheets.

Enhancing discussion skills

It is difficult to teach discussion skills simply by teaching students language expressions. We have found a very effective way of teaching discussion skills by showing students’ their own performance in video clips.

By reflecting on their performance in the video clips, students’ attention was drawn to the following:

• Do the students respond to each other’s ideas?
• Are the students willing to disagree?
• Do they use text as evidence to support their ideas?
• Do the students ask each other questions?
• Do they know how to clarify ideas?
• Do they know how to explain ideas?

The power of social interaction

The social interaction that took place in literature circles was a key component of its success. To be able to verbalise the content, to listen to other modes of thinking, and to hear other perspectives all contributed to deepening comprehension.

Students liked the sharing of ideas in small reading groups because it allowed for more opportunity to participate and there could be multiple interpretations of the meaning of the story. Moreover, the friendly relaxed sharing somehow changed the classroom atmosphere to be more supportive of taking greater academic risks.

A love of reading

Students in the interview pointed out that they were more motivated to read if they were given a chance to discuss the book with classmates than just read by themselves.

Students were more motivated to read if they had discussions with their classmates because they were able to share opinions with them They could understand the book better when they talked about the book.