Literary Circles

Here comes one more method for doing literature. It is great because it really makes the students examine the text to a tiniest detail. And if you use this as a form of a group work, you won’t regret it since everyone will be doing something according to their roles. No more hanging onto the strongest fellow students, even the weakest ones will be able to contribute.

So how do you start?

First you print out the roles, which you will assign to your students. Make sure that all the roles you decide to use can be played out with the text you have chosen. Then you give your students the text, tell them to work individually or in pairs and explain that each of them is given a role and has to work on literary text according to the role and the assignment he or she was given. After 10 min they have to present what their role was and what they found out.



Here are just some short descriptions of roles, but you can download the whole sheet with detailed description of roles if you click here, so feel free to use this method and have fun with your students!

TRAVEL TRACER: Find out where the things are happening in the story and how the settings may have changed. 

INVESTIGATOR (or RESEARCHER): Dig up background information on any topic related to your book: geography, weather, culture, history of the story’s settings.

CHARACTER CAPTAIN: Name and describe the characters (with additional questions).

SCRIBE: Take the notes of the discussion going on in the group.

DISCUSSION DIRECTOR: Your task is to make a list of questions your group will discuss in the class (with additional questions). 

ILLUSTRATOR (or ARTFUL ARTIST): Draw a scene from the story, or a sketch, diagram, flow chart, characters from the story or similar.

CONNECTOR: Connect the story with the world outside. 

SUMMARISER: Find the key words in the story and write a short summary of the story. 

VOCABULARY ENRICHER (or WORD MASTER): Find at least about 10-15 new words that you find necessary for the better understanding of the story. Write the definition from the dictionary and the translation if necessary. (with additional questions)

What's the most common method you use for working on a literary text in class?

Comments

  1. dorinaMay 27, 2012 at 10:11 PM

    we did this one at high school - it really makes students roll up their sleeves :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Creative TeacheretteMay 27, 2012 at 10:32 PM

      yeah, I think this one is amazing for group work since everyone will be doing something :)

      Delete
  2. Creative TeacheretteMay 27, 2012 at 10:31 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners

Image
Pronunciation is one of those things in language teaching that can very often be neglected. Or at least that’s the case here, in Croatia. Along with tongue twisters , you can make your students aware of how complex, important and interesting pronunciation is by showing them some really fun stuff on the internet.
Read more

Simulations and Role-Plays

Image
Simulations and role-plays are very useful for speaking activities, where the emphasis is on fluency and not so much on accuracy. They can be fun and your students could really grow to like them if you adapt them to their age and level of knowledge. Firstly, let's refresh our knowledge of the difference between simulations and role-plays. When it comes to simulation students speak and react as themselves, but the group role, situation and task is imaginary. In role-plays, on the other hand, students are given a situation plus problem or task, but they are also allotted individual roles, so they are not acting as themselves, but as though they are someone else. The most important thing for both is that students imagine themselves in a situation outside the classroom and use language appropriate to this new context. You can give your students a variety of roles (profession, status, personality, attitude, mood), variety of physical settings, variety of communicative functi...
Read more

Fortune Teller

Image
If you want to spice up your classes when it comes to teaching and practicing tenses, try this idea for practicing future tenses or use it as an inspiration for something else.  I really enjoyed playing with the fortune teller origami as a kid, but even now, 15 years later, it's still really amusing. I tried out this method in one of my classes and it worked great, so I hope you'll have fun with it as much as I and my colleagues did. This activity will help your students practice the Future Simple tense. They should work in pairs and tell the future to one another. They will use the fortune teller origami that you can make for them, but the better option would be to let them make it. Here is how you make a fortune teller origami: After you have folded the paper in the right way, you should write certain things inside of the fortune teller origami. I would suggest writing some names of the cities, people, cars, brands, colors etc. In the middle part of the ...
Read more