Digging in the archives...

My past experiences with Literature Circles was great! I had great Language Arts teachers in 4th and 5th grade and Literature Circles was definitely their forte. I remember reading Shiloh in my literature circle in fourth grade. It was intriguing and it taught us about growing up and letting go. I really like the fact that we were "on our own" and it was almost as if we were teaching each other. The only complaint that I really had was that I was always the Discussion Leader and we never switched roles. Therefore I felt like most of the weight in my group fell on my shoulders. I did like the big project we did at the end. We had to go to the local animal shelter and "adopt a pet". Basically we had to advertise and rally for "our" pet to be adopted. I remember having a Beagle and getting someone to adopt him within two weeks. What can I say...I'm a recruiter!
In sixth grade I had another experience with Literature Circles. This time I read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I didn't particularly like this book because I could never understand the "magical stuff". My sixth grade teacher was big on "magic" and everything we had read had something to do with flying animals or walking wizards. I liked what we did we the book because we rotated roles. If it would not have been for rotating roles, I would have quickly lost focus.
While we did have Literature Circles in fourth grade, we also had Writer's Workshop. I used to think it was the devil! I saw no point in writing in class for 40 minutes, just to have my teacher bleed all over the darn thing. I wasn't as great as some of my friends in writing and they used to make fun of me because I was the "world's worst person" at getting a paper started. Then they used to look at my papers when I got it back and would laugh because I had the most red markings. Fourth grade is when I started disliking writing. We had to follow the 5 paragraph rule and I never got to finish what I was writing about. Good thing my seventh grade teacher fixed this. He made writing an activity and not a chore. Thank you Mr. Proctor!