Literature Analysis Activity: Literature Circles

When teaching literature to high school students, the same old notes, questions and quizzes can get stale. It's tough to get high school students invested in literature, but when you put them in charge of the questions and activities, it helps them own what they're learning and absorb the concepts more deeply. Literature Circles are a great literature group activity that gets your class engaged in the story and forces them to analyze the content and themes in depth. This literature analysis activity also develops a sense of pride and ownership in students' work, and even causes a little friendly competition to see which group will come up with the best questions and analysis. Use these Literature Circles with your class to help them really internalize the literature you're reading.

A Literature Circle can be used with poetry, short stories and even a chapter of a book or play you're going through with your class. Each circle has five different positions; if some groups don't have five people, you can either have one or two students double up their roles or cut one of the roles out. Make sure that students rotate roles as you use this activity so that over time, each student gets to experience different aspects of this literature analysis activity. The concept is simple: after reading the text (in class or at home), assign each high school student one role in the group and give them 20-25 minutes to work on their roles within the group. After that time, the class comes together to share. Depending on how much time you have or want to devote to this activity, this can be a great way to get a class discussion going as every group shares their unique analysis of the literature and their opinions. I personally found this to be one of the most productive activities I used in my high school literature lesson plans. The five roles are explained below.

Discussion Facilitator
Jot down 3 or 4 questions that your group will discuss about the literature. Make sure you cover different parts of the story and the main theme(s). The questions should go beyond literal, yes or no answers and instead generate open-ended analysis and discussion. Write down your group's answers as well as you discuss amongst your group so you can share them with the class later.

Highlighter
Go through the text and highlight 3 or 4 important sections that are relevant to the overall theme and ideas of the story. These could be interesting, funny, thought-provoking, powerful or even well-written. Read the sections aloud to your group and discuss their importance. Write down the page numbers and a few key quotes; choose 1 or 2 to share with the class.

Connector
Find 2 to 3 connections between the text and real-life events. These events can come from your personal life, things happening in school, similar events at other times or places, other people real or fictional, the current news headlines or even something on television. List them, share with your group and discuss.

Summarizer
Summarize the basic plot of the text (beginning, middle and end) and list the key points within the summary. The key points highlight the themes in the reading, so jot them down separately from the plot summary.

Illustrator
Draw a picture related to the reading, either concrete or abstract. Ability is not the focus here; it is important that you instead capture a key moment or concept from the reading. You can use stick figures, cartoon illustration or even a diagram or flow chart. Share it with the group; see if they can analyze it first and then share the meaning.