Connector Your job is to find connections between the text
and the outside world. This means connecting the
reading selection to your own life, to happenings
at school or in the community, to similar events at
other times and places, to other people or problems
that you are reminded of. You also might see
connections between this text and other writings on
the same topic or by the same author.Literary Luminary (fiction) or
Passage Master (nonfiction)Your job is to locate a few special sections of the
text that you found important, interesting, powerful,
funny, or puzzling. Tag them or record the page and
paragraph number. Prepare to direct your peers to
the sections, share them, and discuss your reasons
for selecting them. Solicit your peers’ reactions to
the passages.Investigator Your job is to dig up some background information
on something relevant to the text—the author,
the setting, the historical context, the subject
matter. Find information that will help your group
understand the story or content better. Investigate
something relevant to the selection that strikes you
as interesting and worth pursuing.Illustrator Your job is to draw a picture related to the reading
selection. It can be a sketch, cartoon, diagram, flow
chart, or stick-figure scene. Your drawing can be an
abstract or literal interpretation of the text. You may
wish to elicit your peers’ reaction to your drawing
before you tell them what you were thinking.Vocabulary Enricher Your job is to be lookout for a few especially
important words in the selection. If you come across
words that are puzzling or unfamiliar, tag them
while you are reading, and then later jot down their
definition, either from a dictionary or some other
source. You may also run across familiar words that
stand out for some reason—words that are repeated
a lot, used in an unusual way, or key to the meaning
of the text. Tag these words, too. Be ready to
discuss the words, taking your peers to the text, and
the reasons for your choices with the group.Source
Excerpted and adapted from
Daniels, Harvey. 1994. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom. York,
Maine: Stenhouse.434 | Chapter 5 Grade 4