Transform Your Social Issues Reading Unit with Literature Circles – Curriculum Map Month 8
If you are struggling with how to plan your year or just need some fresh ideas, then you are in the right place! Join me for a 10-month mini-series on creating an ELA curriculum map for your middle school classes. This month, we will focus on a social issues reading unit that incorporates literature circles. (If you haven’t read the blog posts for months 1-7 yet, you might want to go back and do that first.)
Basic Structure for a Social Issues Unit with Literature Circles
You’ll need to do some prep before you start the unit:
Decide on assessment: You’ll want to decide what you are doing for your assessment at the beginning of the unit. You can do a test or a project. For this unit, I do a test that uses a short story that they haven’t read before with questions on the skills that I will teach in the unit. I also do a mini choice board so kids can select a project such as creating a playlist, writing a letter to the character, quotes that are related to the story, or a book cover.
Novelsfor Literature Circles: Before starting, you’ll need to decide which novels your kids are reading. Whatever you do, be sure the book(s) that you pick are high-interest for your students. Some of my favorites are Star Fish by Lisa Fipps, New Kid by Jerry Craft, Front Desk by Kelly Yang, Ghost by Jason Reynolds and Unstoppable by Tim Green. Kids can then make a reading plan so that they are on the literal same page as they read throughout the unit.
Organizing your Literature Circles: I loved using literature circles for all of my reading units. I was lucky enough to have a classroom library that supported this. If you don’t have multiple copies of books available, you can put kids in pairs (reading the same novel would be best, but you could have them read different stories; they would still be able to discuss on discussion days). You can, of course, do a whole class novel, but if you have the resources, literature circles work well here.
Mentor Text: Using a mentor text with each unit of study is something that I would highly, highly recommend. You’ll want to select a mentor text that is in the same genre and that contains the same main focus of your unit. Therefore, you’ll want a short story, film, poem, or song that has a strong, relatable character and social issue that is important to kids this age (such as divorce, racism, etc.) I am also cognizant of making sure my mentor texts throughout the year reflect diverse characters with different ethnic, socio-economic, ability levels, etc. For this unit, I LOVE LOVE LOVE “Raymond’s Run” by Toni Cade Barbara.
Mini-Lessons: You’ll want to plan out your mini-lessons this week. For a unit on social issues, I’d recommend starting with a lesson on what social issues are, character traits, response to conflict, symbolism, and point of view/perspective.
Posting: You’ll want kids to do some posting as they’re reading, but you don’t want to overwhelm them and/or interrupt the flow of reading. What works well: Post for the skills you teach that week. So, for example, if you are teaching about response to conflict, they can post when they see how a character is responding to any conflict that week. I have them put a sticky note in a place that shows this, and then kids write it in their reading notebook. Kids can do this independently or in their literature circles. The below example is a digital reading notebook entry and is part of my social issues unit.
Having kids post is helpful in a social issues reading unit that uses literature circles.
Week 2
Start your mini-lessons: You’ll want to get started with your lessons. You’ll definitely want to consider starting with a lesson on what social issues are, conflict, and point of view/perspective. If you need help with mini-lessons, click here to see them in my TPT store.
Discussionfor Literature Circles: One of the main tenets of literature circles is having kids in discussion groups. You can’t, however, leave the discussion up to the kids. It is always preferable for you to have a planned list of a few talking points that are based on your mini-lessons. For example, if you did a lesson on conflict, an example discussion question could be: Is the main character reactive or proactive? How do you know? It’s always a good idea to provide something for the kids to connect to on a personal level. For example: If you were in this situation, how do you think your actions would be similar to the main character? How might they be different? If you’d like a list to get started, grab my free Literature Circles Discussion Questions.
Literacy Centers: Literacy centers that back up the skills you are teaching are truly the way to go. They give kids different modalities to solidify skills and bring them to a level of personal understanding. Here’s an example of a conflict center (I haveother sets available in my TPT store):
Centers provide opportunities to extend learning.
Week 3
As you move along in the unit in your social issues unit and with literature circles, you’ll want to continue with your mini-lessons, literacy centers, and discussions. Having your plan in place is crucial so that it all comes together.
Mini-lesson suggestions: character traits, response to conflict
Week 4
As in week 3, you’ll want to continue with your mini-lessons, literature circles, literacy centers, and discussions.
Mini-lesson suggestions: identity markers, power in relationships, power imbalance in groups
End of Unit
Project or Assessment: You’ll want to do the end-of-unit assessment that you planned at the beginning of this part of your social issues unit.
Celebration: I make it a priority to do some kind of celebration day at the end of the unit. I like setting the room up with desks facing each other and having kids share their choice board projects in small groups. I want them to share with kids who were in different literature circles so that they can get a taste for different novels. I usually provide some kind of celebratory drink like sparkling cider or hot chocolate and allow them to bring in a snack. Videos are also a great idea. Watching a movies such as Wonder is a great way to end your unit.
Save Postings: Kids did some work in this unit with postings and text evidence. They can use these postings if you want your students to then do an essay. I did a blog post on creating both a literary analysis essay and a theme essay; check them out if you need help.
Too Stressful? Join My Membership!
Developing a social issues unit with literature circles is daunting. So if you are interested, I’ve developed a membership for ELA teachers. This has been highly requested. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do because I know how ill-prepared many new teachers are after college. This has nothing to do with the teachers and everything to do with teachers’ colleges and the lack of good onboarding in districts in our country.
It’s a very robust membership. Some of the highlights:
Complete curriculum map with access to 9 full-month units for the year
Access to literacy centers, mini-lessons, a full-year grammar program, choice boards, video lessons, and seasonal activities
Doodle Notes – creative graphic organizers to enhance and engage your students with tough topics
Daily Activities – an activity for each day of the school year; use as a “bell ringer”, exit ticket, or as a learning center
Access to a private Facebook group, where I can answer your questions and go live to help you with more complex units
Click here for more information. As of now, we are in the “founding members” stage. You can lock into the price for as long as you keep up your membership. I’d love to have you!
Any questions or comments? I’d love to hear if you teach a social issues reading unit or if you have insight on literature circles. I can also help if you have specific questions. Drop a comment below!
Wishing you all the best with your literacy circles and a fantastic month of school! See you next month.