Literature Circle Roles

1. Discussion Leader: Your job is to develop a list of questions you think your group should discuss about the assigned section of the book. Use your knowledge of levels of questions to create thought-provoking literal, interpretive, and universal questions. Try to create questions that encourage your group to consider many ideas. Help your group explore these important ideas and share their reactions. You will be in charge of leading the day’s discussion.
   
2. Diction Detective: Your job is to carefully examine the diction (word choice) in the assigned section. Search for words, phrases, and passages that are especially descriptive, powerful, funny, thought-provoking, surprising, or even confusing. List the words or phrases and explain why you selected them. Then, write your thoughts about why the author might have selected these words or phrases. What is the author trying to say? How does the diction help the author achieve his or her purpose? What tone do the words indicate?
   
3. Bridge Builder: Your job is to build bridges between the events of the book and other people, places, or events in school, the community, or your own life. Look for connections between the text, yourself, other texts, and the world. Also, make connections between what has happened before and what might happen as the narrative continues. Look for the characters’ internal and external conflicts and the ways that these conflicts influence their actions.
   
4. Reporter: Your job is to identify and report on the key points of the reading assignment. Make a list or write a summary that describes how the writer develops the setting, plot, and characters in this section of the book. Consider how characters interact, major events that occur, and shifts in the setting or the mood that seem significant. Share your report at the beginning of the group meeting to help your group focus on the key ideas presented in the reading. Like that of a newspaper reporter, your report must be concise, yet thorough.
   
5. Vocabulary Enricher: Your job is to be on the lookout for five new vocabulary words in the reading before your group meeting. If you find words that are new or puzzling or unfamiliar, mark them with a post-it-note or bookmark. 1) Copy the sentence with the word in it and list the page number in the book. 2) look up the word identify the correct definition and copy the definition below the sentence. 3) Plan a way to teach these words to your group.
   
6. Researcher: Your job is to research a relevant topic related to your book. This might include the book’s setting. Any pertinent information about the author and other related works. Information about the time period portrayed in the book or Information on any topics or events represented in the book. It is important to note that this is not a formal research report. The idea is to find some information or material that helps your group understand the book better.
   
7.  Literary Luminary: Your Job is to locate five special sections of the text that your group would like to hear read aloud. The idea is to help people remember some interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling or important sections of the text. You must decide in advance what sections are to be read and decide how they are to be read. You might read them, someone else could read, you could have the group silently read the sections and discuss, act out the section of text, etc. Have a list of the parts ready for your group, with page numbers and the location on the page.