Mr. Stephen’s Grade Six Literature Circles


It’s great when most of the students in class get engaged with an interesting and relevant piece of literature but it’s even better when every single student is engaged. Grade 6 Teacher at Willett Elementary School, Dustin Stephens, made class-wide engagement his goal when his students asked if they could choose their own books to read after recently finishing a whole class literary analysis of the novel Walk Two Moons. Mr. Stephens responded to his students by designing a Literature Circles Project with his fellow 6th-Grade Teacher, Anahita Enzerink, which would allow students to select a novel from a pre-approved list or make their case for another novel not on the list to study in groups of their own choosing. Students then formed literary circle groups for the next five weeks to do a deep analysis of the theme(s), plot, characters, literary devices and other elements of their chosen books. They were exceptionally excited at the opportunity to choose their own groups and books, and by the end of the project, every student expressed that they had enjoyed the book they chose!

Mr. Stephens had high confidence that students would be engaged with their selected books and that they could transfer their literary analysis skills into their team dynamic, but Mr. Stephens also discovered something more. Communication amongst students proliferated within this new dynamic. The ownership that students had over their books led to reading with improved comprehension. Student journal responses and literary response questions were clear and purposeful, using precise language and quotes to explain their ideas. Students wrote impressively detailed and insightful responses each week that showed significant engagement with the literature. During their Friday Discussions, students practiced active listening skills and built upon each other’s ideas using respectful and thoughtful language. And finally, in the culminating projects, students were given yet another level of choice to choose from a variety of options to represent their learning in their Literature Circle Groups. In a variety of ways, from making posters to comics to playlists, students incorporated media and visuals to display their learning to their peers. Leaning into student voice and choice can have both intended and unintended results!


“I was beyond impressed with how actively engaged students became in their own learning when they were given the opportunity to choose their own novels for Literature Circles. They read, wrote, discussed, and created projects with hardly any prompting from me, simply because they were interested and invested in their own work!” - Mr. Stephens


“It was cool to choose our own groups and our own books and to have our own choice in things. It made me like talking about it with my group.” - Student


“Since we picked our groups, I actually wanted to talk more with my friends about what we read.” - Student