In basic writing classrooms and scholarship, reading too often remains invisible; neither research nor established practice provides tangible activities to support reading and connect it to writing. This article documents a search for structured, scaffolded, low-stakes reading activities, a search that moves off the college campus and into the…

Literature circles and book clubs have become a popular instructional literacy strategy. In recent years, educators attempt to motivate students to read more in quantity and quality at an early age. A case study design was utilized that required undergraduate education majors to participate in literature circles reading historical fiction and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of literature circles on the reading comprehension and attitudes toward reading of gifted students in an elementary school. Using a quasi-experimental design, this action research compared two groups of gifted fourth grade students in the reading programs. The experimental group included…

This study investigates how reading ability and personality traits predict the quality of verbal discussions in peer-led literature circles. Third grade literature discussions were recorded, transcribed, and coded. The coded statements and questions were quantified into a quality of engagement score. Through multiple linear regression, the…

The fact that the prospective Turkish teachers' having a command of different methods and techniques as being Turkish teachers of the future is important in terms of its positive effects on the comprehension and expression skills of the middle school students. This study used the case study design and the qualitative approach. The aim of the…

In order to make teaching activities more appealing, different techniques and strategies have been constantly employed. This study utilized the strategy of "literature circles" to improve the text-analysis skills, reading desires, and interests of prospective teachers of Turkish. "Literature circles" was not chosen to be used…

Many college students fall into the habit of coming to class unprepared, without having read assigned texts, or having read partially and superficially. As a consequence, they may take a passive stance, discussion can fall flat, and learning can be diminished. This article describes an instructional strategy for engaging students as active…

Many postsecondary education programs for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) provide support to these students by matching them with peer mentors. Though this practice is widely used, the scholarly literature offers little information about successful peer support models in higher education settings. To address this…

For educational philosopher and activist Paulo Freire, cultural circles are a way to generate critical conversations among "teacher-students" and "student-teachers" and can provide the motivation for critical consciousness and political action (1970). Both teachers and students learn from one another as their democratic…

This study was conducted to explore teacher candidates' reactions and perceptions regarding their participation in inquiry circles and to discover how the experience influenced their comprehension of an informational text. The 98 teacher candidates involved in this study were enrolled in a children's literature course at a four-year university.…

This study explores the process of implementing literature circles using ethnographies as the texts to better prepare teachers for multicultural/ multilingual teaching contexts. Data collected by the course instructor and two of the participants, using a Critical Teacher Action Research (CTAR) methodology, indicate that participants think…

Literacy educators feel it is incumbent on teacher preparation programs to prepare teacher candidates with the dispositions and competencies needed to work with students from diverse racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds. As a way to initiate the discussion and help candidates examine their own views on race, literature circles are used. The…

This study investigates the impact of the implementation of "Literature Circles" in an Active Learning classroom in relations to developing soft skills among university students. The use of Literature Circles is a well-known strategy in teaching the students to be more creative, independent, and think out of the box. A group of…

Student-led discussion modules are the bread and butter of the language arts classroom; however, teachers are currently limited to very few techniques to choose from, such as large class Socratic Seminars and fish bowls, or small group literature circles. In order to determine which of these discussions are more successful for students, each…

There are many instructional approaches for helping English language learners improve both reading comprehension and overall language proficiency. One such approach, the literature circle--which is somewhat like a student book club in the classroom--has drawn a great deal of attention in recent years (Schlick Noe and Johnson 1999). Many teachers…