We've presented two ways to approach planning.  The "ideal":  Laying out a year's plan before you begin -- something that most teachers don't manage the first time they try literature circles; and the "real":  an example of how a plan evolves as you live through your first year with literature circles.
 

The Ideal:  Laying Out a Year's Plan

The Real:  Allowing a Plan to Evolve

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The Ideal:  Laying Out a Year's Plan
    Once you have some experience, you may be able to align literature circles with your teaching and learning goals in a structured, deliberate way.  Laying out a year's calendar will help you decide how many literature circle units will fit into your overall literacy program.  The chart below gives you an idea of how Janine King (6th grade) planned her year -- once she had a handle on what she was doing.  Notice how her teaching and learning focus (her goals) included literature circle processes, as well as literary elements and reading skills.

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The Real:  Allowing a Plan to Evolve
    Kirstin Gerhold experienced a common paralysis when she thought about the complexity of pulling everything together at once in her fifth grade classroom.  She said, "There was no way that I could manage teaching my students how to do literature circles, and how to talk, and how to write in journals, and how to do an extension project all in one shot."  So she started very simply.
    With each round of literature circles her first year, Kirstin added or refined only one or two components.  The chart below shows how Kirstin's structure evolved one step at a time.  The shaded areas indicate where she focused her energies; the black sections indicate what she ignored.

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