LAW 12 Name:

LITERATURE CIRCLES FOR NON-FICTION

Please note, you will submit a piece of paper / video or whatever format you choose
with your work on it for 6 marks.
Then, we will have a discussion (at a time Mr. Fitton will let you know) on some sort of
platform (Teams, Yo-Teach, Google Hangouts, etc) which will be worth an additional 6
marks. (12 marks total)

CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING EIGHT OPTIONS TO COMPLETE WITH AN ARTICLE

1. Discussion Director: Your job is to develop a list of questions that your group might want
to discuss about the article or section of the book. Don’t worry about the small details; your
task is to help people talk over the big ideas in the reading and share their reactions. Usually
the best discussion questions come from your own thoughts, feelings, and concerns as you
read, which you can list in your journal, during or after your reading. Provide possible answers
(detailed please)

2. Important Passages: Your job is to locate and highlight a few special sections of the text.
The idea is to help people remember some interesting, powerful, thought-provoking or
important sections of the text. You decide which passages or paragraphs are worth hearing,
and then jot down plans for how they should be shared. You can read passages aloud
yourself, ask someone else to read them, or have people read them silently and then discuss.
Annotate with great detail, please. (5 Ws, connections, vocab, commentary, themes)

3. Graphic Presentation: Your job is to take key ideas and present them
graphically in a sketch, cartoon, diagram, flow chart, or stick-figure scene.
During the discussion, show your graphic and let the others talk about it before
you say what it represents to you. There should also be a written component
where you analyze in detail your drawing and explain how it broadens the
understanding of the passage.

4. Summarization (maximum 4/6): Your job is to prepare a brief summary of today’s

5. Vocabulary: Your job is to find important words in today’s reading. If you find words that
are puzzling or unfamiliar, highlight them while you are reading, and then later jot down their
definitions, either from a dictionary or some other source. You may also run across familiar
words that stand out in the reading-words that are repeated, used in an unusual way, or words
key to the meaning of the text. Mark these special words too and be ready to point them out to
the group. Be sure to jot down page numbers so when your circle meets, you can help
members find the words. After the definition, have a written explanation that explains how
knowing the term/definition is crucial to your groups understanding of the overall article.
6. Bias Finder Your job is to examine the text for evidence of bias. Look for signs of the author’s
bias, and bias in the statements of any key people quoted in the reading. 1. Make a list of the
assumptions the author seems to be making. Provide textual evidence for these assumptions. 2. Find 2
or more examples of bias in the reading (either the author’s or a quoted person’s). Explain, using textual
evidence, how you know that this author or person is biased in this way. 3. Determine how trustworthy
the author is. Do you believe the author despite his/her biases? How objective can this author be? How
persuasive? How does the trustworthiness of the quoted persons affect the trustworthiness of the
author?

7. Connector Your job is to find connections among this reading and the texts we have read or the
world outside. This means connecting the reading to your own life, to happenings at school or in the
community, to similar events at other times and places, to other people or problems that you are
reminded of, to the principles of a religion or philosophy, to the characters or themes in a work of
literature, or to the ideas in another nonfiction text. You might also see connections between this book
and other writings on the same topic, or by the same author. There are no right or wrong answers here –
whatever the reading connects you with is worth sharing. 1. List and explain 3-5 connections you found
between the reading and the outside world or between the reading and other texts. Details please.

8. Rhetorician: Your job is to examine the text for rhetorical appeals (appeals to ethos, logos, or
pathos).

1. Find at least one place where the author appeals to pathos (the reader’s emotions). Write down
the passage and explain how the author appeals to pathos in that passage. If you do not think the
author appeals to pathos at all, why do you think the author chose to avoid appeals to pathos?

2. Find at least one place where the author appeals to logos (logic). Write down the passage and
explain how the author appeals to logos in that passage. If you do not think the author appeals to
logos at all, why do you think the author chose to avoid appeals to logos?

3. Find at least one place where the author appeals to ethos (the reader’s sense of the author as
credible and trustworthy OR the reader’s morals or ethics). Write down the passage and explain
how the author appeals to ethos in that passage. You should be able to find at least one place
where the author tries to establish his/her credibility (even if you do not find any places where
the author appeals to the reader’s morals and ethics). If you feel that the author fails to establish
his/her credibility, why do you think s/he fails?

Note: With some readings you might want someone to find connections between the reading
and other readings, people, and/or events-current or in the past. Someone else might
research the subject for additional information to add to the discussion.

Information borrowed and adapted and added to by Jane Hancock, UCLA Writing Project, from Literature Circles:
Voice and choice in the student-centered classroom by Harvey Daniels, Stenhouse Publishers, York, ME.