Appreciating Our Literature Circles aka #LitCircles

How can we measure growth or create a capstone assessment at the top of a vertical design? What makes a novel literary? How do we locate a novel’s literary qualities? How can a project encourage opportunities for life-long reading? How can we offer seniors the opportunity to demonstrate their literary knowledge and appreciation for writing style in a collaborative project? Given that we learn more deeply in collaborative ventures, how might we also incorporate our social and emotional learning goals of the year into this reading and writing endeavor? We will embrace the dynamic power of literature circles, aka #LitCircles, and give everyone a second opportunity of choosing a Booker Prize Shortlisted novel from the exciting 2020 list.

We have been reading, thinking, and sharing terms of emotional intelligence all year. It’s amazing to take a moment and reflect on how more fluent we are in our conversations about emotions! So, when you make your SEL claim in this post, focus on using one or two terms or a singular phrase. Then your argument will be more concise and clear. Use any of our Marc Brackett materials. Recall and use materials from our deep dive on Chapter 4 that we used during our winter and early spring trimesters. Also utilize these terms from the great CASEL page on Social and Emotional Learning. Use terms from this SEL Tool Kit that we have used this year. Does your character exhibit these traits? Or was there a moment in the text where that character’s deficiencies in one or more of these emotional intelligences led to a downfall or negative (and avoidable) consequences? Or can you write a letter to your character from the point of view of a best friend and suggest how they might change their life for the better?

• Empathy and Compassion
• Integrity and Self Control
• Courage and Perseverance
• Humility and Gratitude
• Teamwork and Communication
• Curiosity

There are more ideas and resources about each of these phrases on this great webpage. Click here and scroll down to the middle of the page: https://www.commonsense.org/education/toolkit/social-emotional-learning