Literature circles

Do you know what a "frindle" is?  Don't be surprised if your child soon asks you that question.  This week we started literature circles.  Literature circles provide students with the opportunity to discuss books. Literature circles are similar to the popular book clubs that many adults enjoy.  Our first book, Frindle, by Andrew Clements, focuses on the life of Nick Allen, a fifth grade student whom some consider a troublemaker.  Nick often comes up with ingenious schemes to make things more interesting at school, like turn a classroom into a tropical beach or make bird sounds in class.  Then Nick gets an idea for a new plan.  He wonders, "Why does a pen need to be called a pen?  Why can't he call it a frindle?"  We're not very far in our book yet, but we are excited to see what happens.  Every night we read assigned pages from the book.  That way we are all at the same part of the book and can have discussions about what we have read so far.  We will also be completing various projects during literature circles.

We also just started a new mo`olelo book, Under the Blood Red Sun, by Graham Salisbury.  This book is set in World War II Hawai`i, around the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  It focuses on the life of Tomikazu, a Japanese boy born in Hawaii whose parents were born in Japan.  This book is a wonderful choice for students to read because the story is set in the place where we live.  It's quite fascinating to read a book and have the characters reference familiar places like Kaka`ako and Queen Street.  The book is a little mature for the students; we are reading it together so that we can discuss the content.. 

Posted on October 4, 2007 10:16 AM | Permalink