Literature Circles for Things Fall Apart
Procedure:
As you meet in your groups, begin with each member presenting their assignment to the group at large. Each Literature Circle assignment involves getting information from the entire group, so being prepared for your discussion is essential. Make sure you have all the materials ready if your job requires that everyone have copies.
Jobs:
1. Closer Reader: You will need to select a passage suitable for a close reading to be performed by members of your group. You are to bring copies of your passage for each member of your group. As a group:
1. First, decide what the major ideas Achebe is suggesting in the selected passage. 2. Then, determine what significant literary elements are active in the passage, and how these elements help create the experience of the passage for the reader.
3. Your passage should be marked and annotated and your group discussion should produce an analytical paragraph based upon your group’s close reading.
2. Proverb Interpreter: Identify the proverbs/wise sayings in the chapters you read. Copy the saying and, as a group, determine the meaning.
1. Locate each saying and record the meaning on the paper you have prepared in advance with the saying already recorded.
3. Character Watcher: Who are the major characters in for the assigned readings? For each character, indicate the following:
1. How do the characters the affect the story in the section you are reading. Do they provide conflict, contrasting personality, or add another essential element to the story.
2. Indicate if they change in any way during the course of your assigned chapters.
3. Leave room for you to record the group responses to your observations.
4. Plot Tracker: Your job is to identify the essential events in each selected chapter, and then to identify both the causes of the events and their respective effects (or inferred effects) on the story. See if the other group members agree on your selection and make any necessary changes based upon the group discussion.
5. Questioner: Your job is to compose a minimum of five interpretive or speculative questions per chapter, and to use these questions as the basis for the group discussion. Be sure and record the answers as part of your discussion. Note any questions that you discover do not qualify as either interpretive or universal/speculative.