Literacy Groups

Try being a Connector, Discoverer, Illustrator, Questioner, Researcher, Scene Setter, Summarizer, and Word Wizard.

Connector – Try to find connections between the book and you, and between the book and the wider world.  This means connecting the reading to your own past experiences, to happenings at school or in the community, to stories in the news, to similar events at other times and places, to other people or problems that you are reminded of.  You may also see connections between this book and other writings on the same topic, or by the same author.

Discoverer – Locate a few special sections or quotations in the story.  The idea is to go back to some especially interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important sections of the reading and think about them more carefully.  As you decide which passage or paragraphs are worth going back to, make a note why you picked each one. 

Illustrator – Good readers make pictures in their minds as they read.  This is a chance to share images and visions.  Draw some kind of picture related to the reading. It can be a sketch, cartoon, diagram, flowchart, or stick-figure scene.  You can draw a picture of something that happened in your book or something that the reading reminded you of, or a picture that shows any idea or feeling you got from the reading.  You can label things if you want.  Write one or two sentences to tell what your picture means, what it is about, or why you chose to draw that particular picture. 

Questioner – Write down a few questions that you have about a part of the book or this book.  What are you wondering about while you are reading?  Do you have questions about what was happening?  Do you wonder about what a word means?  Do you wonder about what a character did in the story? Do you think about what would happen next? 

Researcher – Dig up some background information on any topic related to your book.  This might include the location, weather, culture, or history of the books setting.  It could be information about the author or pictures, objects, or materials that illustrate parts of the book. Ways of gathering information might include: the introduction, preface, or “about the author” section of the book, library books, computer, encyclopedia, or other books by the author.

Scene Setter – When you are reading a book where characters move around a lot and the scene changes frequently, it is important to know where things are happening and how the setting may have changed.  Describe each setting in detail.  Be sure to give the pages where the scene is described.

Summarizer – Prepare a brief summary of the reading.  Your summary should tell the important things that happened to the characters in one to three sentences.  Then list some of the key points or events.

Word Wizard – The words a writer chooses are an important ingredient of the author’s craft.  Look for a few words that have special meaning in the reading selection.  If you find words that are puzzling or unfamiliar, list them and then find their definition from a dictionary or some other source.  You may also run across words that stand out somehow in the reading, words that are repeated a lot, words used in an unusual way, or words that provide a really good description of what is happening in the story.  List these words too.  Also write the page and paragraph where the words or phrases are found.