My experiences with Literature Circles

I never remember doing Literature Circles in Elementary school. I think that we read the same book all at the same time and we all know that is not real Literature Circles!! :) The first experience I had with Literature Circles was last semester in Dr. Duncan's class. I really enjoyed them. I really liked how there were different books being read in the class and how we got to share the stories with one another. I also liked the fact that there are different jobs that the students in the Literature Circle can do. I think this is a good strategy for students in a classroom. It gives the students a job and helps them to stay involved through out the completion of the Literature Circle. It also lets the children tell their perceptive of what is happening in the story. I think that I will definitely use Literature Circles when I am a classroom teacher.

Assessment is a topic we talk about a lot in Child development. To me it means, a form of finding out how much a child knows and where there are different strengths and weaknesses in their work. There are different types of assessment. The one that I had to most growing up was testing. We had tests and standardized tests on everything. I do not think that this is necessarily wrong but, I do think that there are other ways in which a person can be assessed. I have learned many different ways of assessing students and I plan on doing more than just standardized testing with my students. I think in some cases, testing is important but in other cases, there are many other ways in order to assess an individual. I may do projects or ask the child to present on a topic. I could also take anecdotes in order to see how far a child is and how far he or she has come over the year.