Exploring Middle Level English Language Learners’ Participation in Literature Circle Discussions: A Case Study

Vol. 2 No. 3

Year: 2009

Issue: November-January

Title: Exploring Middle Level English Language Learners’ Participation in Literature Circle Discussions: A Case Study 

Author Name: Xiufang Chen 

Synopsis: 

Implementing a qualitative case study, the researcher explored how a sixth-grade English language learner participated in literature discussions of various groupings in a classroom setting, and how she perceived these interactions about reading and text in the process of learning to read. The participant was struggling with reading in a sixth-grade classroom at a US urban Christian school. This study’s data set included detailed field notes from the reading sessions in the classroom throughout a semester, transcripts of a three-tier series of interviews with the participant, and various documents including the participant’s portfolios. 

The findings from this research study indicated that the participant did not have many social interactions associated with reading and text in her previous school learning experiences. Among the different types of social interactions in class, homogeneous grouping most encouraged her participation in discussion, and Literature Circles proved to be a very effective teaching approach for her. The social interactions about reading and text in class helped the participant better understand and remember the text. They also impacted her experiences with reading, more specifically, her view of reading, the frequency and breadth of her reading, her views of self as reader, and her reading process.