Starting Literature Circles

I finally jumped in and started literature circles with my class. I put out books ranging from a 2.5 to 5.5 reading level. In each set there were five to six books for each group. I gave a brief whole class description of each book but did not tell them what the reading levels were. Next I randomly called students to the table to pick their book. It didn't matter what their independent reading level is, they were able to pick a book by choice. To avoid students choosing a book because their friend has the same one, I had the students only point to the book they wanted and I recorded the title. They did not receive their books until after all of the students choose their books. I have broke up the pages into seven days of reading for each book. I keep all of the reading assignments in a pocket chart and they are color coordinated. For example, the first day of reading is green for all of the books and the second day reading is orange. This way I can tell the students, "today you are reading the green pages". With older grades they could probably break up the pages on their own. The next day, after they had finished reading the first set of pages individually I gave each group a Manila folder to keep all of their grand conversation work in. Inside the folder they listed the six jobs: Discussion Director, Summarizer, Word Wizard, Passage Master, Connector, and Illustrator. They were given a description of each job and I reviewed all of the jobs with them. Within their groups they each got to pick their first job and were given 15 to complete their job. At first they can write it down, but eventually they will be able to take brief notes. Can't wait to see where it goes from here!