Finishing the First Book

Finally we are finishing our last reading and grand conversation. I am eager to interview students, give a post reading comprehension test and reading survey, and allow students to grade their group members and their book. I have been observing students and documenting my observations during the grand conversations, but I think my most valuable findings will be from the interviews, comprehension test, reading survey and group members/book grades. As long as students are honest when they are completing their assessments, they will be helpful to my research.

Continuing Observations

Just like anything we do in class, we need practice. Literature circles have been going great so far as a whole. I notice as we continue through our first book some students grasp the concept and excel with it while other students are far behind doing the bare minimum. I anticipated this with the first book. The one factor I noticed that motivates students the most is the pressure from their peers to complete their reading and jobs. If a group member comes to the grand conversation unprepared, the entire group suffers. There is one less person who can participate in the discussion and one less job completed. This has caused even my unmotivated students to participate.

First look at student interest in reading survey

I asked 9 questions that students were able to answer: never, sometimes, not sure, almost always, always. Some results I found interesting were, When asked, "I enjoy reading independently", 10 students responded always, 8 students -almost always, 1 - not sure, and 12 - sometimes.
"I read because it makes me feel good" 12 - always, 6 - almost always, 3 - not sure, 6 sometimes, 4 - never.
"I know my reading level" 20 - always, 3 - almost always, 6 - not sure, 2 - sometimes.
"I know what genre (type) of books I like to read" 22 - always, 4 - almost always, 4 - not sure, 1 - never.

It will be interesting to look back at the students responses and see if their reading level and responses have any similarities.

First Attempt of Analyzing Data

The reading comprehension test consisted of 15 multiple choice questions.
Student scores:

Percent Correct - Amount of students

100% - 1
93% - 4
86% - 4
80% - 4
73% - 2
66% - 8
53% - 6
40% - 1
26% - 1

Out of 31 students 16 students or 51% of the class scored below a 70% (passing) on the test. This is a good benchmark number for the post assessment. My goal would be 80% of my class score at or above 70%.