Literature Circles and Book Clubs: Which one should you use?

Are you wanting to move towards student-led reading in your classroom, but you’re unsure where to start? We all want our students to love reading and have a choice in what they read, but it can seem overwhelming to figure out how to make that happen. Two ways you can bring student-led reading into your classroom are with literature circles and book clubs. But what is the difference between the two, and how do you know which one is right for your classroom? I’m going to share all the details!

What is the difference between literature circles and book clubs?

In my experience, I’ve found that literature circles work best for classes that need a lot more structure and teacher check-ins. With literature circles, students had set roles each week, as well as a set amount of pages to read from the same book. For example, one student might be a recorder and the other a timekeeper. The more “rigid” nature of literature circles can help manage behavior and get every student involved. 

On the other hand, when I had a really good group of self-sufficient and motivated readers, book clubs worked really well. Book clubs in the classroom are kind of like adult book clubs! They are much more organic rather than having set roles. Students read the same book or can even read different books at the same time, but they are still able to have discussions and work on ELA skills. With book clubs, I provide groups with genre-specific prompts. Sometimes they didn’t even need the prompts and conversations just happen organically.

Now that you have a better idea of the difference between literature circles and book clubs in the classroom, let’s talk about strategies you can use to keep each running smoothly.

Guide to Using Literature Circles

There are some big advantages to literature circles, especially if you want to have more control over what is happening in each group. Here are a few tips for running literature circles:

#1 Make Student Roles Super Clear

With literature circles, making sure students are crystal clear on their roles will be critical to its success. First, choose the roles you want each group to have. You can assign these roles or let students pick within their groups. You can adapt these roles to meet your student’s needs, but I liked having a summarizer, a discussion leader, a connector, and a vocabulary leader. Depending on the size of your literature circles, you can add in other roles like an illustrator, a researcher, or someone to keep track of where things happen in the book. 

#2 Pick a Book that is Accessible to Most Students

Because everyone is reading the same book in a literature circle, you want to choose something that most, if not all, students will find accessible. Students should be able to read it and process it in groups with some level of ease. Of course, the book can challenge students, but it should not be frustrating or impossible to grasp without guidance. If you need some suggestions, here are some book ideas for 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade. 

#3 Have a Clear Plan for the Curriculum

Literature circles require planning ahead, so you know exactly what skill to focus on, where to provide support, how you will model the skill, etc. If you jump into a book and just make it up as you go, students’ skills will probably suffer as a consequence. Create a road map of the skill you need to cover, plan out your mini-lessons, and have assignments prepared in advance.

Guide to Using Book Clubs

If you are thinking book clubs are the right choice for your students (or at least for a particular class period), you might be wondering exactly what needs to be done to prepare. Here are a few tips:

#1 Get Organized

Book clubs in the classroom involve lots of prep and organization. This means physically, like keeping books organized. But it also means having a clear map of your unit, so you know exactly what students will work on, what each group is reading, and what activities each group has completed. There are many different ways to stay organized – some teachers like to write things all down by hand, some teachers set up a system for students to self-report what they accomplished, and some like to do it digitally. Choose a system that works for you and keep up with it – it will save you the headache later.

#2 Build Skills with Mini-Lessons

Since your classes and groups will be reading a variety of different novels, mini-lessons will become your best friend for teaching skills. Each day, you can introduce or review a skill within a mini-lesson and model how that skill with a mentor text (as opposed to a class novel, like you might be used to doing). 

Then, students will apply what they have learned to their own book. These mini-lessons keep everyone on track with learning, reviewing, and applying the same skills while still allowing them the freedom to choose their own book. It’s going to challenge students because they won’t also be able to rely on their peers (or even you) to support them as they work independently, but that’s a good thing! Check out this blog for an in-depth example of how I use mini-lessons to guide student learning with book clubs in the classroom.

#3 Plan Discussion Questions

In book clubs, students don’t need to have assigned roles (especially if they aren’t reading the same book). However, there is still work for them to do! Students should have discussion questions or some sort of assignment to guide their time during book club. Students can lean on each other for support if needed and share how the assignment applies to their novel. 

I hope this helped you have an idea of how to implement literature circles and book clubs in your classroom. I know it can be intimidating to use novels in this way – especially if you have some rowdy classes – so I suggest you start small! Start with short stories or even poems. Then, as students learn the expectations (and you get comfortable facilitating), you can expand into novels!

Want more help implementing book clubs in your classroom. I’ve taken everything I’ve learned over the years and created what has become my most popular workshop: Book Clubs in a Box.