Literature Circles Online

A report by Christina Mckay

Professor Tracy Dembicki, EDDL 5111

TRU November, 2012

Contents:

1. Concept: What are literature circles?

2. Activities: Step-by-step plan

3. Time plan

3.1 Time and space barriers and online learning

4. Resources and materials

5. Learning Theories

5.1 Learning is Individual

a. Learning Styles

b. Multiple Intelligences

5.2 Learning is Social

a. Social Constructivism

b. Connectivism

5.3 Learning is Cognitive

a. Vygotsky’s constructivism

b. Making cognitive strategies visible

5.4 Learning is Progressive

a. Bloom’s taxonomy

5.5 Learning is Affective

a. The six C’s of motivation

6. Learning Outcomes

7. Assessment and Evaluation

1. Concept: What are literature circles?

In literature circles, groups of 4-5 students meet regularly over a period of weeks to study a

novel in depth. Their discussion is guided both by personal response to the literature at hand,

and by literary analysis concepts taught in class. (Schlick Noe and Johnson, 1999). Literature

circles ask students to engage in personal reflection and critical thinking as they read and

discuss the novel. Students can respond to the novel in a variety of ways, by examining the

author’s craft, the plot, setting, characters and themes, as well as using art, music, film and

other texts to draw connections and comparisons and develop their sense of meaning.

According to Schlick Noe and Johnson, “Collaboration is at the heart of this approach.

Students reshape and add onto their understanding as they construct meaning with other

readers. Finally, literature circles guide students to deeper understanding of what they read

through structured discussion and extended written and artistic response." (1999).

Traditionally, literature circles depend on face-to-face classroom environments to provide the

opportunity for discussion, sharing and collaboration in person. Much of the work the

students need to do to prepare for their circles takes place at home in advance. Students need

to read their novel and write their structured response ahead of each week’s meeting. After

the meeting, they must respond to their peers’ submissions and work to edit their text. The

final product of a literature circle can take many forms, but I prefer asking the students to

choose their best work from their weeks of study and collaborate together to produce an

online literary magazine, or “zine”. These zines are collections of multimedia texts, which

can range from dramatic film clips, spotify playlists, podcast interviews, traditional text

reviews, essays, image analysis, creative artistic work, and even crime scene investigation

reports!

The work of literature circles could potentially shift quite seamlessly to a completely online

learning environment with well-selected technologies. Literature circle groups need a virtual

space to meet and discuss their novels, as well as a safe place to jointly store and edit

documents. This could open up exciting possibilities for exchange and discussion between

students living thousands of miles apart but reading and loving the same books.

2. Activities: how this should work

A. Begin with setting up a Wordpress site to distribute initial documents: unit goals and

grading criteria, assignment descriptions, lectures and class notes.

B. Initial unit work begins with a week of readings and lectures (uploaded to unit’s

Wordpress blog) which discuss the process of selecting reading and working with

literary analysis.

C. Students need to read explanation documents about literature circles and view two

power point presentations (selecting literature and literary analysis) available as films

(lectures recorded on Screencast-o-matic and uploaded to blog site).

D. Students will read through a list of potential novel choices for literature circles

E. Students submit a list of their top three novel choices.

F. Literature circle groups are assigned with 4-5 students/ group. This is posted to the

blog. Dropbox shared folders are set up for students to join (1 Dropbox shared folder

per novel group).

G. Literature circle groups meet each other online in Voice Thread.com to begin

discussing their novel, plan their reading and assign the following roles to each other:

discussion director, wordsmith, character analyst, literary luminary, artist-in-residence,

and connector. (Depending on the number of students in the group, one student may

need to take on more than one role, or the group can decide to experiment with which

roles they find necessary, and which are optional.)

H. Using Voice threading, one discussion director sets up the next week’s meeting. The

group needs to decide how much of the novel to read, and who will take on each role.

I. The novel should be read over a course of approximately five weeks. See Time Plan

below).

J. Each student must prepare their role ahead of each upcoming literature circle meeting,

reading the section of the novel for that week and writing several well-constructed

paragraphs to discuss and explain the conclusions they have come to regarding their

role that week. This writing should be uploaded to their group’s shared folder on

Dropbox.

K. Literature circle “meets” on Voice thread, where group members comment and discuss

the writing they see from their peers in their shared Dropbox folder. The discussion

director should moderate the group’s discussion, and afterward, upload a final report

of the compiled writing, edits and comments to the group’s Dropbox folder.

L. Groups should meet approx.. 4-5 times, working on Voice thread (oral discussion) and

Dropbox (written work, editing and commenting).

M. Each literature circle must also produce a final project together. This project will take

the form of a multimedia online literary magazine (a “zine”) about their novel. This

will take the form of a website on Weebly. They need to select and edit two of their

best pieces of writing to contribute to the zine project, and meet together to edit and

create this work.

N. Other literature circle groups in the class should visit other groups’ zine sites and read

and comment on the various texts in each blog.

3. Time plan

Week 1: Introduction to literary analysis, selecting literature, novel selections:

Wordpress

Week 2: Introduction to literature circles. Groups meet on Dropbox and Voice thread.

Roles discussed and assigned. First section of novel reading planned and assigned

Week 3: First literature circle meeting on Voice thread. Paragraphs written and submitted

in advance to Dropbox, meeting held, notes taken, meeting notes submitted to Dropbox.

Next week’s readings and roles assigned.

Week 4, 5, 6: Literature circle meets on Voice thread. Paragraphs written and submitted

in advance to Dropbox, meeting held, notes taken, meeting notes submitted to Dropbox.

Next week’s readings and roles assigned.

Week 7: Novel should be finished by this meeting. Literature circle meets on Voice

thread. Paragraphs written and submitted in advance, meeting held, notes taken, meeting

notes submitted on Dropbox. Plans made to create online literary magazine. Use both

voice thread (for oral discussion) and Dropbox (for written comments and ideas).

Week 8: Zine planning and editing. Online discussion and planning (Voice Thread and

Dropbox).

Week 9: Zines are due. Online launch! Groups visit each other’s zines to comment,

reflect and respond.

Week 10: Grading and assessment

3.1 Time and space barriers and online learning

Traditionally, literature circles have been used in face to face classroom environments

with great success. In an online environment, literature circles will take place through

asynchronous discussions, as it is likely that students will have difficulty being able to

meet in the same place, let alone the same time zone. Students will need tools that allow

them to store their voice recordings and written response, as well as to read, listen to and

respond to others’.

Instructors of online literature circles will need to choose tools that can support

asynchronous discussion, and also offer students the chance to interact with each other’s

voices and faces at some points. Students will also need a secure and accessible place to

store their online portfolios, and this will need to be Cloud-based so that it is not locked

behind some sort of private platform.

4. Resources and Materials:

Here are the tools I plan to use to support an online literature circle unit:

Wordpress Blog (www.wordpress.com): To begin the course, I will upload the course

materials, grading criteria, assignment descriptions and literary analysis lectures to a

Wordpress Blog. Students can access this blog to find descriptions of literature circles, details

about the roles they might take on, lists of group members, recorded power point lectures, and

lists of novels they might choose. A Wordpress blog also offers the possibility of a discussion

forum, where students can ask questions and gain clarification about assignments. I do not

plan to keep the rest of the group work on Wordpress, however, given its limited group

editing potential. It is possible to comment outside and around other people’s writing on

Wordpress, but an internal editing capacity is understandably missing.

Screencast-o-Matic (http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/): I will need to record my own

power point lectures about literary analysis (plot, character, setting, theme) and the novels

they might choose to study (selecting literature) as short films students can view on the blog.

I want to give my students a sense of my own enthusiasm, engagement and expertise in

analysing literature. I think it might also help to model the kind of informal and engaging

“thinking out loud” students will be asked to carry out when they participate in voice

threading about their novel in the next stage of this unit.

Dropbox (www.dropbox.com): Each literature circle group will be assigned a shared folder

on the Cloud-based file management programme Dropbox. It will be on dropbox that they

can develop their weekly portfolio of writing and edit and comment on their own and each

other’s work using Track Changes on Microsoft Word. Here, it’s important to note that these

editing functions are not available in the same detail on a regular blogging site. As editing

and peer response is an important element of literature circle work, Dropbox works best for

these weekly hand-ins.

Each week, each group member needs to prepare at least one well-developed paragraph to

respond to the role they have been assigned in their novel study. The Discussion Director has

the job of compiling these hand-ins into one weekly report document and making sure this is

named and edited in Dropbox. It will be in this file that the instructor can go in to comment,

make further edits, respond to and discuss the students’ weekly novel study work. Dropbox is

FANTASTIC for ongoing formative assessment.

Voice Thread (www.voicethread.com): Literature circles also require a place for oral

discussion and exploration. Instead of simply reading each other’s work in Dropbox, students

need a place for free discussion, thinking out loud (an important metacognitive skill!)

laughter, asking questions, giving each other responses, sharing information and making

decisions. The Discussion Director is a role that rotates among group members each week. It

will be up to them to initiate, moderate, conclude and save the voice thread discussion that

can be held asynchronously on VoiceThread.

Weebly (www.weebly.com): The final product that students produce from their literature

circle work is an online multimedia literary magazine, or “zine”. Weebly is a very user-

friendly open-sourced website creating programme that my students often use. The idea of

publishing their work in an authentic context like a website is highly motivating for students,

who are keen to show of the best of their creative and analytical texts. Weebly provides a

great platform to demonstrate the multiple intelligences and learning styles at work when we

study literature collaboratively.

5. Learning Theories:

Literature circles offer students many different entry points and methods to work with to

study a work of literature. The work in these circles is individual and collaborative, academic

and creative, formal and informal. For me, they are one of the most professionally satisfying

methods I have used in my teaching because engage and encompass so many aspects of the

learning theories I adhere to. The big question to ask in the development of a unit like this in

a distributed learning environment, is: does this shift to online learning maintain and deepen

the learning theory I know is at work here?

5.1 Learning is individual:

a. Learning Styles: Each student learns best by applying their own strengths to process

information. Some students might be visual learners, and work well with images and seeing

concepts mapped out in front of them. Others might work best through aural learning, hearing

and perceiving information. Others again might need to use their skills as readers and writers

to construct meaning. A final group of learners might use their bodies and movement to make

sense of a text. According to Michael Orey, editor of “Emerging Perspectives on Learning,

Teaching and Technology”, “The term "learning styles"… refers to the uniqueness of how

each learner receives and processes new information through their senses.” (Orey ed.

“Learning Styles”).

Literature Circles and learning styles: During literature circle work, a student has the

opportunity to try on a variety of different “learning hats” as they construct meaning around

and with their novel. This method of novel study helps break the traditional mold of reading

the novel then writing the essay, and asks students to speak, listen, read, write, create, act,

sing, dance and improvise. For example, students who are creative and visual often perform

very well as connectors or artists-in-residence, bringing or creating visual texts to demonstrate

how they have been thinking about their reading. In the final project, learners have a whole

smorgasbord of text options they can choose to create, from traditional essays, editorials,

reports and written texts (for readers and writers), to podcasts, spotify playlists and films

(aural learners), to short films and video productions (kinesthetic learners). Since much of

my face-to-face literature circle work already includes the use of a great deal of Web 2.0

technologies (uploading playlists, creating films, recording sound files, editing film clips

together), I see a natural extension of these learning styles into online environments.

b. Multiple Intelligence learning theory: Similar to learning styles, Howard Gardener’s

theory of Multiple Intelligences (Frames of Mind 1983) also asserts that every student has a

uniquely personal way to approach and process information. Not everyone is “smart” in the

same ways, and students need to be offered many different potential entry points to be able to

learn new information. Gardner proposed eight different “intelligences”: Verbal/Linguistic,

Logical/Mathematical, Visual/Spatial, Body/Kinesthetic, Naturalistic, Musical, Interpersonal,

and Intrapersonal.

Literature circles and multiple intelligences: As mentioned above, literature circles

provide opportunities for students to try on a variety of different “learning hats” as they

construct meaning around and with their novel. Here is a small sampling of the many

different ways literature circle tasks can engage students who have different “intelligences”:

Verbal/Linguistic: discussing the novel with peers, creating a podcast

interview, writing interpretive texts, creating vocabulary lists.

Logical/Mathematical: creating vocabulary lists, tracking definitions of

new words, mapping out plot developments, managing schedules and

planning use of group time.

Visual/Spatial: “artist-in-residence” creates visual representations of

events in the novel, explains them to the group, works with the novel’s

cover art to interpret meaning, selects and creates images, headers, fonts

and illustrations for the group’s final online “zine”.

Body/Kinesthetic: acting out scenes from the novel in a short film for the

group’s final “zine” project.

Naturalistic: working with the setting/environment of the novel,

explaining the behavior of characters who are animals, discussing the

relationship between characters and the environment.

Musical: creating a Spotify/iTunes playlist to illustrate themes or ideas at

work in the novel, composing their own music to be performed on film

for the group’s final zine project, connecting ideas or events as they read

to songs/pieces of music they know and explaining how.

Interpersonal: responding and connecting to their peers’ ideas orally and

in writing. Collaborating with the group to create films, act out scenes,

take part in interviews, create joint texts, lists etc. for the final zine

project.

Intrapersonal: reflecting and responding to the text individually. Quiet,

personal response. Working independently on texts.

Again, since all of these intelligences can be expressed in some way using Web 2.0 tools

(recording sound, film, creating art, editing text, responding), there is a natural way to extend

face-to-face literature circles completely into online environments.

5.2 Learning is social:

a. Social Constructivism: In essence, we benefit tremendously when we learn as part of a

group. Learning is a social process (McMahon, 1997). Our knowledge, this theory says, is

“intersubjective”, and culture and context are crucial to the construction of meaning.

According to the wiki site “Emerging Perspective on Learning and Teaching and

Technology”, “Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of culture and context in

understanding what occurs in society and constructing knowledge based on this

understanding” (Derry, 1999; McMahon, 1997). This theory of learning is strongly connected

to Vygotsky’s theories about social development.

Literature circles and social constructivism: Together with their group members, literature

circles create a new “reality” about their novel. The collective interpretation they come up

with in their final zine project will be entirely new and personal to them. For literature

circles, knowledge is a human project. It does not matter what else has been said about this

novel before; what matters is what they say about it now, together. According to McMahon,

learning occurs when individuals engage in social activities. Literature circles are highly

social and demand both personal and collective engagement in the creation of meaning.

Students are asked to create their own responses, but also to engage with the responses of

others, and to make new meaning based on these interactions.

It remains to be seen just how successful we can be with such social interaction in a

completely online environment. As someone who prefers face-to-face interaction, this aspect

of literature circles feels potentially endangered by a complete shift to online learning.

Although my students use online tools a great deal during their literature circle work now, I

know they place the most value in their face to face meeting time. It will be a challenge to

build the sense of community, openness and trust we can find in good circle groups in a

purely online environment.

b. Connectivism: According to Siemens, “connectivism is driven by the understanding that

decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being

acquired and the ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information

is vital. Also critical is the ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape

based on decisions made yesterday” (Siemens, 2005, para. 24). Connectivism, therefore, is

based on the idea that learners find knowledge through networks. It is through the

connections we make with others that we find diversity of opinion, and this friction is where

new knowledge resides. Siemens also points out that our “ability to see connections between

fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill” (2005).

Literature circles and connectivism: A literature circle is one of Siemen’s networks of

learning. Unlike traditional novel study, where a reader reads a novel individually and

perhaps writes a traditional essay about it, the learning in a literature circle is produced out of

the connections and interactions between group members. Moreover, the work of the

“connector” in each week’s meetings should draw external connections between the novel and

other current texts (films, songs, movies, concepts, life events, other novels, poems etc.).

Online literature circles show great promise and potential for this connectivist way of

learning. A group of learners naturally creates a network, and the connections they find will

be formalized and concretized in places like Voice Thread and Dropbox. There will be a

stronger record of these nodes of communication and connection with the use of Web 2.0

technologies.

5.3 Learning is cognitive:

a. Vygotsky’s constructivism: According to Vygotsky, social learning precedes and

underlies development. Learning is best constructed, he asserts, in a scaffolded setting, where

a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) breaks down a challenging task into manageable and

understandable steps, and guides the learner through the skills they need to reach the final

goal. Learners achieve the most when they are encouraged and scaffolded into what he calls

the “Zone of Proximal Development”. Vygotsky (1978) defines the ZPD as the distance

between the "actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and

the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult

guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (p. 86).

Literature circles and constructivism: Literary analysis is a complex and demanding

activity. A more traditional read-and-essay assignment might never show a student how to

break down and work with the tasks of literary analysis in order to assimilate and apply them

more effectively. A literature circle study group involves breaking down the variety of

cognitive tasks more advanced readers and writers perform when they make meaning from

texts. These cognitive tasks are shared out and rotated through the group under the guidance

of an instructor, so that students get a shorter taste of activities like analysing the writer’s

craft, defining challenging vocabulary, visualizing, predicting, responding, making

connections and interpreting. The ZPD is the “whole” analysis of a long and challenging

novel, but the roles in literature circles demonstrate how tasks can be broken down, tested

briefly, shared and explored.

b. Literature circles and cognitive strategies: In literature circle study, the instructor

travels between groups to model, scaffold, coach, articulate meaning, reflect and respond.

The role of the instructor in literature circles is to show students how to make cognitive

strategies more visible. How do readers actually read? Well, they make connections, they

visualize, they analyse the writer’s craft, they define words, they read recursively, they make

predictions, they reflect on their own process of meaning construction. The “hats” students

wear when they take on the different roles in literature circles are a way of making different

cognitive strategies visible. Students can wear these different roles/hats and experiment with

them, and reflect on how they change or influence their reading process.

Web 2.0 technologies like Dropbox provide excellent means to make learning strategies and

cognition visible. Dropbox provides a method of online portfolio development, where

students can save, edit, comment on and share texts. Working and re-working text demands

the kind of thinking about thinking that good writers and readers know how to do. Web 2.0

tools are a boon to the development of visible cognitive strategies.

5.4 Learning is progressive:

a. Literature circles and Bloom’s Taxonomy: Here are but a few examples of how

literature circles engage all three levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, focusing mostly on the

cognitive and affective domains.

Remember: Students need to recall plot details, names of characters,

events and connections in the novel they are reading.

Understand: taking the knowledge gained from the text and presenting it

in their own words, both orally and in writing.

Apply: making connections to other ideas (connector, artist-in-

residence).

Analyse: asking thoughtful questions of peers in the group, image

analysis, tracking and making decisions about character development.

Making links to possible themes in the novel, and presenting arguments.

Evaluate: thinking critically about others’ work in the group, responding

to their work with questions and making decisions about what should be

considered the “best work” that should go into the final zine project.

Create: creating films, final texts, synthesizing final work.

5.5 Learning is Affective:

a. The Six C’s of Motivation and Literature Circles: Literature circles offer students

opportunities to become really engaged with reading and constructing meaning with and

about novels. But what does motivation and engagement really look like? The six C’s of

motivation (Wang, S. & Han, S., 2001) provide specific explanations of how to motivate

students. Here is how literature circles might tap into these 6 C’s:

Choice: Literature circles take a step away from the traditional whole-class novel

format, which many students find forced and alienating. Students are offered a variety

of novels to choose from, and their active selection helps them to feel more connected

and engaged with the novel they end up reading. The variety and flexibility of the

tools the students will use to carry this out online also strengthens this element of

choice.

Challenge: see ZPD and Vygotsky, above. Literature circles offer students a

breakdown of the cognitive strategies used by advanced readers and writers. They can

try on different cognitive “hats” in the various roles they take on. The online tools

they are using will also present them with real-world challenges and show them

exciting possibilities beyond their use in literature studies.

Control: students choose themselves how much they should read each week, and

which roles they should take on. They are also welcome to invent new roles to

address the specific novel they are studying. Web 2.0 technologies also demand a

kind of self-direction and independence, which emphasizes the student’s control over

their own learning.

Collaboration: literature circles are social and collaborative. See Siemens (2005) and

connectivism. Learning takes place in a networked community. Online networks are

the most obvious kind of networked community. This online version of literature

circles provides a whole nexus where students can interact orally (Voice Thread), in

writing (Dropbox) and create an authentic final product (Weebly)

Construct Meaning: when working in a literature circle, the most important

knowledge is constructed there and then, between the members of the group. Previous

interpretations of the novel may certainly exist, but literature circles create a final

product that is new, authentic and personal to the group. There is no “Spark Notes”

version of the right answer for most of the literature circle assignments like connector,

artist-in-residence or discussion director. This makes learning immediate and

authentic.

Consequences: The final product of literature circles is a published text (online

literary magazine) which presents students with the challenge of an authentic text that

will represent their work to the rest of the world. Moreover, there are built-in

consequences of group work, where your ability to step and perform well has a direct

impact on your group members. A great literature group has a magical kind of

synergy at work, where the sum of the whole is greater than its parts.

6. Learning Outcomes:

These are all the learning outcomes for English from the Swedish National Agency for

Education (Skolverket). Literature circles meet the majority of the learning outcomes stated

for a sample first year (grade 10) English course. The specific outcomes addressed by

literature circle study are highlighted here:

Content of communication Subject areas related to students' education, and societal and working life; current

issues; events and processes; thoughts, opinions, ideas, experiences and feelings; relationships and ethical issues.

Content and form in different kinds of fiction. Living conditions, attitudes, values and traditions, as well as social, political and

cultural conditions in different contexts and parts of the world where English is used. The spread of English and its position in the world.

Reception Spoken language, also with different social and dialect features, and texts that instruct,

relate, summarise, explain, discuss, report and argue, also via film and other media. Coherent spoken language and conversations of different kinds, such as interviews.

Literature and other fiction. Texts of different kinds and for different purposes, such as manuals, popular science

texts and reports. Strategies for listening and reading in different ways and for different purposes. Different ways of searching for, selecting and evaluating texts and spoken language. How words and phrases in oral and written communications create structure and

context by clarifying introduction, causal connection, time aspects, and conclusions.

Production and interaction Oral and written production and interaction of various kinds, also in more formal

settings, where students instruct, narrate, summarise, explain, comment, assess, give reasons for their opinions, discuss and argue.

Strategies for contributing to and actively participating in discussions related to societal and working life.

Processing of their own and others' oral and written communications in order to vary, clarify and specify, as well as to create structure and adapt these to their purpose and situation. This covers the use of words and phrases that clarify causal connections and time aspects.

7. Assessment and Evaluation:

Grading criteria for the level A (highest possible grade) in Grade 10 English, from the

Swedish National Agency for Education’s criteria (www.skovlerket.se). Areas to be assessed

in literature circles are highlighted.

Grade A Students can understand both the whole and details of English spoken at a varying

speed and in clearly expressed written English in various genres.

Students show their understanding by in a well- grounded and balanced way giving an account of, discussing and commenting on content and details, and with good results act on the basis of the message and instructions in the content.

Students can choose and with certainty use strategies to assimilate and evaluate the content of spoken and written English.

Students choose texts and spoken language from different media and in a relevant, effective and critical way use the selected material in their own production and interaction.

In oral and written communications of various genres, students can express themselves in ways that are varied, clear, coherent and structured.

Students can also express themselves with fluency and some adaptation to purpose, recipient and situation.

Students work on and make well-grounded and balanced improvements to their own communications.

In oral and written interaction in various, and more formal contexts, students express themselves clearly, relative freely and with fluency, and also with adaptation to purpose, recipient and situation.

In addition, students can choose and use well-functioning strategies to solve problems and improve their interaction, and take it forward in a constructive way.

Students discuss in detail and in a balanced way some features in different contexts

and parts of the world where English is used, and can also make well developed and

balanced comparisons with their own experiences and knowledge.

These grading criteria are somewhat vague and unspecific to the task of literature circles. To

help my students see what I am looking for as I assess their work, I will tell the following:

What are my learning outcomes when I study in literature circles?

Understand and apply concepts of literary analysis. I will be able to discuss and

explain elements like plot, setting, character, theme, the author’s vocabulary, tone and

craft etc.

Relate events and ideas in my novels to historical and present developments in the

English-speaking world (in politics, history, culture, religion, science etc.).

Be able to identify, discuss, explain and apply reading and writing strategies to

improve my skills. These might include reading and writing recursively, visualizing,

making predictions, drawing connections, interpreting, refining meaning, creating

definitions, summarizing, and tapping prior knowledge.

Use not just my analytical, academic skills, but also my creative, receptive, dramatic

and artistic skills to interpret, explain and represent my novel in an understandable

way.

Gain strength in reading, editing and commenting on my own and others’ work, using

specific editing tools (Track Changes or iAnnotate).

Develop and comment on a progressive portfolio of written and creative work about

my novel, and select and publish the best of my writing/texts in a creative and

engaging online zine.

Develop my competence in Web 2.0 technologies like online editing, Weebly, voice

threading, film making, podcasting etc.

8. References:

Bloom, Benjamin S. & David R. Krathwohl. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives:

The classification of educational goals Handbook 1: Cognitive domain. New York ,

Longmans.

Derry, S. J. (1999). A Fish called peer learning: Searching for common themes. In A. M.

O'Donnell & A. King (Eds.),

Gardner, H. (1983/2003). Frames of mind. The theory of multiple intelligences. New York:

BasicBooks, 1983

McMahon, M. (1997, December). Social Constructivism and the World Wide Web - A

Paradigm for Learning. Paper presented at the ASCILITE conference. Perth, Australia.

Schlick Noe, K. L. & Johnson. N.L., Getting Started with Literature Circles , 1999

Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc. p. ix.

Siemens, G. (2005, January). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age.

International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, Retrieved November

03, 2008, from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

Learning Styles in Orey, Michael, Ed. Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and

Technology. Retrieved November 16, 2012, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?

title=Main_Page

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wang, S. & Han, S. (2001). Six C's of Motivation. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives

on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved <16 November 2012>, from

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/