Collaborative Literacy: Lessons Learned from Literature

Collaborative Literacy: Lessons Learned from LiteratureAuthor(s): Karen D. Wood, Nancy L. Roser and Miriam MartinezSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Oct., 2001), pp. 102-111Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205020 .

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Karen D. Wood

Nancy L. Roser Miriam Martinez

To get along well with others, students need to learn all

about collaboration. Books about people working

together help in this important lesson for life.

Collaborative literacy:

Lessons learned

from literature

In the world of horse racing, it is called "pony

ing" when one horse practices with another

to provide a steadying support before reach

ing the gate. In the maritime world, it is called

"tugging" when one boat serves as a guide for a

vessel leaving or approaching a port. Within the

academic world, it is called "grouping" or "coop erative learning" when one student shares exper tise with another as they undertake an academic

task or work together to complete an assignment. Yet, whatever the label, whatever the setting, the

message in each of these scenarios is the same:

Working together is necessary in all facets of so

ciety to achieve particular goals. In recent years, the need to infuse the curriculum with social skills

and values such as caring, sharing, respect, and re

sponsibility has received increased attention, par

ticularly in response to the unprecedented violence

witnessed nationwide in U.S. schools (Dalton &

Watson, 1997, 1999; Gibbs, 2000; Lipsitz, 1995; Noddings, 1992,1995). With this compelling need to foster cooperation amongst our students at an

early age, we introduce the term collaborative lit

eracy. In collaborative literacy, literature is the

springboard with the potential to develop the skills and knowledge necessary for students to make

positive contributions to the classroom, at home, and in society as a whole.

Collaborative literacy Collaborative literacy is a multidimensional

term to describe how engaging students in group

activities to read, discuss, and analyze literature on the theme of working together can help them

learn many of life's important lessons. In turn, this engagement reinforces their ability to work

collaboratively. An essential element of collab

orative literacy is collaborative book talk, and

essential to these book discussions is a climate in

which trust and openness reflect the classroom

community and lead the way to divergent think

ing and varying interpretations. In collaborative literacy, students are intro

duced to books in which characters work together to help one another achieve a goal. Students

share their thinking through collaborative book

talks and then learn how to foster and strengthen the need to get along and cooperate by exploring how the stories' themes apply to them, the class

room, their homes, and their communities. As

depicted in Figure 1, the literature situates and

propels the thinking, but groups of peers are the

vehicles for discussing the literature and making connections to real-life experiences through dis

cussion. Thus, this collaborative interaction is

self-reinforcing as students become more expe rienced in working together as a result of their

literary experiences. While working with elementary and middle

school teachers who guide literature discussions, we have discovered that the best examples of col

laborative literacy stemmed from opportunities that were planned for, practiced, and nurtured.

We offer here our experiences with collaborative

book discussions that stemmed from literature

1 02 The Reading Teacher Vol. 55, NO. 2 OCtOber 2001 ?2OOI International Reading Association (pp. 102-111)



circles or communities of book talkers. We show

what collaboration looks like when discussants

come together around a book as in the Book Club

approach (McMahon, Raphael, Goatley, &

Pardo, 1997). We illustrate how teachers can lead

students to apply what is learned in literature to

their own lives, both inside and outside the class

room. We first acknowledge some of the early roots of collaborative learning, proceed to draw

from Lev Vygotsky's theory of social learning, and follow that by describing the conditions and

experiences that support collaborative literacy in

classrooms.

The early roots of cooperation and collaboration

It was de Tocqueville (1839/1945) who de fined democracy in America as the willingness of all people in all walks of life to join together,

help one another, and persist in the pursuit of the

common good. Yet, recent evidence suggests that the need to work together may be more fun

damental and basic than democracy itself.

Studies of chimpanzees and other animals

have shown that unselfish, cooperative behavior

has its roots in nature (de Waal, 1996; Masson

& McCarthy, 1995). This area of research con

tends that sharing, caring, and getting along con

tribute to the survival of a species. These

findings are at variance with the Darwinian view

that life is a tooth-and-claw struggle for "the sur

vival of the fittest" (Darwin, 1872/1965). Not

surprisingly, every mammal must engage in

some degree of positive social behavior, al

though that concept has been suppressed by sci

ence in favor of studies of aggressive and

antisocial behavior. Zoologist de Waal (1996) has observed animals working cooperatively to

aid injured companions, build protective struc

tures, ward off enemies, and share food. It turns

out that teamwork is necessary for animals and

humans to survive.

Teamwork, when applied to the classroom, has come under many different labels. Although the terms cooperative learning and collaborative

learning are often used interchangeably, differ

ent researchers are associated with each term.

For example, Johnson and Johnson (1991),

Kagan (1994), and Slavin (1995) are tradition

ally associated with the term cooperative learn

ing. Collaborative models of learning, according

Figure 1 Collaborative literacy

to Davidson (1994), focus on creating personal

meaning and comprehension through the use of

dialogue and discussion. He maintained that ad

vocates of cooperative learning approaches, for

the most part, tend to be more structured, em

phasizing specific behaviors and rewards. On the

other hand, proponents of collaborative learning tend not to micromanage or break tasks into in

dividual, rewardable components. Our position in this article is that in order to

be able to cooperate (get along with others), we

must be able to collaborate (work together to

ward a common goal). Therefore, we use the

term collaborative learning here because it tends

to be more general and all-inclusive. We also ad

vocate flexible grouping in this article because

it is a means of implementing collaborative

learning (Wood, McCormack, Lapp, & Flood,

1997). Flexible grouping is a dynamic approach to learning that involves the formation of many

group arrangements to coordinate with teacher

and student needs and goals. Flexible grouping

arrangements are not static or rigid and can in

volve grouping by interest or need, reading with

a partner, retelling a selection with others, or

Collaborative literacy: Lessons learned from literature 103



Book list by level on the theme of working together

Primary

The Adventures of Sugar and Junior by Angela Shelf-Madearis.

Holiday House, 1995.

Bein' With You This Way by W. Nikola-Lisa. Lee & Low, 1994. The Best Friends Club: A Lizzie and Harold Story by Elizabeth

Winthrop. Lothrop, Lee, & Shepard, 1989.

Come a Tide by George Ella Lyon. Orchard, 1990.

The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane Derolf. Random House, 1997.

Dumpling Soup by Jama Kim Rattingan. Little, Brown, 1993.

Everybody Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley. Carolrhoda, 1991.

Friends by Helme Heine. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, 1982.

Frog, Duck, and Rabbit by Susanna Gretz. Four Winds Press, 1992.

Getting Together by George Anacona. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, 1967.

''Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant. Harcourt Brace, 1995.

The Great Big Enormous Turnip by Alexei Tolstoy. Octopus Children's Publishing, 1968.

How My Parents Learned to Eat by Ina R. Friedman. Houghton, 1984.

Lizzie and Harold by Elizabeth Winthrop. Lothrop, Lee, &

Shepard, 1986.

My Friends by Tara Gomi. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, 1982.

The Mysterious Tadpole by Steven Kellogg. Dial, 1977.

Swimmy by Leo Lionni. Knopf, 1987.

This Is the Way We Eat Our Lunch: A Book About Children Around the World by Edith Baer. Scholastic, 1995.

Together by George Ella Lyon. Orchard, 1989. Will I Have a Friend? by Miriam Cohen. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill,

1967.

Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka. Orchard, 1993.

Primary and middle

All in a Day by Mitsumasa Anno. Philomel, 1986.

Lon Po Po: A Red Riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young. Philomel, 1989.

Smoky Night by Eve Bunting. Harcourt, 1994. The Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting. Clarion, 1992.

Middle

All the Colors of the Earth by Sheila Hamanaka. Morrow, 1994.

Ben and Me by Robert Lawson. Little, Brown, 1988.

The Blue and the Gray by Eve Bunting. Harcourt, 1996.

Deadline! From News to Newspaper by Gail Gibbons. Cromwell, 1987.

Henry's Wrong Turn by Harriet Ziefert. Little, Brown, 1989.

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Joy Street Books, 1990. The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy. Dial, 1985.

(continued)

sharing group projects with an entire class

(Radencich, McKay, & Paratore, 1995).

Social learning theory and discussion groups

Vygotsky (1978) maintained that intellectual

ability develops through participation in joint ac

tivities. It is through interactions with others?

peers and adults?that children are able to

expand their thinking, broaden their conceptual

knowledge, and express themselves in language. The Vygotskian view of the social dimension of

learning has inspired and become the theoreti

cal foundation for the recent and growing em

phasis on engaging readers with text (Gambrell & Almasi, 1996), developing book clubs in the classroom (e.g., McMahon et al., 1997), and

inviting students to respond freely to literature

(Roser & Martinez, 1995). Research has demon

strated that when students are encouraged to say and defend what they think?frankly and openly

?in discussions with others, their responses

grow deeper, richer, and more complex (Almasi, 1995; Eeds & Wells, 1989; Webb & Palincsar, in press). We (and others) have observed that

when readers talk together about books, their

"socially" constructed meanings (Bakhtin, 1986) can represent the range of their experiences, ideas, and backgrounds.

Fostering collaborative literacy with children

Literature on working together: The first step toward collaborative literacy. As we con

tinue to be surrounded by technological changes and advances, it is comforting to know that good literature is here to stay. It is also comforting to

know that reading literature for today and the fu ture means sharing ideas with peers, posing ques tions, and offering interpretations. Gone are the

days when reading for pleasure was a solitary ac

tivity where students silently read a book and

subsequently wrote a silent report. Since research

and theory clearly demonstrate the fundamental

necessity of social interaction to foster under

standing, it makes sense to start with literature

that promotes the need to work together and col

laborate. Gathering trade books on this theme is

the first step toward collaborative literacy. The Sidebar contains a list of books that

share the theme that working together and

104 The Reading Teacher Vol. 55, No. 2 October 2001



getting along is necessary in society. For some of

these books, the theme of getting along and ac

cepting differences is obvious. In The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane Derolfe, Red doesn't

get along with Blue, who doesn't like Yellow, and nobody likes Orange, and so on. Then one

day, the crayons work together to create the "big

picture," and they all begin to recognize the ben

efits of their uniqueness. In other books, the

theme of working together is embedded with

varied themes and content. As discussed next, collaborative book talk is extremely useful for

uncovering the many layers of meaning in a

book, for it enables meanings to build on mean

ings. An example of a collaborative conversation

is offered in the next section as students and their

teacher interact and respond to The Quicksand Aw* (de Paola, 1984).

Collaborative book talk. After selecting spe cific books on the topic of working together, the

next step in promoting collaborative literacy is

demonstrating how to engage in collaborative

book talk. Helping students learn to work col

laboratively during literature discussion doesn't

happen overnight. A teacher we know says it

usually takes her students 2 or 3 months to learn

to really talk together during book discussions.

One good way to begin is by reading aloud to the

entire class, all the while sharing some of your own responses and musings, inviting contribu

tions, and encouraging connections between the

text and everyday experiences. This portion of

the experience serves as a model to show the stu

dents what is involved in literature discussion? and what they will be doing when they discuss on their own.

The best book talk is an insightful, honest, collaborative exchange (Hickman, 1979). At a

given time, the collaboration may focus on dif

ferent aspects of the story. For example, readers

may work together to better understand the story world or plot; they may steep themselves appre

ciatively in the author's craft, or they may wres

tle with the messages or themes that emerge from the book (Cianciolo, 1982). Collaborative

book talkers ask good questions, wonder aloud, work together to make sense of text, refer to the

text to support their points, and share connec

tions with the book experience. All these features

(and more) were present when teacher Veronica

Gonzalez's second graders talked over The

Quicksand Book (de Paola, 1984). The text's

blend of narrative with information offers read ers a chance to learn all about the characteristics

of quicksand through a humorous plot line:

When a vine that Jungle Girl swings on suddenly breaks, she is deposited in a quicksand pool. Enter Jungle Boy who, instead of coming to her

rescue, uses charts and graphs propped on an

easel to lecture her on the properties of quick sand. As the worried Jungle Girl sinks steadily

deeper, Jungle Boy at last provides a rope. Then,

just as the rescue is achieved, an unexpected turn

of events lands Jungle Boy in the quicksand

pool, sinking quickly, panicking, and shouting for help. Now it's time for his comeuppance.

Jungle Girl (from safe footing) explains that she

Book list by level on the theme of working together (continued)

Shh! We're Writing the Constitution by Jean Fritz. Putnam, 1987.

The Streets Are Free by Kurusa. Annick Press, 1985.

Middle and advanced

Dave at Night by Gail Carson Le vine. Harper, 1999.

Francie by Karen English. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999.

Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. Scholastic, 1993. The Great Turkey Walk by Kathleen Karr. Farrar, Straus &

Giroux, 1998.

Last Summer With Maizon by Jacqueline Woodson. Delacorte, 1990.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. Bantam, Doubleday, Dell, 1989.

Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco. Philomel, 1994. The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood. Dutton, 1998.

Advanced

Anne Frank Remembered by Miep Gies. Simon & Schuster, 1987.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Washington Square Press, 1985.

The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Doubleday, 1987.

Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt. Atheneum, 1982. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. Harper & Row,

1972. The Moves Make the Man by Bruce Brooks. Harper Collins, 1984.

This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems From Around the World

by Naomi Shihab Nye. Simon & Schuster, 1992. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Warner Books, 1960.

Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues by Harriette Gillem Robinet.

Atheneum, 2000.

* Indicates chapter book

Collaborative literacy: Lessons learned from literature Uu



will be quickly to the rescue?just as soon as she

finishes her tea. Gonzalez's 23 second graders met in book club to talk over the story:

Student: I wonder why the jungle boy told the jungle girl to

float on her back, and the jungle boy didn't float on

his back.

Teacher: Urn. Good wondering. What do you think? Just come on into the conversation.

S: I think he did that because maybe he didn't really know how to float on his back.

T: Ah! Maybe he told her, "This is what you should do,"

butmaybefedidn'tdoit.

S: He didn't know howto do it.

S: It was all sticky on his back.

S: But he slipped too fast on his back, and he couldn't

turn over.

T: He couldn't turn over fast enough to float!

S: I wonder if Jungle Boy got out!

T: It never did tell us, did it? What do you think? Did

Jungle Girl get him out?

S: Yes. She said, "After I finish my tea."

S: It took a lot of time.

S: Til he was up to his neck!

S: I wonder if he sank before she saved him.

S: No, you could survive.

S: It never showed that he fell into the quicksand, so

you don't know if he fell on his back or not.

S: Yes, it did. Because he was going, "Help!"

S: No, he was suspended. Let's look at it. We're kinda

left...he was going and going...and it happened faster and faster: "Oops!"

S: Oh yeah! He flipped over.

S: He did it.

S: Yes, he fell in. It does show him.

S: At the end.

T: But we don't know if he had a chance, and somebody mentioned that he coi/Wflip over on his back.

S: Why would he say, "It's too late," when it's just up to the little girl's feet?to just flip over on her back?

Why did he struggle when he was in quicksand, and

he told the little girl not to struggle?

S: He did it himself?

S: I wonder why he didn't stay calm like the little girl. Sorta like Fred's [idea]. I wonder why it got so fast

up to his belly.

S: He probably fell in pretty hard.

T: Possibly.

S: But what about the girl? The branch was way up

high, and the branch broke, and she landed in the

quicksand, and that was pretty hard. But I don't think

that about the slip.

T: I wonder why Tomie de Paola chose the little boy to

know everything about quicksand and explain it to

the little girl.

S: Because she probably didn't know as much as the

little boy did.

S: Because he was probably a show-off.

S: He coiy/tfhave made the girl, because he was the one

that wrote the story. He could mke the girl know if

he wanted to.

S: But I bet he did it because he wanted to put the little

boy that wanted him to draw it, so that's why he ded

icated because he did so much for Tomie de Paola.

(The book is dedicated "To Steven," a fact the chil

dren had noted earlier.)

Throughout the discussion, these students

collaborated to extend and refine one another's

thinking as they shared information, clarified

misunderstandings, and raised new perspec tives?what Lindfors (1999) called "collabora

tive inquiry" (p. 157). At this point in the

discussion, the teacher can trust children to un

cover the theme loads or lessons to be learned

that are important to them without squelching or dominating the rich discussion underway.

Then, connection to ethical and community ex

periences can be accomplished by posing a few

thought-provoking questions such as, "Imagine

you were the author of the book. How might you decide the way Jungle Boy would respond when

Jungle Girl was in trouble?" or, "Have you ever

been in a situation where you or someone else

took too long to help out? What happened?" Since the best literature is often layered with

many meanings and more than one theme, many teachers choose to allow the direction of collab

orative book talk to develop spontaneously. Other teachers may set the purpose ahead of time

(i.e., "As you read the next section, think about

how you might have reacted in this situation."). The conversation surrounding The Quicksand Book represents many of the elements of a col

laborative book discussion, described in the sec

tions that follow.




Elements of a collaborative book discussion

Whether conversations about books are la

beled literature circles, book clubs, or literary discussion groups, the best book discussions

seem to occur within a classroom that is already a community and include a good book, agreed

upon goals, a participation routine open to all, and a conversational setting.

A collaborative classroom. To surround a

good book with the best of collaborative talk means that a cooperative classroom climate has

already been achieved. Children who reside in

classrooms that have become communities have

already learned that speaking and listening are

valued, that conversations require turn-taking, and that everyone may contribute. A first-grade teacher we know begins the school year by in

troducing George Ella Lyon's Together, Leo

Lionni's Swimmy, and Taro Gomi's My Friends

as a way of laying the foundation for such a col

laborative classroom. This teacher follows those

books with a unit of study on friendship and

community, while she steadily builds her stu

dents' capacity to work together (a) in pairs on

simple tasks, (b) within the larger "town meet

ing" on solving problems, and (c) during story time on offering different good ideas that help to make sense of a character's problem.

Veronica Gonzalez's classroom is already a

place where ideas are respected and differences

of opinion are listened for and received:

I think he did that because maybe he didn't really know how to float on his back.

He didn't know how\o do it.

It was all sticky on his back.

But he slipped too fast on his back, and he couldnUuw over.

I wonder if Jungle Boy got out.

I wonder if he sank before she saved him.

It never showed that he fell into the quicksand, so you don't know if he fell on his back or not.

Yes, it did. Because he was going, "Help!"

No, he was suspended.

Oh yeah! He flipped over.

He did it.

In this classroom of book talkers, children

had also begun to climb onto the ideas of others

("sorta like Fred's [idea]"). Collaborative book

talkers have begun to listen not just to authors'

words, but to those of their classmates as well.

A book worthy of collaboration. Teachers

tend to concur that the better the book, the more

gripping its plot, the more gray its choices, the

more the ethical dilemmas pull the reader in, the

richer the resultant talk will be. Eeds and Wells

(1989), for example, in their benchmark study of

"grand conversations," discovered that fifth and

sixth graders invited to talk about literature had

richer responses to Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt,

1975) than to Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh, 1964). Our own work has shown that different types

of books may move talk in somewhat different

directions (Martinez & Roser, 1995). For exam

ple, The Quicksand Book (de Paola, 1984) would be classified as an information text?with its in

formation embedded within an engaging story line. Collaborative talk can result in better un

derstanding of information texts by helping read

ers hypothesize, confirm, and modify their

individual reactions. But because The Quicksand Book is a story within an information book, Veronica Gonzalez's second graders discussed

the nature of quicksand ("I never even knew that

about quicksand." "No, you could survive.") as

well as the ethical dilemmas of promoting be

haviors you are not willing to adopt for yourself:

I wonder why the jungle boy told the jungle girl to float on

her back, and the jungle boy didn't float on his back.

Why would he say, "It's too late," when it's just up to the little

girl's feet?to just flip over on her back? Why did he struggle when he was in quicksand, and he told the little girl not to

struggle?

Similarly, fourth graders who discussed

Shiloh (Naylor, 1991) wrestled with the moral

ambiguity of a young boy disobeying his father

by hiding a dog from its abusive owner.

Although children who work through these kinds of moral dilemmas in collaborative book

talk may not reach consensus, their positions are

often made clearer; they become more reasoned

defenders of ideas and have opportunities not

just to defend their own stances but to receive

and acknowledge through such discussions

views they haven't yet considered. Best of all,

they gain insights they might not otherwise have

had without time to talk.




Figure 2 Book Clubs on working together in a primary-level classroom

The Great Big Enormous Turnip

The Mysterious Tadpole

The Troubled

Village

Frog in the Middle

Generating and agreeing upon goals.

Hepler (1991) maintained that the primary goal of literature discussion is to create communities

of readers. These communities "have the advan

tage of giving children a chance to react to a

book in the company of other similarly focused

readers. The teacher provides the setting, and in

some cases, the direction, and children talk their

way through books" (p. 183). McMahon et al. (1997) recommended that

teachers and students generate goals together. Veronica Gonzalez and her students had an

agreed-upon set of goals (inspired by Chambers,

1996, and others). They agreed that good book

talk means that readers share their "noticings" or

observations about text, that they include talk

about the connections they make with the book,

and that they wonder or puzzle aloud. Further,

Gonzalez wants to help her students learn to re

ally listen to the ideas of others, and to build co

hesive threads of conversation?rather than

scattered contributions. Note how the children's

conversation moved among participants (rather than between teacher and child), and how con

versational starters were adhered to.

A conversational setting. As simple as the

idea seems, some classrooms are not arranged for good book talk. One classroom we visited

never adjusted chairs or tables so that speakers could face one another for conversation. As a

result, exchanges were between the teacher as

leader and individuals. Rarely were there sus

tained or collaborative threads of conversation.

But, when the teacher decided one day to draw

the chairs into a circle, the students adhered to

the topic longer, built off others' comments, made eye contact, and seemed more sensitive to

dominating the talk. Nearly all evaluated the dis

cussion as more effective; a fact that kinder

garten story rug sitters seem to always have

known!

Room for each participant to think and talk. Veronica Gonzalez strongly values a class

room community and conversation that is truly conversational. Her students face one another on

the story rug, and talk bounces about with

Gonzalez a member of the group and with room

for each participant to think and to talk. When

serving as members of a book discussion group, teachers like Gonzalez work hard not to domi

nate the discussion. In the above excerpt from a

book discussion, Gonzalez's turns don't out

number her children's, her ponderings are gen

uine, and she invites, "Just come on into the

conversation." Further, she realizes that good book talk means judicious use of the imposed

question. Researchers who have considered the

role of the question (and the questioner) tend to

agree that ill-timed or too frequent questions can

interfere with genuine, collaborative book con

versations. Teachers who use fewer questions

(Eeds & Wells, 1989), who work themselves to

the periphery of the book discussion group

(O'Flahavan, Stein, Wiencek, & Marks, 1992; Short & Kauffman, 1995), or who ensure that

their contributions are those of a joint respondent

support their students' participation in collabora

tive book talk.

The Book Club approach The Book Club approach (McMahon et al.,

1997) is a framework for emphasizing literature

on various topics. In addition to collaborative

book talk, it is yet another way to highlight the

theme of working together while fostering col

laborative literacy. The Book Club approach is

depicted in Figure 2 as primary-grade students

are assigned to groups, with each group reading a different book on the topic of "working togeth er." Allowing students to work on their own in

book club groups is particularly effective after

they have had numerous experiences with col

laborative book discussions as an entire class.




Figure 3 Excerpt from a language chart (theme: Working together)

Title/ author

Main characters

How they did not work

together

How they did work

together

What

happened in the end?

Lessons for life

The Troubled

Village Simon Herswood

Frog in the Middle Suzanna Gretz

Swimmy Leo Lionni

Villagers Little boy

Rabbit

Frog Duck

Swimmy The little fish The big fish

The village people caused their own prob lems, then

bragged about them.

Sometimes

they won't play with each oth er. They get jealous.

The little fish were afraid of the giant fish, so they hid away separately.

They helped the little boy, and all worked

together to hold the sky up.

They had a

birthday party for Frog and

worked out how to play together.

Swimmy taught them how to swim together, so they'd look like one big

fish.

They used a

big stick and

propped up the

sky.

Duck and Rabbit let Frog play ball in the middle.

They swam

together and chased the big fish away.

That you can fix

anything if you work together.

There's always a way to include

everybody.

Like when we work in groups, our classwork doesn't seem as hard.

The successful use of the Book Club approach has been documented and described in the litera

ture (Grattan, 1997; Scherer, 1997). As outlined

by its originators and applied to this context, the

four components for implementing the Book

Club in the classroom are described next.

Reading aloud to provide a shared experi ence (Community Share). The teacher begins by

reading one or more "community-themed" books such as Lon Po Po: A Red Riding Hood

Story From China by Ed Young, The Patchwork

Quilt by Valerie Flournoy, or Friends by Helme

Heine (see Sidebar) to the entire class, thinking aloud, inviting contributions and encouraging connections to everyday experiences. This por tion of the Book Club approach models for stu

dents how thoughtful readers react to the reading to follow.

Reading in pairs or small groups. Students

are assigned to groups of approximately three to

six students and assigned a book to read related

to the topic of "working together." These groups

may be heterogeneous or they may be grouped

according to their ability to read specific selec

tions. For example, because of the repetitive na

ture of The Great Big Enormous Turnip by Alexei Tolstoy, it may be beneficial as an as

signment for struggling readers. As mentioned

earlier, teachers can use flexible grouping tech

niques by "grouping within the group" to fur

ther personalize the experience. Within each

group of six students (as depicted in Figure 2), students may be assigned a partner with whom to

work, making each arrangement of six students

into three dyads. Students for whom English is

a second language or other students who are

reading below grade level may be paired with

someone who is slightly more proficient, but

who could benefit from the tutorial arrangement as well. Partners can "whisper read" together and assist each other with obstacle words, flu

ency, and comprehension.

Writing in response. Students may be asked

to write their personal thoughts in journals or

response logs, or they may engage in a "commu

nal writing" activity (Wood, 1994) in which het

erogeneous groups of students share their

thinking and expertise in the composition of a

single product. This writing may be brief or ex

tensive, formal or informal. The students in this

class were asked to put their ideas in the form

of a language chart (Roser, Hoffman, Labbo, &

Farest, 1995) as illustrated in Figure 3. To sum

marize and direct the discussion, the teacher has




included a column on "Lessons for Life."

Another teacher with whom we worked used the

headings "Lessons for Our Classroom," and

"Lessons for Our Home and Community."

Depending on the ability levels of the class, ei

ther the teacher or the students can fill in the

frame, discussing similarities and differences in

the books read. In essence, students use their pri or knowledge in concert with the content of the

literature to make what Keene and Zimmerman

(1997) referred to as the text-to-world and self

to-world connections.

Becoming more independent in book con

versations. The small groups meet again to dis

cuss their common selections, becoming genuine book talkers as they gain independence. They can

relate their reading to other situations, discuss

confusing points and the author's purposes, or

determine the relevance to the overall unit

theme?in this case, "working together." The

groups are also practicing respectful listening and

linking the ideas, the skills, and the responsibili ties that all community members must share.

Collaborative literacy helps Whether as a structure for literature study or

a launch for a thematic unit, setting the stage for

collaborative literacy in a classroom helps stu

dents think and speak (and write) more clearly, listen more attentively and respectfully to others'

ideas, take turns in conversations, use texts to

support their ideas, appreciate the author's craft,

become more immersed in working together to un

ravel plots, step into characters' shoes, and tussle

with the universal themes of literaturc.and of life.

In East Asia, the teachings of Confucius have

been credited for the social civility permeating that region to the extent that bumper stickers

there claim, "Confucius Did It!"(Reid, 1999).

Perhaps if the integration of collaborative literacy has its intended outcomes, we will be able to say, "Literature did it!"

Wood teaches at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the Department of Reading and Elementary Education

(College of Education, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223, USA). Roser teaches at the University of Texas in

Austin, and Martinez teaches at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The authors wish to thank Veronica Gonzalez for her

contributions to this article.

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Collaborative Literacy: Lessons Learned from Literature