Thoughts on The Book Thief Literature Circle

In my groups literature circle we decided to try and turn The Book Thief into a movie. It seemed exciting and we were enthusiastic at first. We set aside a section of the text we would read up to and reconvened a few weeks later.

Upon meeting a second time, we seemed a little baffled. With 4 members in a group we weren't really clear on what to do. Some tasks seemed really overwhelming - like the scene selector (my task). With our book there was so much character development, and the construction of the text it seemed impossible to select items to "film" without turning the movie into an 8 hour production. We liked the idea of this project for a larger group of people and with a more action based book.

I was so excited by the City of Ember group it was easy to see how cool this type of a literature circle could be. I like the differentiation possibilities, the hands-on extensions and the connection which brings the kids to imagine what the book looks like. I believe that writing and reading is about bringing a movie into your mind. It's the most beautiful part about reading - being able to travel to lands that don't exist, fly or solve a horrible crime - readers can do all that and more between the covers of a book.

I am excited to hold onto this idea and present it to our language arts department, but knowing my school - I think the teachers in the 8th grade language arts department would actually grab onto this and run with it.

I appreciated the opportunity to try this out and the enthusiasm I witnessed the other groups having was contagious.