News from
CONCERN
CTUB Education Program Presented at Pennsylvania Conference
A new educational activity at CONCERN Treatment Unit for Boys – Coatesville Campus was featured at the recent Pennsylvania Correctional Education Association’s conference.
Julie Myers, Title One reading and math teacher at CTUB – Coatesville Campus, presented a workshop, ‘A Literature Circle to Encompass All our Students’ at the conference in April.
What are Literature circles?
Literature circles encourage thoughtful literary discussion and encourage students to comprehend at a deeper level than they would if they were reading on their own and the workshop chronicled the development of literature circles at CONCERN.
Literature circles at CONCERN
CTUB’s literature circles began with staff and administrator participation over the winter. The groups read and discussed young-adult author, Jerry Spinelli’s, “Maniac McGee,” in preparation for facilitating circles with the CTUB residents. As staff and administration discussed the many forms a family can take, Maniac’s motion-filled life and how his experiences relate to the evolving issue of race in our society, the boys met in small groups with Julie to discuss Jacqueline Woodson’s powerful story of family loyalty and forgiveness, “Our Gracie Aunt.” In talking about their response to the story, boys practiced the various literature circle roles: connector, discussion director, passage picker, summarizer and vocabulary finder.
Just as the snow was melting, the CTUB circles began, immersing their members in a rich and varied array of literature: Dennis Lehane’s “Coronado,” a collection of contemporary short stories; “Pedro and Me,” a graphic novel by Judd Winnick; Neil Gaiman’s fantasy horror tale, “Coraline”; and two selections from the popular Bluford Series, “Shattered” and “The Fallen.” Each of the four groups has developed their own guidelines regarding the number of pages to be read for each meeting, how discussion roles will be rotated, and how to insure everyone has a fair chance to speak.
Why Literature circles?
Recent social and academic research show more and more young men struggle with reading, in part because they are not engaged by the reading materials available to them and because reading and discussing literature is not an activity commonly associated with men. The literature circles at CONCERN are an enjoyable source of social interaction and an effective means of strengthening literacy.
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