Collaborative Lit. Circles

1. The benefits of working with a classmate:
     The benefits of working with a classmate is that you could go to them for help when you're stuck, or confused.  Also, you could see their opinions and questions, and gain ideas from them.  For example, I didn't know what to choose as my question, but looking at my partner's passages and questions, I formed one in my mind quite easily.


2. Challenges and obstacles which you overcame (tried to overcome):
     One challenge I faced was when one of my partners couldn't get onto their account, therefore not being able to get onto our literature circle.  I didn't know this until the day before it was due, and was stressing about how I thought he wasn't doing any work.  I overcame this by working on the literature circle at school, and finding out my partner had done the work but not on the actual literature circle.  So they just moved their work onto it and everything was fine.


3. New understandings you gained about the novel:
     Using my partners' questions, I could understand the novel better by seeing it through their perspective.  Their connections and questions injected new thoughts about Charlotte into my brain, about how she was similar to them, and us.  I also learned that Charlotte was going through more changes than I thought she was through the book; not just by becoming braver and having an experience on a ship.  She's changing from a girl to a woman.