How to "PBL" Lit Circles

I love literature circles. I love how students get to pick what they want to read and then have authentic conversations about their books. I love the community building that happens in my classroom every time I introduce them. That said, I always struggle with what to have students actually DO with their reading. What is the product after they finish? Is it always an essay? Or can it be something that will go beyond the classroom and build upon the pillars we organize our curriculum around (in this case: Technical Savvy, Building Partnerships/Leadership, Global Thinking)?

After attending a workshop presented by Writing Project Teacher Consultant and NCS Administrator Kirsten Spall, I was inspired to try an RSA video project with my 8th graders after they finished their survival themed literature circle books.  This project would enable students to utilize their tech skills, as well as build partnerships and collaboration skills. The driving question in this unit was: How can you create a professional video that engages a real world audience and teaches the survival skills presented in a novel? 

At the beginning of the unit, I introduced that students would need to create an animated video that teaches an audience how to survive whatever challenging situation their book posed. Students had to work together to brainstorm and storyboard their films and then they got a week to film and edit their videos. Here is an example from last year:

However, once they created their awesome videos and we watched them as a class, I felt that it didn't go far enough to reach a larger audience. This year, I made a few changes to the unit to improve the Global Thinking aspect.

I added a few more books to the book list, including Joelle Charbonneau's The Testing. Elsa Ouvrard-Prettol, our fabulous librarian, offered to organize a skype session with the author and students were able to ask her questions. This was an awesome experience for our students. They were able to ask about her writing process, how much writers make, and get advice for young writers.

8th graders skyping with the author of Joelle Charbonneau, author of The Testing. 

As students planned their RSA videos, they used google docs or padlet to collaboratively brainstorm and storyboard their ideas. They will be creating their videos next week and when they finish and publish them, I will be uploading them to youtube and tweeting examples out to reach a larger audience.