Literature Circle - (Continued)

Web Site Review

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

This Web site is a Literature Circle made by the Modern American Literature students of Don Ginty at Hunterdon Central Regional High School to discuss in-depth the book, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

This instructor in the year 2002 invited others to view and even to have the book’s author view the progress of the site as it occurred. Only the class students were to participate.

This site begins with the directions for the high school students for posting to this reader’s study guide.

What I especially liked was the artistic interpretations students rendered. It explained in detail how the students could post their symbolic drawings and how to post their interpretations of their drawings. So interspersed with the writings are appropriate drawings.

Other topics the class could post to were chapter summaries, the themes of chapters, an explanation of symbols used in the story, class discussions and research on information of historical events that occurred that affected the characters. One pupil wrote about how Johnson influenced the Civil Rights in that time.

Links could also be posted that were relevant. A link to the book’s author, Sue Monk Kidd was interesting as well as the Amazon book review site.

I felt that the students gave a very in-depth view of the chapter summaries, the characters and the chapter themes. Their comments on symbolism was interesting. They gave me a more thorough view of the book, theme, and characters than if I had just read the book on my own.

This is a very worth while site to read and would be helpful in giving ideas for setting up a Literature Circle on the Web.

Ida M. Rounds