PERTS Elevate Resource Library

Classroom Circles

Build trust and connections among students through a routine of engaging in classroom conversations and discussions using a classroom circles protocol.

Grades 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 All subjects

Overview

A classroom circle can be an extremely effective strategy for building connections between students, and it doesn’t require many resources or much prep time. Classroom circles can be implemented in a homeroom, advisory period, or during a regular academic period. They are also adaptable to the situation, as they can be used as a proactive community building tool, as a response to challenging behaviors or events, or as a way to discuss a reading, assignment, or topic relevant to the current unit. Learn from middle school math teacher Anna Stewart, who adapted this practice (and a few others) in her classroom.

Through this activity you will be able to:

  • Facilitate respectful discourse between students.
  • Deepen student understanding of content by creating space for them to grapple with substantial questions and elaborate on or challenge others’ ideas.
  • Create a space for students to share their thoughts and opinions.
  • Allow students to share and validate multiple perspectives on a topic.
  • Make connections between classroom content and real-life situations or experiences.

Conducting the Practice

  1. Determine how you plan to use classroom circles in your class. Will they be used as needed as a tool for community building? Will they be used to discuss a reading or content area topic? Will they be a regularly scheduled occurrence?
    • When planning discussion topics, select topics and questions that will generate conversation between students and that all students can participate in.
    • Plan for questions you may ask as a teacher to keep the conversation going if it begins to stall.
  2. Create a circle with no physical barriers (desks, tables) between students or the middle of the circle. If you cannot make this happen in your classroom, perhaps another area of the school will work.
  3. Introduce students to the concept of classroom circles and some of its features, including:
    • A talking piece that can be passed from student to student and should be respected by giving the holder full attention.
    • Use prompts to focus the circle. These questions should be relevant, simple, clear, open-ended, encourage inquiry, not advocacy, support the process of breaking down misconceptions about one another, and can be related to current events (either within the classroom or without). They can either be crafted to build trust and connectedness (with easy fun questions) or intimacy and authenticity (with more controversial or introspective questions).
    • Circles should feel separate from other classroom activities. This can be signaled by the rearranging of furniture, special opening and closing routines (a sound, a poem, a quote or statement), and the possible placement of a dedicated “center” element or item that provides focus and keeps students speaking toward the center of the circle.
    • The importance of trust and one voice, meaning that one student talks at a time and students are not interrupted while sharing.
    • The guidelines for successful circles:
      • Speak from the heart.
      • Listen from the heart.
      • No need to rehearse.
      • Without feeling rushed, say just enough.
      • Agreements that are determined by the class in an ongoing process that is governed by meta-agreements (these might include: anyone can ask for a new agreement at any time, or there must be universal consensus about agreements).
  4. Trust is built slowly over time, and so the first circles that students participate in should be fun, engaging, and avoid controversial or intense topics.
  5. Initiate a circle:
    • State the purpose and open the circle with your routine.
    • Go over guidelines and agreements.
    • Invite all students to check in by responding to a question. You might use the talking piece here.
    • Engage in the core activity of the circle. This can be community building, forging deeper connections, and/or deepening understanding of content area topics.
    • Check out with all students using a closure question.
    • Close out the circle in an intentional way.

This practice was adapted from the Classroom Community Guide developed by the Learning and Development Group at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research in partnership with PERTS.