Literature Circles: I have to read four books at once!!

As my final unit for this semester, I plan to do a literature circle unit. Students have the option of choosing between four books: 1984, The Lord of the Flies, The Color Purple, and Snow Falling on Cedars. I have read each of these books in the past but need to jog my memory on the specific details of each. Although literature circles allow students to take ownership of their learning, I feel the pressure of acting as facilitator for this unit. Even though I am juggling four novels, I am excited to see how my senior students respond to reading a book of they select. Currently, I have many students who are excited to begin reading The Color Purple. After reading The Stranger, I believe my students will be excited about almost anything.

Audiobooks and Copyright Law

I have never considered myself an especially savvy person when working with technology and intellectual property. However, I do feel that being uninformed is not an adequate excuse. One incident that has been a problem in my classes is the use of audio books. For the books that we read in my senior English class, I buy the audio version to complement our reading. I purchased the books The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Stranger on iTunes for both personal use as well as as use for certain sections of the text. Because the audio books are on my iPod, students often want me to transfer my file to their iPods. As an educator, I understand that this violates copyright law as I would be illegally sharing the files. I explain to students that I cannot share my file with them. They do not see the harm in sharing files. Is the current generation really so nonchalant about issues of copyright and illegal sharing?
By the way the way, here is the link for the picture included: http://www2.fcsh.unl.pt/docentes/cceia/images/curiosu.jpg

Blogging about Blogs

For the class assignment, I chose to review edublogs. Specifically, I viewed an edublog pertaining to the novel The Secret Life of Bees. On the edublog, students posted discussions on themes and symbols found in the reading. The entries are divided by chapters and it appears that students are divided into teams. One team is responsible for posting entries related to themes and another team posts graphics or visual art to accompany the reading. I like that students had assigned roles to perform on the class blog. The coolest part of the blog was the section where students posted questions for Sue Monk Kidd, the author of the book. On the blog, Sue Monk Kidd answered the students' questions!

Last year during my student teaching experience, I was able to work on a curriculum team that integrated blogging into a culminating assignment for the memoir The Color of Water. By completing the activity, students were able to compose blog entries from the perspective of the protagonist. The assignment called for students to apply various components of the novel to demonstrate their understanding of the text. English teachers constantly look for creative ways to get students to think critically about the content for the class and blogging activities are a creative and practical format for students to interact with the text.

In my current setting, regular access to a computer will be pretty tough. I would love to include an edublog assignment in my class but need to find a way to cope with limited resources. Any suggestions?