Have you ever had Literature Circles drag on from Thanksgiving until Spring Break? We have, and we knew we needed to do something about it—the kids quickly lost interest, we were unsure who was where in which book, and the learning wasn’t exactly what we were looking for. We decided to take action and revamp our project. We wanted to work smart, not hard, so we integrated Social Studies and Language Arts. Due to the diversity in our classrooms, we needed a project that could fit the needs of all students with different abilities. Having an organized and engaging unit that excited kids about reading and allowed us to monitor their progress was key.