Presents a point, counterpoint strategy which helps students build a repertoire of interpretive strategies that can be enlisted when dealing with complex short stories. Notes that the key to the strategy is that students begin with their personal responses and move toward more public and generalized interpretations. (RS)

Describes a schema-awareness activity (used with sixth graders and college students) that provides teachers with a model of how students can use their past experiences and their ability to infer and predict when reading. Notes that the activity convinces students that they bring to the reading act much more than they encounter on the printed page.…

Describes the discussion continuum, a class activity that helps readers to interact with the text by taking a position that they will have to support. Notes that it promotes lively class discussion. (SR)

Describes how a high school English teacher's belief that text contains a single, unchanging meaning evolved to an understanding that students create their own meanings through their own experiences. Discusses ways he tried (with mixed success) to provide students with the opportunity to bring their own experience to their reading. (SR)

Describes using a loose framework of response journal writing and small and large group sharing with two classes of ninth-grade English students. Describes students' deep involvement as they constructed important meanings from a story that went beyond their own experiences. (SR)

Describes activities used in a 12th-grade literature classroom that develops students' prior knowledge to help them connect to the literature before reading it. (SR)