Diane, a veteran teacher, reads a picturebook to a small group of struggling second-grade readers, and Ashley responds in a way that is characteristic for her, by performing her understandings. Over the course of the read-aloud, she takes on the role of characters, speaks to the characters, takes on their voices, and creates dramatizations using the book as a springboard for her own meaning making. Sipe (2008) characterizes such responses as “performative,” and they arise spontaneously in classrooms while children are discussing literature, but these aspects of meaning making are often overlooked by researchers or dismissed by teachers as being “off task.”

Performative responses are important in that they allow children a creative platform for expressing meaning. They indicate that children are:

entering the world of text in order to manipulate it or steer it toward their own creative purposes….[T]he text serves as a platform…for the children’s own creativity….[T]he children take some situation or event in the book and use it as a basis or a flight of their own imagination, a type of playful performance. (Sipe, 2008, p. 267)

Performative responses allow children to create and express meaning in ways that go beyond talk and that engage their creativity and imagination. It is important to acknowledge that children learn through different modalities in the classroom, and that within a classroom discussion, there are various meaning-making systems at work that help children to forge textual, personal, and social meanings around stories.

Gestures, movement, vocal intonation, and dramatization form an important way of expressing and creating meaning during classroom discussions (Jewitt, 2007). Jeffrey Wilhelm (2007) has argued that literary reading depends both on a reader’s entering into and becoming involved in a story world and on using that involvement to interpret such elements as characters, settings, and thematic possibilities. Shelby Wolf’s (2004) use of drama techniques with third- and fourth-graders enabled them to take multiple perspectives and understand shifting viewpoints, which is critical to the development of more sensitive and powerful readings that lead to greater understanding of the self and others. More empirical studies, however, are needed that capture the meaning making processes in which young children engage (Sipe, 2008). In this article, I focus on how one child created meaning across multiple modalities during discussions by looking more closely at the characteristics of her performative responses and how she was able to come to a richer understanding of stories through them.

Creating Spaces for Rich Discussions

Young children are capable of building sophisticated interpretations of literature through read-aloud discussions (Martinez and Roser, 2003). Based on multiple studies of young children responding to picturebook read-alouds, Sipe (2008) developed five types of responses that are indicative of five facets of literary understanding. In summary: (1) Analytical responses include discussions of narrative elements, such as plot, setting, characters, theme, style, and use of illustrations; (2) Intertextual responses are the links children make to other books or texts, broadly defined; (3) Personal responses involve connections children make to their own lives or the experiences of others; (4) Transparent responses indicate a deep involvement with the story world; and (5) Performative responses show that children are “manipulating the story for their own creative purposes” (p. 183).

Not only do children show a variety of responses to literature, but they seem to respond to texts in individual and characteristic ways, and certain children exhibit their own unique, or “signature,” style of responding (Brightman et al., 2006; Sipe, 1998). Just as Ashley performs her responses to stories, another child might characteristically show a tendency to analyze texts or bring personal responses to literature discussions.

Sipe’s five categories of literary understanding perform a major role in the analysis of children’s responses in this study, in that all the children’s verbal and non-verbal responses were categorized using this framework as a lens for understanding the children’s meaning making. All the responses of children were analyzed as part of the larger study and included all five categories; however, the focus of this article is on one child and one category of response. Ashley’s propensity for performative responses and the lack of research on this category of literary understanding provides the focus and rationale for further investigation.

Read-Alouds

The way in which read-alouds are structured within classrooms contributes to the way in which children are able to create and express meaning. Read-alouds are often conducted with a focus on strategy instruction (Fisher et al., 2004) or comprehension instruction that promotes the understanding of story elements, such as characters, plot, theme, or events (Oullette et al., 1999). Rather than look solely at textual analysis as a way of understanding literature, some researchers have suggested that literary understanding encompasses a rich variety of responses, as children bring together personal, social, and cultural responses to classroom discussions (Sipe, 2008) and express meaning in multimodal ways (Adomat, 2009). In this study, the teacher encouraged a broader range of responses to children’s literature during read-aloud discussions.

Dialogue in classrooms between a teacher and students often involves an I-R-E pattern during which the teacher initiates a question, students respond with an answer, and the teacher evaluates the response as being right or wrong (Mehan, 1982). While these kinds of classroom discourse patterns may work well for teachers seeking the “right” answer, other forms of dialogue in literature discussions are more helpful in building literary understanding or promoting multiple interpretations of literature (Aukerman, 2008).

The interweaving of individual styles and perspectives in an open-ended exploration of meaning is in contrast to discussions that are focused on strategy instruction, in which there is an assumption of “universal, rather than differentiated ways of making sense of text” (Handsfield and Jimenez, 2008, p. 454) and the possibility that teachers might “over-regulate the ways in which students may respond to text” (p. 453). When given the opportunity, however, children have different interpretive styles of engaging in the process of understanding texts, “but these individual styles become invisible when the emphasis is on lockstep approaches to learning reading comprehension” (Aukerman, 2008, p. 54). Rather than using the lessons as a platform for strategy instruction, the teacher in this study valued the opportunity for her students to weave together text analysis, personal responses, intertextual connections, and transparent and performative responses in forging rich understandings of children’s literature.

When multiple viewpoints are encouraged in read-aloud discussions, this multiplicity results in a fuller and richer discussion and reflects a variety of perspectives and interests. Mikhail Bakhtin (1981) holds that new meanings are created when people engage in “dialogue,” which occurs when different perspectives blend to create new points of views. As students discuss a story, they create new understandings when they encounter their own points of view or new perspectives presented by others; meanings are provisional and renegotiated in dialogic interactions. A dialogic interaction among children helps to contribute towards new, socially created understandings of text. By providing an open-ended framework for meaning-making during read-aloud discussions, children are able to bring in their diverse viewpoints.

By allowing most of the talk to take place within the read-aloud itself, rather than before or afterwards, the teacher in this study scaffolded the children’s meaning construction as it unfolded, and children responded and built upon the responses of their peers. In addition, Diane was able to gain “a window on the children’s process of making narrative meaning” (Sipe, 2008, p. 230). As Sipe explains:

If we always expect children to listen quietly to a story and to save their responses until the story is finished, we may be imposing our adult view of what constitutes the proper way of experiencing literature—a view that may not be particularly productive for young children. (p. 229)

Allowing open-ended responses makes “permeable,” or opens up, the curriculum to children, to their own experiences, language, and meanings (Dyson, 1993). Children are able to bring in personal but also cultural references as they construct meaning jointly with others. Social connections and interactions are important in considering how knowledge is accessed and developed, especially outside of parameters that are usually promoted and recognized by mainstream teachers (Moll, 1990; Nieto and Bode, 2007).

Multimodal Processes and Struggling Readers

In addition to the multiple perspectives that dialogic interactions promote, there is also a range of multimodal processes in which readers engage during interactions with texts. Although talk may be an obvious way that children explore meaning-making in response to literature, it is not the only way. If we acknowledge that children are active learners, then it is important to provide children with educational contexts in which they can learn about characters, events, and settings through different modalities. Wolf et al. (1996) state that response to literature “is not always bound by what children say about literature, but can, instead, evolve in what they do with literature” (p. 130). Multimodal perspectives make us think differently not only about “conceptualization of text” and “learning context,” but about how each mode

provides teachers and students with a range of meaning-making potentials….Talk and writing in school English is accompanied by image, gesture, movement and posture, among other modes, all of which shape the production of curriculum knowledge, practices, that lead to learning—such as analyzing text. (Jewitt, 2007, p. 276)

In this study, a focus on how one young reader builds literary understanding through mime, gesture, movement, vocal intonations, and dramatizations, the elements of performative responses, will help to shed light on how children learn through modalities that enhance and go beyond discussion.

Particularly for struggling readers, who are often relegated to instruction of isolated skills (Allington, 2002), it is important to consider whether we are offering children a variety of ways to create and express meaning not only for read-aloud discussions but within the classroom learning framework (Goatley, 1997). Wollman-Bonilla (1994) found that struggling readers are less eager to display text comprehension, less likely to initiate discussions, and less confident about the value of their ideas during discussions of text than classmates who are more “proficient” readers. Teachers sometimes assume that certain kinds of discussions will occur but these might be particularly difficult for struggling or at-risk readers. By opening up learning to encompass a variety of learning modes, teachers build on the strengths of their students and encourage social collaboration (Hoyt, 1992).

Research Methods

This qualitative, descriptive, and naturalistic study is based on a constructivist, or interpretivist paradigm (Denzin, 1994). The study involved eight children, five boys and three girls, in a second-grade classroom who were identified for the school’s Title I program, and was part of a larger, six-month study that focused on instructional practices in the language arts for children who qualified for extra support in literacy. The children represented a diversity of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, and five of the children in the group received speech and language support as well as supplemental reading instruction with the reading specialist. Six of the children in the group qualified for free or reduced lunch. The school was an elementary school in a rural area outside a major metropolitan area on the east coast of the United States. Once a week, on average, these children participated in small-group picturebook read-alouds with their classroom teacher within their regular classroom setting.

The classroom teacher, Diane, was a veteran of twenty years of classroom teaching, and chose to work with this small group because she found the children to be quiet and at times resistant to the discussions with the whole class. She thought that this group of children would be more likely to speak and interact in a small-group setting. She structured her read-alouds by preparing open-ended questions that would encourage a variety of responses, but she was prepared to relinquish her questions and help the children to explore their own ideas as the discussions unfolded. Rather than drilling or directing, she listened carefully to the children’s conversation and allowed them to take the lead.

Diane encouraged the children to draw upon a variety of modalities in responding to the book throughout the read-aloud, such as gesture, movement, and dramatization, and she valued children responding to and building on the responses of others. She allowed the children to move around in order to express meaning and encouraged creative responses. Stories were chosen for read-alouds because the student requested the books, or the teacher thought they would appeal to the children’s interests or would tie in with topics across the curriculum. The books represented a variety of genres, and each read-aloud discussion lasted approximately 20–30 min.

Data Analysis

As part of a 6-month research study, 15 small-group read-aloud sessions were videotaped, audiotaped, and transcribed. The analysis of data was an evolutionary process of discovering recurring patterns by observing, recording, and reflecting. Data analysis was conducted simultaneously with data collection and interpretation. My analysis began with a summarization of classroom field notes, immersion in audio- and videotape data, and a preliminary identification of potential patterns as the tapes were transcribed. Through an ongoing review of my field notes as well as repeated immersion in the audio- and video-data, I began to sort out analytic categories. The unit for analysis was a conversational turn, which is defined as “the utterance that occurred until someone else spoke” (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975, p. 263).

The oral responses of all the children in the group were categorized using Sipe’s five categories (2008) of literary understanding; however, subcategories in the areas of personal response and performative responses differed from his. The subcategories for performative response were developed from the data in this study and are described below. The data were re-analyzed for each individual child in the study to see if there were patterns of individual response styles (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Ashley showed a consistent pattern for performative responses, and in this article, she is described in rich detail as a case study in the context of her classroom interactions with other group members (Genishi and Dyson, 2005).

Data sources for the larger study included transcriptions of audiotapes and videotapes, teacher interviews, classroom observations, field notes and reflective memos (Emerson et al., 1995). The validity and reliability of the study were enhanced by data collection that remained stable over a prolonged period of time, interpretations that were grounded in the data, triangulation of data from multiple sources, member checks (Guba and Lincoln, 1989), and peer debriefers (Kvale, 1995). Two fellow researchers in the school district were brought in to observe the children and to provide perspectives on the data analysis; and the teacher in the study was consulted about the preliminary findings. Field notes and reflective memos were helpful in bringing together perspectives and developing further the preliminary findings from various data sources.

Findings

The results of this study show that this group of second graders had the following kinds of responses to picturebook read-alouds: analytical (33%); intertextual (6%); personal (26%); transparent (2%); and performative (33%). All children showed a blend of categories in building literary understanding of children’s literature. Some children—Ian, Brandon, and Ashley—showed a “signature style” in their oral responses to read-alouds in the categories of analytical, personal, or performative responses, respectively. Ashley accounted for 54% of the performative responses, although five other children showed performative responses throughout the data. Fifty-five percent of Ian’s responses were in the category of analytic responses, and fifty-one percent of Brandon’s responses were in the personal category. The other five children in the group showed a more balanced blend of responses across all categories; therefore, it was not evident that they had a particular signature style of responding. Because Ashley showed such a propensity for performative responses, it seemed important to investigate, not only the characteristics of performative responses, but also how Ashley used these responses to create literary understanding. Compared to the participation of these children in whole-class read-alouds, during which most of the children were quiet, seven out of eight children in the small-group read-aloud were active participants in the discussions.

Performative Responses

In this section, I focus on Ashley’s performative responses in order to analyze the characteristics of performative responses and to show how the modalities of gesture, mime, vocal intonations, sound effects, and dramatizations contribute towards Ashley’s development of literary understanding within the context of the social meaning making of the group.

Mime and Gestures

One aspect of performative responses is that children use mime and gestures in creating and expressing meaning, without any vocal response. The following examples were a few of the many instances in which Ashley used her body to express understandings of the text. In a read-aloud of Mem Fox’s Possum Magic (1983), the teacher read the following line from the text: “…magic for tall and magic for small.” Ashley stood up with her arms raised for “tall” and crouched down with her arms wrapped around herself for “small.” In Sam, Bangs & Moonshine (Ness, 1966), the teacher read: “…and he curled up at her feet.” Ashley rolled over onto the floor, curled her body into a circle, and said, “Like this.” These kinds of gestures and mime accompanied the reading of the text to illustrate key words or to emphasize the meaning of an important part of the story. In physically moving along with the story, Ashley immersed herself within the story world and became one with it, just as a reader immerses herself in an imaginative world while reading.

Sound Effects and Vocal Intonations

Similar to and sometimes in combination with gestures and mime, Ashley and others in the group used vocal intonations and sound effects as a response to the read-aloud. Typically, she repeated the language of the text and colored it with vocal intonations. In Sam, Bangs & Moonshine (Ness, 1966), the teacher read a phrase from the text, which Ashley repeated.

Teacher::

[reading] They named him /Moonshine.

Ashley::

//Moonshine [in a dreamy, faraway voice.]

Ashley helped to create the mood of the story with her response, and she was clearly transported into the imaginary world of the story.

At other times, Ashley and the other children created sound effects for the actions in the story, as during the read-aloud for Speedboat (Marshall, 1976):

Teacher::

[reading] Suddenly—Patooie! Raisintoast spat it all out.

Ashley::

[Makes spitting, gagging sounds]

Ashley’s response was reminiscent of the sound effects that children experience in popular culture, such as in cartoons and videogames. Ashley was able to jump right into the imaginative world of the story and provided sounds that accompanied the unfolding narrative.

Ashley’s interjections of words were also infused with a deep understanding of the story. In Sam, Bangs & Moonshine (Ness, 1966), Bangs the cat was lost outside in a storm, and Sam was worried that her cat would not be able to return safely. She sat by the window and “waited forever.” Finally she went to bed and thought her tears were scratching her ears.

Teacher::

[reading] The scratching noise was not in her ears. It was at the window.

Ashley::

Meow. Meow. MEOW!!

Charles::

Meow. Meow. MEOW!!

Brandon::

Sssshhhh!!!

Ashley realized, before the text clued the students in, that Bangs was at the window, and he was eager to get in out of the storm. Each “meow” became more insistent, as if to say, “Let me in. I’m out here.” In raising the volume and urgency of each “meow,” Ashley drew attention to Bangs and let everyone know that he was back and desperate to get inside.

In using vocal intonations, Ashley established a particular mood for the story and showed her understanding of story events. Just as a teacher reads a story with gestures and vocal intonations to dramatize the meaning of the story, so students can respond in a like fashion. They can take words from the text and re-enliven them and re-inject them with meaning through vocal intonations, and provide the words with color and inflection. This shows that the students are “with” the flow of the story; it’s an affirmation that they understand the story it as it unfolds.

Characterizations

Ashley also supplied voices for the characters in the story. During the read-aloud of Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge (Fox, 1985), Ashley imagined what it would be like to speak like the giant:

Teacher::

[reading] Something as precious as gold, young man, something as precious as gold.

Ashley::

[repeats, using a giant’s voice, pointing to the picture of the character, Mr. Drysdale] Something as precious as gold, young man, something as precious as gold.

In providing a voice for a giant, Ashley tried out the character’s role in the story. She inferred how a character would speak within the scene by understanding the giant’s thoughts and feelings and providing him with appropriate vocal inflections.

Ashley’s creative exploration of story characters at times led to playful and somewhat sassy interactions with the text and other classmates, as this example from Speedboat (Marshall, 1976) illustrates:

Teacher::

[reading] “You little brat!” she called out. “I’ll catch you next time!”

Ashley::

[turns to Tyler and wags her finger at him] I’ll catch you next time!

Tyler::

You’re a brat! You’re a bratty brat!

In another instance, Ashley admonished a koala bear in Koala Lou (Fox, 1994):

Teacher::

[reading] Because she couldn’t be seen, she could be squashed by koalas.

Ashley::

[refers to picture of large koala bear sitting on top of Hush’s tail] Bad koala bear! Bad! Bad! Bad!

Ashley fully immersed herself in the story world by responding that she was the character in the book or answering as the character in the book, for example, in Chester’s Way (Henkes, 1988):

Teacher::

[reading] “Are you who I think you are?” Chester asked the cat.

Ashley::

I’m Lilly.

And again, later in the story:

Teacher::

[reading] You have a Muscle Mouse cap?

Ashley::

[in the sweetest little mouse voice] I do!

When Ashley claimed a role for herself within the story, she was either interacting with the characters in the story or imagining herself to be a character in the story. There was a very fine line between reality and fiction, and Ashley was able to move seamlessly between the two worlds.

In studies of struggling readers interacting with literature, the readers seemed to dwell on the surface of stories and were unable to immerse themselves in active meaning making around whole texts (Langer, 1990; Purcell-Gates, 1991). Wilhelm (2007) found that drama techniques, such as role play, allowed children to enter into the imaginative world of the text and merge with it as they actively explored meaning. In responding performatively to stories in ways that are reminiscent of drama techniques, Ashley was able to physically move in and around stories and immerse herself in stories for sustained periods of time.

Ashley not only imagined herself as a character in the story, but she brought her friends and even the researcher along with her, as the following example from Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge (Fox, 1985) illustrates:

Teacher::

[reading] …going to the beach by tram long ago.

Ashley::

Dr. Adomat! See, that’s you right there! [points to picture of woman squatting down] Laying an egg! [laughter]

This example shows that Ashley steered the text where she wanted it do go in a humorous, almost outrageous way. There was a playfulness in her interpretation, a boldness, and she spun the story off in a new direction, which Sipe (2002) refers to as a “carnivalesque romp” through the story. These kinds of responses point out the importance of allowing children to have fun with a story, to take pleasure in it, and to make it their own.

Spontaneous Dramatizations

If interjecting gestures, vocalizations, and jumping into character roles was a “rehearsal” for carrying the story off in a new, imaginative direction, the spontaneous dramatizations that occurred during the read-alouds could be considered impromptu “performances,” during which all the elements were drawn together, and the other children were invited in as willing co-actors. There were several read-alouds during which Ashley created a play, a game show, or a song. In Chester’s Way (Henkes, 1988), the text mentioned that Lilly, one of the characters, had a night light. Ashley quickly jumped in, “Let’s have a contest. Who has a night light? Raise your hand!” Or, she grilled the teacher to see if she still had her memory during the reading of Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge (Fox, 1985): “What’s my name?” “What’s my sister’s name?” “What’s my father’s name?”

Ashley also brought song and dance into the responses. During Possum Magic (Fox, 1983), the text stated that both characters danced to “Here We Go Round the Lamington Plate,” whereupon Ashley jumped up and danced around in a circle to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” A few seconds later, she repeated the performance in double time and a few other students joined her. The understanding of text became of blend of Ashley’s own interests and a mélange of cultural references. The children participated with her, and she was able to invite the quietest children in the group to join in.

The more elaborate mini-performances showed how performative responses worked to strengthen the social fabric and meaning-making possibilities of the group. Under Ashley’s direction, everyone received a role, and the children were off and running in using the text as a springboard for their own performances. Here is one of many examples:

In Speedboat (Marshall, 1976), one of the characters mistakes a kettle with boiling laundry for a soup kettle and tastes the unsavory brew. The character spits it out and says, “Patooie!”

Teacher::

[reading] Why should anyone want to taste my soapy laundry water?

All::

Eeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuwwwww!!

Ian::

While he was stirring it, he began to clean up the clothes that were in there.

Tyler::

It was before people had washing machines.

Ashley::

Maybe when people come over, they think, that smells so good. I’m going to try some. [Stands up, starts walking around, goes to an imaginary pot, and points]. Can I have some soup? [Looks at Gabrielle.]

Gabrielle::

[Nods head] Yes. [Mimes sipping soup]

Ashley::

[Looks at Charles.]

Charles::

Yes.

Ashley::

[Makes the motion of dipping into the pot and tasting it.] One moment! [Starts to clutch throat, shrieks, and falls on the ground.]

Brandon::

Patooie!

Ashley created an impromptu performance using mime, gesture, movement, and sound effects. She drew the other children into the mini-performances by creating an imaginary pot, which she pretended was a pot of soup. As the story described, she, as the character in the story, was unaware that the soup was really soapy water. She put Gabrielle in the role of cook and asked her if she could taste it, and Gabrielle and Charles both joined in and mimed the actions of sipping the soup. Ashley finally realized that the soup was not soup at all, but some kind of foul-tasting brew, and she dropped to the ground, clutching her throat in agony. The others watched in mock horror, and Brandon supplied the sound effect from earlier in the story which summed up Ashley’s reaction to the soapy water, “Patooie.”

In creating a mini-play, Ashley recreated the action of the story, but she added her own creative elements to the story and drew in her fellow classmates to participate in the impromptu dramatization of the story. They all took character roles, and Gabrielle was added as a cook, who did not appear in the story. The children were able to use the story as a starting point for their own creative exploration of the story’s events and consequences.

In another example of a spontaneous mini-performance, Ashley and the others extended the meaning of Chester’s Way (Henkes, 1988) in a humorous and playful way:

Teacher::

[reading] Once, when Wilson accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed and cried because he was afraid that a watermelon plant would grow inside him….

Ian::

That’s what my friends told me.

Charles::

It’s true.

Tyler::

Uh-huh.

Ashley::

Nuh-uh. I swallowed one, and do you see a melon in my body? ‘Cause it’s too big and then I said/

Charles::

If there was a watermelon inside you, then your stomach would grow.

Ashley::

[groaning] Oh, my stomach! Oooooooh! I got a melon in my stomach. I gotta go to the hospital to get it out.

Teacher::

Maybe we can all have a piece of your watermelon?

Ashley::

Okay. [She pantomimes taking a giant watermelon out of her stomach and hands a piece to everyone near her]. Here you go, Gabrielle. Here you go, Tyler. Here you go, Mrs. Held.

[The children mime eating pieces of watermelon.]

Tyler::

Yum.

Gabrielle::

Yum. Yum. Yummy.

Charles::

Can I have a piece?

The children returned to the watermelon play at the end of the story:

Teacher::

[reading] When Chester and Wilson told Lilly how they had each swallowed a watermelon seed once…

Ashley::

[groans and clutches stomach.]

Teacher::

[reading] …Lilly swallowed three of them. “I’ll grow a watermelon plant for each of us,” she said.

Ashley::

You know what? Guess what? You know how many watermelon seeds I ate? [laughs]

These kinds of spontaneous dramatizations drew children into the social fabric of the group and accounted for the longest string of conversational turns in the data. The children moved beyond the text, took agency, and created new directions. These and other spontaneous dramatizations highlight that children are enacting their own meaning-making purposes and are using the read-aloud as an opportunity to express their individual strengths and propensities, to bring in cultural and social experiences, to make intertextual connections to their lives and popular culture, and to engage with one another socially. Meaning making is expanded to include multiple modalities and draws on imagination, play, and enjoyment.

Discussion

This article focuses on the characteristics of performative responses as demonstrated by a child who showed a propensity for the dramatic interpretation of texts. These responses tend to be overlooked or discouraged during classroom discussions because they are not always oral, can be disruptive because the children move around, and seem to be off-task because children are veering away from a strict understanding of the story elements. However, this article shows that performative responses open up a new, imaginative world of understanding stories.

Performative responses include elements of gesture, mine, vocal intonations, characterizations, and dramatizations. They are similar to the book-related dramatic play of young children, in which they use “make-believe transformations … and role-playing” to engage in meaning making (Rowe, 1998, p. 13). Multimodal learning allows children possibilities for creating and expressing meaning that go beyond talk. Some children showed a propensity for performative responses in contrast to responding to stories in an analytical or personal way. Ashley’s multitude of performative responses over the course of the study helped to define the dimensions and characteristics of these kinds of responses, which have been rarely researched (Sipe, 2008).

Performative responses encourage and draw upon social interactions among children. They allow a forum whereby children can actively contribute to the construction of meaning and build an “interpretive community” (Fish, 1982). But these kinds of responses only seem to surface when teachers allow or privilege certain ways of interpreting and thinking about literature—not only through personal responses but also through interpretations that build on children’s interests and let them have a part in shaping the discussion. The teacher in this study created an open-ended structure for read-aloud discussions, which included the building of meaning through multiple modalities. She accepted and encouraged responses that showed creative engagement with texts. She realized that Ashley, for example, was able to express her understanding of texts through movement, gesture, vocal intonations, and dramatizations. Diane created a small-group setting which gave these children the time and space to be more active participants. In such a setting, children have agency in creating their own curriculum and in using texts as springboards for their own interpretive directions. If children believe that what they bring with them is valued by the teacher, they can feel free to apply whatever they know to the making of literary meaning, and develop sophisticated ways of talking about what they read.

A dialogic approach to read-aloud discussions is important in that it creates a collaborative environment for struggling readers that builds on the strengths of the students in the group. This approach is explicated by Luis Moll’s concept (1990) of funds of knowledge, in which learning is created through the “collaborative use of mediational means to create, obtain, and communicate meaning” (p. 13), rather than focusing on the “teaching or assessment of discrete, separable skills and subskills” (p. 7). In the case of performative responses, complex meaning is realized through an interweaving of modes, and the meaning of the text is produced through “the multimodal ensemble that it is embedded in” (Jewitt, 2007, p. 284).

Teachers can also build on the dramatic propensities that some children in their classes exhibit by creating opportunities for dramatic interactions with texts. In order to understand stories more deeply, a teacher can plan more structured drama activities before, during, and after the reading of a text, such as drama in education (Bolton, 1984), process drama (O’Neill, 1995), and story drama techniques (Booth, 1994), which can enhance children’s engagement and deepen their understanding of literature (Adomat, 2005). Opening up our classroom contexts and ways of learning can provide powerful opportunities for all learners.