Missing links in literary response: Group interpretation of literature

Choral reading and reader's theater provide students opportunities to respond to and interpret literature through direct involvement. They provide aesthetic enjoyment of literature and go beyond aesthetic enjoyment to engage students on personal levels of understanding and response. Both choral reading and reader's theater provide students alternative ways of knowing, alternative ways of responding to literature. They not only engage the linguistic intelligence but potentially engage and benefit the many other kinds of intelligence. Through the group interpretation of literature, many students who have not been drawn into full participation in the literary community of the classroom are provided the means of becoming a part of it.