Windows on the world: The art of composing meaning through children's literature

Abstract

This qualitative research, using an interpretive and naturalistic inquiry, was conducted to investigate the interrelationships of viewpoint, textual connection, interpretation, and socio-cultural dynamics and how they influenced the meaning-making process in literature in a fourth-grade classroom. The data collected from this study included field notes, transcriptions of audio-recordings, responses to questionnaires, and samples of written and visual texts produced by the teacher and the students. The researcher gained insights into the complexities of the art of creating meaning in literature: how the teacher and the students connected texts and viewpoints, interacted with each other, interpreted and negotiated understandings. Findings from this study suggested the teacher's viewpoints and ideologies influenced and determined the students' viewpoints, which contributed to how they interpreted texts and the discourse roles they assumed. Through social interaction among peers in literacy events, the students composed their own interpretations of texts and experiences, which allowed them to create and re-create various social discourses and roles, appropriate and negotiate newly constituted interpretations.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol.3 () 2006: pp.132-142