Re-imaging Reader-Response in Middle and Secondary Schools: Early Adolescent Girls’ Critical and Communal Reader Responses to the Young Adult Novel Speak

Reader-response has become one of the most influential literary theories to inform the pedagogies of middle and secondary English classrooms. However, many English and literacy educators have begun to advocate for more critical and culturally responsive versions of reader-response pedagogies, arguing that teachers move beyond valuing students’ personal responses to literature. This article, based on a yearlong qualitative study that explored how urban middle school girls participated in an after-school book club, presents a conceptualization of reading as critical and communal practice; and shows how early adolescent girls engaged with the young adult novel Speak and with one another. The adolescent girls, through reading communally, gained deeper understanding of the written text, and also encountered different ways of looking at themselves and others.