17

Making Connections
Across Literature
and Life

Kathy G. Short

In their daily lives, learners constantly make connections across past

and present experiences in order to construct their understandings
of themselves and their world. In fact, learning can be defined as a
process of making connections, of searching for patterns that con-
nect so that we can make sense of our world (Harste, Woodward, &
Burke, 1984). We learn something new when we are able to make
connections between what we are currently experiencing and some-
thing we already know. When we make few or no connections,
learning within these experiences is difficult and easily forgotten.
On the other hand, if we stay too close to what we already know,
we are not pushed as learners into new understandings. For all
learners, the most productive learning situation is one in which we
stand within sight of what we already know as we push into new
territory. Vygotsky (1978) argues that this zone of optimal learning
is what we are able to learn with the support of other learners, not
what we already are able to do alone.
In the classroom, teachers are currently looking for ways to sup-
port learners in making these connections between the new and
the known. While the search for connections is a natural part of
learning, students' experiences in schools have led many to expect
fragmentation and lack of connection in what they are learning.
Educators have responded to this fragmentation by emphasizing
background experiences. Teachers are encouraged to ask students
questions about their experiences or provide some type of prior
experience before students read. The problem with this focus on

284
 Making Connections Across Literature and Life 285

background experience is that the teacher provides connections for

students instead of helping students develop strategies for making
their own connections. The teacher (or the teacher's manual) does
the critical thinking about meaning. Thus students often are forced
to try to make sense of someone else's thinking and connections
(Short, 1985).
When the focus is on how to prepare readers for reading experi-
ences, the reading event itself, as an experience, is overlooked.
Educators forget that a reader can read one text to prepare for
reading and understanding a second text ( Crafton , 1981). Instead
of focusing only on what readers have to do to get ready to read,
educators need to consider what happens when readers read one
text to facilitate their understanding of other, related texts.
Fragmentation also has occurred because traditional reading
tests, instruction, and research have treated reading as an isolated
instance and comprehension as the act of understanding a single
passage. This isolated view of reading is so imbedded in how educa-
tors think that they disregard their own reading processes. Profi-
cient readers understand as they read by connecting ideas to
previous reading experiences ( Hartman , 1990). In life, reading is
an open transactive process, not a process of reading one text in
isolation from life. Readers make multiple connections across texts,
ideas, and experiences. These connections keep changing over time
with each new experience and text.
This isolated view of reading raises the need for curricular strate-
gies such as Text Sets that highlight the process of searching for
connections and using one book to facilitate understandings of
other books and issues ( Harste , Short, & Burke , 1988). Text Sets
are collections of conceptually related books that are used by a small
group of students for discussion and comparison. Within the
group, each student usually reads several books and shares these
books with the rest of the group. Together they spend time explor-
ing comparisons and connections across their books and lives.
Readers are encouraged to first share their "lived through" aes-
thetic responses ( Rosenblatt, 1978) with other readers and then to
reflect on and analyze their responses and connections.
My interest in Text Sets grew out of classroom-based research on
literature circles where students met in small groups to read and
discuss their personal responses to and differing interpretations of
literature (Short, 1986; Short & Pierce, 1990). While these litera-
ture circles typically involved the use of multiple copies of a single
title for each group, some groups began using Text Sets organized
around a theme, author, genre, or topic. As students participated in
these discussions, I noted interesting differences between their dia-
logue about Text Sets and shared pieces of literature. When the
group read and discussed the same piece of literature, they had a
286 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

shared experience and so tended to focus in depth on their differ-

ent interpretations of that book. In contrast, their discussions of
Text Sets involved more retellings and searches for connections
across their books. Students searched widely across the books and
their own experiences within and outside of school to look for con-
nections and issues that cut across the books in their set. Text Sets
highlight intertextuality, the process of making meaning through
connections across present and past texts and life experiences (Beau-
grande, 1980).

BEGINNING THE INQUIRY

To explore further the meaning-making processes within the Text
Set discussions, Gloria Kauffman, Kaylene Yoder, and I put to-
gether a number of Text Sets related to the interests of a group of
third- and sixth-grade students. These sets were introduced to stu-
dents, who chose the group to which they wanted to belong. Field
notes were taken as they read, discussed, and presented their sets
to the class, and the literature discussions were either audio- or
videotaped. We also collected charts, webs, literature log entries,
and any other written artifacts produced during the discussions.
Gloria and Kaylene were involved with me in designing, imple-
menting, and completing the initial analysis of the study. We were
interested in exploring the type of dialogue that occurred in Text
Set discussions and how Text Sets facilitated children's search for
connections in meaning making. We also wanted to examine the
kinds of strategies children used to support their search for connec-
tions across literature and life and the kinds of intertextual connec-
tions they made during this search.
Gloria, Kaylene, and I functioned as teacher-researchers during
the study. There were always two of us present in the classroom
during the discussions, so that one person could take field notes
and record the groups while the other interacted with students in
discussion groups. After I completed an analysis of the data
through the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967),
Gloria and Kaylene responded to the analysis; I made needed
changes.
The Text Sets used in this study were developed by brainstorm-
ing possible topics for the sets with the children. The different sets
were not connected to each other by a broad theme because we
wanted to explore a wide variety of types of sets. We then pulled
together sets that had a range of kinds of literature and reading
materials, levels of difficulty, and perspectives on the topic of the
set. Students signed up for the group they wanted to join and
started exploring their set. Each group contained four or five stu-
dents. The Text Sets read and discussed by the groups were:
 Making Connections Across Literature and Life 287

Third grade:
1. Magic pot set: folk tales with the motif of a magic pot that
provides the owner with wealth and/or food.
2. Pig set: fictional picture books, poetry, and information books
with pigs as the main characters.
3. Eric Carle set: picture books by this author.
4. Anne McGovern set: informational books by this author.
5. Caldecott set: picture books that won the Caldecott Medal.

Sixth grade:
1. Betsy Byars set: realistic fiction books by this author.
2. Chris Van Allsburg set: picture books by this author.
3. Japanese set: folklore, poetry, and informational books on
Japan.
4. Dragon set: legends and folklore on dragons.
5. Plains Indians set: legends and historical information books.
6. War and Peace set: fictional and informational picture books
dealing with the theme of war and living at peace with others.
7. Cinderella set: cultural variants from around the world.

All of the sets except for the Betsy Byars set consisted of different
kinds of picture books. Most contained a variety of genres, as in the
Pig set, which contained poetry, folklore, informational books, fan-
tasy, and informational brochures from the Pork Society. Sets also
contained materials aimed at students who differed in reading pro-
ficiency, background, and familiarity with the topic.
While the students in these two classrooms had been involved in
many literature circles in their classrooms, they had not previously
used Text Sets. To get them started, we suggested that they each
read one or two books within their sets. The groups then came
together, and students shared their books with each other, contin-
ued reading other books in the sets, and began to compare and
contrast their books. As students continued discussing their sets,
differences in dialogue across the groups became apparent. These
differences were not influenced by grade level but by the readers'
background experiences, the focus of the specific set, the types of
connections explored, and the strategies used by the group to read
and compare their books.

STRATEGIES TO SUPPORT A SEARCH

FOR CONNECTIONS
As the groups began to talk and explore, they faced the problem of
finding ways to deal with a number of different books and an
overload of responses, ideas, and information. Each group found
288 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

strategies that seemed to fit their members and the type of set with
which they were dealing. These strategies included different ways
of handling how the books were read, shared, and compared.
Groups also explored strategies for focusing the discussions on
particular connections to be explored in depth by the group. To
facilitate the development and awareness of these strategies, a short
sharing time often was held after students had met in their litera-
ture circles. We encouraged them to share the strategies they were
using in their groups, pointed out strategies we had seen groups
using, and together brainstormed other ideas for handling the
discussions and comparisons.

Strategies for Reading, Sharing,

and Comparing Books
The first differences that emerged across groups concerned the
number of books read by group members and how the groups
handled the initial sharing and comparing of books. As students
began reading books in the sets, they were encouraged to write
about their initial aesthetic responses in literature logs. The first
group discussions were sharing sessions as students talked about
the books and their responses with each other. These discussions
were not focused on analysis or comparison but on enjoyment of
literature. Groups differed, however, in how they continued the
reading and discussing of connections across their books.
In some groups, students became experts on one or two books.
Each day the group would discuss in depth a particular connection
they saw across their books. Then each group member would relate
that connection to the book on which he or she was the authority.
Often group members had read several other books in the set, but
during discussions they primarily referred to the one or two books
that they had read first. They were considered the experts on these
books. When the Magic Pot group discussed the ways in which the
pot was magic, the members each described how the pot was magic
i n their specific book. As a group, they then looked for similarities
and differences across their books based on their sharing. Group
members had to collaboratively build connections and closely listen
to each other because of the limited knowledge each group member
had of the other books in the set.
In other groups, group members became interested in other
books and continued reading throughout the discussions as a result
of the initial sharing of books. By the end of their discussions, they
had read most or all of the books in the set. Instead of talking about
a particular part of one book in their group discussions, individual
members talked about several books in comparison to each other.
 Making Connections Across Literature and Life 289

Their initial discussions focused on sharing connections rather

than on group members sharing and retelling stories. When the
Cinderella group discussed stepsisters, each group member already
had made a list of connections in their literature logs because they
each were familiar with most of the books. Their discussions con-
sisted of sharing and then comparing their connections across the
books as they listened to each other's insights. Groups collabora-
tively used these insights to further develop the connections.
The group that discussed the war and peace books developed a
different strategy. After several days, they decided to all read and
discuss only one book from the set each day. Their books consisted
of picture books that dealt with difficult issues related to war and
peace, and they needed the collaborative reading and discussion of
one book at a time. As they read and discussed each book sepa-
rately, they made connections back to previous books, but, unlike
the other groups, these connections were not the main focus of
their discussions. This group primarily focused on their personal
connections and aesthetic responses to each book. They were not
ready to go beyond those responses to analyzing their responses.
Another group, the Japan group, divided their books into sub-
sets and dealt with one subset a day. They used genre as the decid-
ing factor and broke their books into poetry, information books,
folklore, and other. Each day, group members read different books
from one particular subset and then discussed the books and
looked for connections within the subset. Near the end of their
discussions, they began to connect these subsets to the broader topic
of Japanese culture.
During their first discussions, the groups tended to spend the
majority of time sharing and retelling. Because each person had
read a different text, they all had something to share, and they had
real reasons for retelling their book to someone else. In most class-
rooms, students are asked to retell a story to others who already
know the book, and so they view the retelling as an exercise or quiz
to see if they have read the book. In the Text Set discussions,,
students knew that most of the others had not read the book and
needed to understand it to make comparisons. Thus, their re-
tellings did not come from an efferent stance of looking for specific
information but took the form of sharing their enjoyment of the
story with someone who had not yet read the book. This type of
sharing frequently led to children grabbing books they wanted to
read before the next group meeting. In addition, students often
started making comparisons during the retellings as they saw simi-
larities between the book being shared and the book they had read.
Many of the conversations freely moved back and forth between
retellings and comparisons.
290 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

Strategies for Focusing on Connections

Initially, the discussions on the Text Sets ranged across a wide variety
of topics and tended to be unfocused. Many ideas were mentioned
but not explored in depth by the group. To an adult, these con-
versations might appear to be unproductive because they often
consisted of false starts and rambling comments, without anyone
developing or building on those ideas. These discussions, however,
initially allowed readers to draw on their feelings for a book and to
enjoy participating in another's vision of the world. The students'
primary concern was not to analyze the books but to talk about what
the books meant to them and share their own lived-through experi-
ences with those books (Rosenblatt, 1978).
Having time to explore broadly without focusing the discussion
also seemed to be critical in helping students develop a broader
range of ideas to be considered by the group and to find the issues
that most interested them for in-depth discussion. Gradually, each
of the groups developed different ways to focus their discussions so
that they could talk together about topics or issues in common
among their set of books. Most of the groups used a specific strat-
egy such as a web or list of possible comparisons, literature log
entries, or the physical sorting of books to help them focus their
discussions and connections.
Several groups brainstormed a list or web of possible compari-
sons and connections. One group brainstormed a list of questions
about their set. These lists represented the range of connections,
similarities, and differences that they might discuss. The groups
then chose what they wanted to discuss each day from this list. Not
everything on the list was discussed and new topics arose, but the
brainstorming gave them a sense of what they could focus on in
their discussions. The Betsy Byars group used this brainstorming
strategy. Each group member read a different chapter book by
Byars. After sharing their books with each other, they brain-
stormed a list of similar characteristics across their books. Their list
contained topics such as "the kinds of problems kids have, types of
solutions to kids' problems, enemies that cause problems, parents
who are a problem, endings where things are better but not perfect,
kids having adventures, and stories about everyday life." At the end
of each day's discussion, the group would decide what they wanted
to discuss from their list the following day, and group members
prepared for their next discussion by thinking about thee topic,
rereading in their books, and/or writing about the topic in their
journals.
Another strategy used by groups was to sort. books physically.
The Cinderella group frequently sorted their books into different
piles as they discussed the different kinds of princes, the ball or
 Making Connections Across Literature and Life 291

festival, how Cinderella was illustrated, or the endings. The Calde-

cott group spent several days putting together pairs of books that
they saw as related in some way. From these pairings, they went on
to stack the books to develop their own broad categories for what
they believed made a book a Caldecott Medal winner.
Many of the groups used different kinds of category systems or
lists of characteristics as they focused their discussions. The rela-
tionship between broad categories and specific lists of characteris-
tics was interesting to trace within the groups. Some groups began
with broad categories and then listed characteristics from their
different books. The Dragon group came up with several different
category systems within which they searched * for characteristics.
They looked at categories for types of dragons (cartoon, real, and
fairy tale) and the category of dragon as compared to dinosaur.
Within these categories, they spent time listing characteristics from
the different books they were reading.
Other groups listed characteristics and then sorted these charac-
teristics into categories. The Caldecott group made lists of the char-
acteristics of their books and then sorted these into five main
categories that they saw as representing their major criteria for
winning the award. These categories included illustrations (bright
colors, action, imagination, etc.), characters (people, animals, birds,
etc.), writing (details, title, exciting action, unusual words, etc .),
solving problems (running away, thinking, asking for help, etc.),
and how the book related to other books (kind of characters, use of
borders, type of illustrations, etc.).
Other groups did not focus on categories or characteristics but
explored a theme or question that cut across their books. Some-
times these groups began with a broad insight or theme that
focused their entire discussion, while other times they began by
listing many smaller details that gradually led to a broad insight.
The Pig group focused their discussions on the question of why
authors use pigs as main characters so frequently in their books.
"What is it about pigs?" they asked. They discussed reasons, such as
that pigs are more popular and cute than people, they are funnier
and look better, that they make a book more exciting and fun, and
that authors can write about pigs without hurting anyone's feelings,
as might happen if they wrote about people.
On the other hand, the Chris Van Allsburg group spent a great
deal of time pouring over his pictures looking for anything that he
used in several books, such as a specific boy, dog, chair, wall cover-
ing, or style of porch. They began to wonder about his life, so we
added several articles on Van Allsburg to their set. Their focus on
details then moved to a larger perspective as they considered these
details in relation to his life and home and to how his life influences
his illustrating.
292 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

In examining the discussions, we found that often a particular

book caused the group to take another perspective on their topic.
This book was usually one that did not seem to quite fit with the rest
of the books in the set and so the group was forced to reconsider the
connections they were making in their set. The Funny Little Woman
(Mosel, 1972) in the Magic Pot set raised questions because it was
the one book in which there was no pot, only a spoon. Emma's
Dragon Hunt (Stock, 1984) in which a modern Chinese child hunts
for dragons with her grandfather raised the issue of whether drag-
ons were real and not just part of legends. Yeh-S hen (Louie, 1982),
a Chinese variant of Cinderella, was an older tale than the more
familiar French variant, and this observation raised many questions
about the story's origin and how it spread to other countries. Bang,
Bang, You're Dead (Fitzhugh, 1969) brought the issue of war into the
everyday lives of the boys reading the war and peace books. When
the McGovern group listened to the tape of Anne McGovern dis-
cussing her work, they reread her books and then listened several
more times to the tape as they discussed her books in more depth.
In each case, these texts caused the group to rethink the connec-
tions they had been making and often resulted in the group mak-
ing more complex connections across the books and their lives; this
process, in turn, gave them a new perspective on the set and the
issues being discussed.
In other experiences with Text Sets, groups have used tools such
as comparison charts and time lines to help them organize and
think through their connections. These tools, however, work best
when used after a group has had time to talk and share their
responses with each other. In one instance, a folk tale group moved
to a comparison chart too early in the process, and their discussion
became an activity focusing on details and filling in the blanks on
the chart instead of a dialogue among readers. Students need the
range of the possible before they begin organizing their connec-
tions. Then, whether they focus on a question, theme, characteris-
tic, category, or book, they still consider these within the broader
framework of their set. Readers need the support of discussion
strategies that encourage them to explore broadly as well as to focus
on specific intertextual connections.

EXPLORING INTERTEXTUAL CONNECTIONS

Just as the groups varied in how they went about searching for
connections, there were interesting differences in what they dis-
cussed and the types of connections they made across texts and with
their experiences. Intertextual connections that were frequently
 Making Connections Across Literature and Life 293

discussed were characters, themes, plot, illustrations, the response

of the reader, the life of the author, and their own experiences.

Connections to Elements of the Story

The groups frequently discussed connections to particular kinds of
characters, plot elements, and themes across their books. The Pig
group focused on the character of pigs in books. The McGovern
book focused on genre and theme. The Byars group looked closely
at character and plot. The War and Peace group discussed symbol-
ism in their books and how this symbolism related to larger themes
about the impact of war on ordinary people's lives. They particu-
larly talked about how innocent people and animals suffer in war.
Sometimes the group focused on looking for connections across all
literary elements to define what books fell within a particular set.
The Magic Pot group spent their time figuring out the kind of plot,
characters, and themes that made a book a "magic pot" book as
compared to other folk tales.
While groups often discussed literary elements such as character
and theme, they considered these in terms of the impact on the
reader and decisions by the author. The Pig group looked closely at
the character of pigs, but they did so from the perspective of why
authors and illustrators choose them and why readers like pigs in
books. The McGovern group spent the majority of their time talk-
ing about why they thought McGovern wrote about the theme of
danger and how the concept of danger related to their lives as
readers. They also talked about her decision to write information
books and the reasons why they found certain kinds of genres
easier or more difficult in their own writing.

Connections to Illustrations
Illustrations were frequently a topic of discussion as students made
connections across illustrations, between illustrations and the text,
and to the illustrator or readers. The Caldecott group discussed how
illustrations and printed text work together in a story. They decided
i

that it was impossible to give the award for just the illustrations
without also considering the printed text. The Cinderella group
spent a day discussing the way Cinderella was portrayed in the illus-
trations. They considered the illustrations so important to the story
that they decided to draw their own illustrations of Cinderella for
several short stories that had none. Illustrations became important to
the Dragon group as a source of information about their hypothesis
that dragon legends came from dinosaurs. They used the illustra-
tions to list the physical characteristics of dragons and dinosaurs.
294 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

The Eric Carle group focused their discussions on why Eric

Carle's books appeal to so many age levels. They were especially
i nterested in the ways he engages readers through the unusual
formats and bright colors of his illustrations. Other groups did not
focus specifically on the illustrations in their discussions but used
the illustrations as part of the story context for the comparisons
they were discussing.

Connections to the Lives of Authors

and Illustrators
The discussions on Text Sets based around authors and illustrators
evolved naturally into an interest in the author and the relationship
of authors' lives to the books they wrote and illustrated. Informa-
tion on their lives was made available as the groups expressed
i nterest. The McGovern group used a taped interview of McGovern
to help them make connections between her life and her books.
The Van Allsburg group focused on the details of his life and the
items and people in his environment that they felt he continuously
pulled from when illustrating his books. Only the Byars group
showed little interest in the authors' life, perhaps because they
found exploring the connections to their own life experiences more
productive.
The groups tended to focus on authors and illustrators in rela-
tion to the children's own lives as readers and writers. The Eric
Carle group focused on the impact of his books on readers and on
the different ways in which readers of different ages use his books
for a variety of insights. As noted earlier, the Pig group discussed
their responses as readers and authors to the use of pigs in books.
Groups often talked about why they felt authors or illustrators had
made particular choices and what impact that decision had on them
as readers. They also made connections to their writing and how
they made similar decisions or had gained new writing and illustrat-
ing strategies.

Connections to Life Experiences and Previous Texts

Children's own life experiences were brought into the discussions
when they seemed related to the issues or connections being consid-
ered. The Byars group was one group that focused primarily on
connecting their personal experiences to the books they were read-
ing. They felt a close connection between their lives and the kinds
of problems with parents and friends faced by characters in Byars's
books. Several of the children in the pig group came from farms
and used their experiences with pigs to help the group compare
real pigs with the talking pigs used in many stories. The McGovern


Alaking Connections Across Literature and Life 295

group had a long discussion on their personal definitions of danger

and their control over whether situations in their lives become
dangerous.
Readers' past experiences also involve literary interactions with
books. The Magic Pot group brought in other folk tales with similar
characters or plot elements. The Pig group often made connections
to Charlotte's Web (White, 1952), which had been read aloud to them
earlier that year. The Cinderella group used their past experience
with the Disney movie and book as the basis for all of their compari-
sons of their books. The literature children used for comparisons
included their own writing and published books. One of the girls in
the Magic Pot group had written a book in which a family went
from poor to rich, and this book was often referred to in the
group's discussions.

Connections to New Experiences

Sometimes groups realized that they needed to do additional
research beyond the books in their set and their own experiences to
build the background knowledge necessary to understand their
Text Set or to explore particular issues. When the Dragon group
began debating whether dragons were real, fantasy, or legends
based on dinosaurs, they checked out many books on dinosaurs.
The Eric Carle group found they needed more information to
answer their questions about why his books appeal to so many age
levels, and so they went to various classrooms and interviewed
children and adults about why they liked Eric Carle books. The War
and Peace group checked out additional books on World War II.
The Plains Indians group read informational books and encyclope-
dias to find out more about how different tribes of Plains Indians
communicated with each other.
What a particular group discussed was affected, of course, by the
type of set that we had put together. It makes sense that the Eric
Carle group focused on him as an illustrator or that the Cinderella
group focused on how the different variants were alike and differ-
ent. While the type of set highlighted a certain category of connec-
tions, the specific connections made by a group varied because of
the past experiences with life and literature that each member
brought to the group and because of the strategies the group chose
to deal with their set. The war and peace group had a different type
of discussion because of their decision to look at one book at a time.
The focus of the Eric Carle group on reader appeal grew out of
their interactions with a visiting adult who commented on how
much she liked his books. The Dragon group focused on legend
and fact because one group member's experiences led him to be-
lieve in the possibility that dragons are real.
296 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

PRESENTING INTERTEXTUAL
CONNECTIONS TO OTHERS
The content focus of the different groups was highlighted as they
finished their discussions and began to think about what they
wanted to share with the rest of the class. Most of the groups spent
around two weeks reading and discussing their books before mov-
ing into working on presentations. Some groups took only a day or
two to prepare and give their presentations, while other groups
worked on their presentations for a week. As each group finished,
they gave their presentation and then went back to free choice,
independent reading while the other groups continued working.
When a group was ready to work on a presentation, we asked
them first to think as a group about what they wanted the class to
understand about their set and about the ideas and connections
they had discussed. They then brainstormed different ways they
might be able to present those understandings effectively to others.
Students previously had done presentations as part of other lit-
erature groups, and so they had many ideas for ways to present.
Because the students valued the ideas and connections they had
developed with each other, they worked hard to create ways to
communicate some of these to other class members. During their
work on these presentations, new ideas often were introduced and
previous connections were considered from a new perspective.
Students faced the task of conveying ideas discussed in language
through another communication system such as art or drama, and
so they had to reconsider those ideas and what they wanted to
communicate ( Siegel, 1984).
Most of the groups focused on the intertextual connect-ions,
which they had made through their dialogue with each other,
rather than on presenting the books themselves. They seemed to
use the presentations as an opportunity to think through and
present the connections that had been most central to their group
process. The Magic Pot group took the characteristics of magic pot
stories that they had developed in their discussions and presented
their own original magic pot story through drama. In contrast, the
Cinderella group wanted others to see the differences across cul-
tures in their stories. They wrote a reader's theatre in which one of
the group members began reading the Disney variant and, as she
read, she was constantly interrupted by others who told her she had
the story wrong. Each person would interrupt to give her variant of
Cinderella's name or where she went, only to be interrupted by
another person.
The author groups combined their understandings of the author
and the books in their presentations. The Eric Carle group took the
 Making Connections Across Literature and Life 297

information they had gathered through interviews and presented

a radio show in which they played the roles of children and adults
of different ages being interviewed about their responses to Eric
Carle's books. The Anne McGovern group felt that their author
was being ignored by other class members and deserved more
popularity. They created posters describing the characters in her
books, the theme of danger, and information on McGovern and the
places she wrote about. They wore these as sandwich advertise-
ment boards and paraded up and down the classroom. The Chris
Van Allsburg group made a mural of what they thought his house
must look like based on his illustrations and their reading about
his life.
Several groups planned experiences so that the class would be
actively involved in thinking about some of the issues with them and
making their own connections. The Caldecott group developed a
learning center where they listed their five categories and had class
members sort Caldecott books based on those criteria. The War and
Peace group presented a skit about the effects of war and engaged
the class in a discussion about war and living in peace with others.
The Pig group brought a real pig to the classroom for the morning
and had class members take observational notes that they later com-
pared to the pigs presented in literature. The Betsy Byars group
wrote "Dear Abby" letters about the problems of their main charac-
ters. They posted the letters on a board for class members to
respond to by giving advice on how to deal with that problem. The
Native American group involved the class in several experiences
using communication systems developed by Plains Indians. The
Dragon group made a poster about dragons and one about dino-
saurs. After presenting these posters, they asked classmates whether
they thought the legends of dragons could be based on dinosaurs.
The Japanese group borrowed nature slides and showed the slides
as they read their favorite haiku poetry and served tea to class
members.
These presentations were well received by class members, and
students spend the next several weeks reading widely from books in
other sets. What impressed us as teachers was the way these presen-
tations reflected the discussions in the groups and the intertextual
connections that had been most influential in their thinking about
their sets. The process of thinking through and putting on the
presentations seemed to help the groups step back and pull to-
gether what had been most significant about their experiences with
the set. Their presentations were not just plot summaries or surface
connections between the books. Rather, they were thoughtful pre-
sentations of critical intertextual connections that emerged from
their dialogue.
298 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

AN ENVIRONMENT THAT SUPPORTS CHOICE

AND STRATEGIES FOR LEARNING
In reflecting on this experience as educators, we found a number
of implications for classroom learning environments. The role of
choice and purpose in learning was especially evident. Students
were given many choices as participants in these discussions. They
had input into the choice of topics for the sets. They could choose
which group to join, which books to read within the group, the
strategies they used within their groups for reading and discussing
their books, and the connections they discussed in depth. These
choices helped them to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility
in the group process because the decisions were not forced upon
them. Because they made the decisions, they took more active roles.
Having choices in the content and process of the reading and
group discussions allowed students to connect more easily with
their own life experiences. Students could choose what books to
read from their sets, and so they could pick books in which they had
a greater interest and background for the topic and which were at
a comfortable level of difficulty. Because these students saw them-
selves as active readers and writers, they drew from their life expe-
riences as they searched for connections and discussed authors and
elements of stories. They did not consider literature in isolation
from themselves but always in connection with themselves, the
world, and other literature in that world.
The brainstorming and discussion of connections came from the
students. They chose how to respond. Thus they could respond in
ways that connected with their own thinking rather than trying to
figure out how the teacher wanted them to connect. The result was
a much greater diversity of strategies and connections than if teach-
ers had tightly controlled the process.
While there was a great deal of choice and student involvement
in this strategy, there was also a supportive structure within which
students made their choices. As teachers, we were responsible for
establishing broad structures that would support the students' deci-
sion making. We established processes for choosing topics for the
sets and signing up for the groups, got the groups started with
reading and discussing, suggested strategies they might use in their
groups, set aside a reflection time when groups could share their
strategies with each other, and provided materials and time for
presentations. Often we joined groups during brainstorming and
suggested additional ideas and connections that the group might
consider in their discussions. Some groups invited us to join them
because they were having difficulty, either with the group dynamics
or with a particular issue.
 Making Connections Across Literature and Life 299

As teachers, we were a resource and had a definite influence on

the groups, but we were not the sole determinant of the direction of
the group. We suggested, for example, the strategy of reading
several books, sharing those books, and then brainstorming some
possible topics for comparison. This suggestion supported the
groups in beginning their discussions but allowed them plenty of
room for developing their own strategies to support the discus-
sions. We did not expect the diversity of strategies that emerged
from these groups and were quite surprised by what the groups
developed. The structures we established gave students the support
they needed to make choices. Without that support, there would.
have been confusion. But with restrictive structures, there would
have been passivity and sameness. We continuously struggled to
create structures that supported choice so that we could build cur-
riculum collaboratively with students.
Another key construct was the social nature of learning and the
power of dialogue in changing the thinking of learners. The Text
Sets highlighted the contributions of each member of the group
dialogue. Since each person had read something different from
others in the group, each had something unique to contribute to
the group process. Students were valued regardless of their reading
1 proficiency or life experiences because they each had something to
i offer. The group had to work hard at dialogue and at critically
listening and building from what others had to say as they searched
for connections that would bring new understandings about their
set. Through their interactions with each other and the books in
their set, they considered new perspectives and i ntertextual con-
nections.
This experience with Text Sets allowed us, as teachers, to see how
we could provide experiences in the classroom that highlight
important learning strategies in ways that are meaningful for stu-
dents. In their discussions, students were involved with ideas and
connections that were meaningful and important to them. They
were not engaged in a lesson to practice making connections.
Because the search for connections was essential to their discussions
of these sets, it was natural for the class to spend time sharing their
strategies for making these connections. In later experiences, we
realized that the connection making was enhanced if the different
Text Set groups all related to a broader theme, such as change or
culture. When this broader theme was present, teachers could care-
fully choose read-aloud books to provide a broader context for
discussions and connections. The groups also did more informal
sharing with each other during the discussions.
These strategies and the focus on searching for connections
became a conscious part of how students and teachers thought in
300 LITERARY RESPONSES THROUGHOUT CHILDHOOD

other situations. We specifically noticed students making a more

conscious search for connections in later discussions and bringing
in broader connections when everyone in the group had read the
same book. We also observed them using some of the strategies
developed during the Text Set discussions in math and science
experiences where they were working with large amounts of data.
What students first experienced through dialogue with others
became part of the thinking they brought to later experiences. The

tive they began to bring to a variety of learning situations in their

focus on learning as a search for connections was a general perspec-

classrooms. Thev were more aware of the need for connections and
the ways they could go about searching for these connections.
Instead of passively responding to the ideas of powerful others,
these learners were actively and critically searching to make sense
of their worlds and their own learning processes. They were part of

standings together.
a strong community of learners focused on creating these under-

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CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
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