THE FLIGHT OF READING - SHIFTS IN INSTRUCTION, ORCHESTRATION, AND ATTITUDES THROUGH CLASSROOM THEATER

THIS STUDY follows an ethnically diverse, third- and fourth-grade urba n classroom of school-labeled remedial readers as they moved from thei r daily instruction in round robin reading to the construction of a cl assroom theatre in which they interpreted and performed literary text. Unlike most studies of drama in the classroom, here I focus more on t he shifts in decoding and comprehension than on literary interpretatio n, arguing that this is an aspect of dramatic work rarely researched. Through participant observation, audio and video recording, artifacts, and interviews, I analyzed the patterns of children's reading over ti me. In this piece, reading is metaphorically compared to flight, empha sizing that shifts in the sense of what it means to be literate are of ten limited to those who have positive and repeated access to text wit h ample opportunities for expressing their understandings through mult iple symbolic systems. These shifts are enhanced or limited by at leas t three components: teachers' instructional strategies, children's orc hestration of reading resources, and children's and teachers' attitude s toward reading. In this study, the children experienced the flight o f reading-an experience that broadened instruction and available resou rces as well as changed attitudes from doubt to belief, if only for a short time. In their flight, the children achieved linguistic and phys ical wingspread as interpretations expanded to include negotiated and extended discussion enfolding personal experience, art, voice, and ges ture. Most important, the children learned to shift perspectives not o nly to see themselves as characters or as actors, but to see themselve s as readers.