ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the central role of talk in the construction of meaning while reading poetry The issue of relations between classroom talk and meaning construction has been of concern to both literacy teachers and researchers for many years. The task of poetry reading, with its special characteristics, offers elementary school educators the opportunity of presenting a reading task that integrates a much wider set of meaning construction processes and personal experiences than other text types. The chapter proposes that the task of reading poetry inherently involves the explicit discussion and negotiation of meaning by various readers. It deals with an example of the use of poetry reading in a small group discussion. Theoretical discussions within the field of literary studies agree that formal textual features are used in the interpretation of poetry. The conventions of poetry reading specified above can be viewed as modulating meta-strategies employed by the reader when reading poetry.
