ABSTRACT
Text discussions, in short, should help students create meaning. Text discussions should go beyond answering comprehension questions. Discussing text with students requires that teachers understand that the meaning is not in the text per se, but is to be found in the text and the experiences the reader brings to it. Discussing texts with black males involves more than just opening space for them to talk about their reading. For text discussions with black males to be effective, teachers must take into account the turmoil in their students’ lives. The way literature is discussed in the class profoundly affects black males’ engagement or disengagement as readers. Discussing texts is made more powerful when the text is connected to the students’ lives and to other texts. One of the goals of text discussion is to get students to experience the richness of the text in their teacher’s presence.
