Exploding the Reading encourages teachers to incorporate a variety of response modes in order to expand student meaning-making. Based on learning generated by one 200-year-old folktale used by 30 teachers and a thousand kids, the book explores how to dig deep inside the story. It demonstrates that when students share their personal interpretations with others, they alter, grow, reframe, and extend their understanding of the text.

The author of this intriguing book argues that it takes two to read a book. He reasons that bouncing ideas off others guides students to their deeper thoughts and challenges them to rethink their views and increase their understanding. Exploding the Reading shows teachers how to help students discover the world outside the text as well: the origins, the connections, the places, the values, and the different perceptions readers have. It illustrates how to transpose that original text into other forms that let students look at the text with different eyes, to ponder what might have been, to challenge the content, and to add the new learning to their construct of the world.

This practical book maintains that teachers need to expand their repertoire of useful response modes that students can draw upon including different forms, formats, and media. Throughout the book, authentic student samples and actual transcripts present students experiencing the featured story through poems, tellings, visuals, blogs, art, conversation, and more.