Louise Rosenblatt differentiates between two reading transactions: efferent reading, or concentrating on the information in a text, and aesthetic reading, a holistic process by which the reader "lives through" a text-world event. Current research in the whole language approach to reading instruction attests to the growing stature of aesthetic reading. Teachers should seek classroom approaches that foster a holistic evocation of literary texts, and one methodology for doing this involves the use of imagery. First, imagery fosters the fusion of cognition and affect, a process crucial to aesthetic reading. Secondly, the holistic and synchronic nature of imagery indicates its importance for nurturing global contextualization. Research indicates that imagery is by its very nature holistic. To investigate the function of imagery in aesthetic reading, 30 hours of protocols produced by 5 subjects engaged in pleasure reading were examined to determine how these readers used imagery to enhance their aesthetic transactions with the texts. Based on the results, a series of activities were elaborated which would foster readers' emotional involvement with texts. First, students were asked to pause at intervals to record the images evoked as students read; second, they were asked to draw any memorable image they had of the text-world--a focus on imagery which provided imagistic gaps; and third, students were asked to write a description of what the story felt like to them because describing images instead of assigning meaning allowed the students to be flexible. Class discussion augments these activities, after which students return to the texts. Drawings of images were created by the students and shared with the class, amid much laughter. The intensely recursive movements within aesthetic reading can be fostered by utilizing these and similar methods which focus on imagery. (HB)