Reader-response has become one of the most influential literary theories to inform the pedagogies of middle and secondary English classrooms. However, many English and literacy educators have begun to advocate for more critical and culturally responsive versions of reader-response pedagogies, arguing that teachers move beyond valuing students'…

This article describes a theory of how culture enables literary interpretations of texts. We begin with a brief overview of the reader response field. From there, we introduce the theory and provide illustrative participant data examples. These data examples illustrate the four cultural positions middle grade students in our research assumed when…