Objective: Help students read text for multiple layers of interpretation.

Instruction: Explain why. Explain how skilled writers make deliberate word choices and how skilled readers pause on words to understand the deeper meaning and nuance behind those choices. When we pause to explore why a writer chose one word or phrase over another we can often gain a better perspective on the author's purpose for writing and the deeper message the author wants to convey.

Practice: Even if you are not teaching a poetry unit, poetry emphasizes the importance of word choice and the multiple ways a single word or phrase can be interpreted. Discuss passages from authors known for using symbolism in their work such as Rand, Melville, Wright, Heller and Updike. Use authors from diverse backgrounds to display how personal experience and context can influence one's interpretation. Have students reflect on how their first interpretation of an author's meaning can change when they carefully consider word choice and evaluate context clues.

Diverse Discussion Groups: Have students freely discuss authors' style and purpose with the primary objective of understanding how people can read the same words but extract very different meanings. When possible include students from different backgrounds to ensure a diversity of opinions and enable students to understand how individual experiences can influence perspectives of what we read.

Ongoing reinforcement: Pose questions that allow for multiple correct responses in your classwork. Allow students time to express different points of view or possibilities for author's meaning. When students express divergent views, pair them up and have them explain their thinking to each other. End lessons with questions left unanswered so students gain comfort with the ambiguity and some might continue to search for clues for understanding.