Using an approach developed and refined over a combined 44 years of teaching, this book encourages literature teachers at the high school and college levels to empower their students as readers--and meaning-makers--of literature. The book presents results of a research study in which 288 students, ranging from junior high school to graduate school, responded in writing to the same 18-line poem. After an introductory section, the second section of the book presents in full the writings on the poem prepared by a dozen of these students and then examines the students' different approaches to accounting for the general situation of the poem, the particular situation, and the various voices that the students heard in the poem. The third section discusses what disempowers meaning making, what empowers meaning making and how teachers might empower readers in their classrooms. A concluding section presents continuing reflections. (RS)