This study examines the reader-response journals of an English learner (EL) who read two works of historical fiction in his English Language Development class at a public high school in California. Locating this study within the tradition of research on reader response, it investigates how the EL constructs his own individualized meaning by…

This article combines interview data from a group of boys of color at an urban single-sex school and content analysis of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" to demonstrate the complexities of readers' responses to literature. Textual relevance, or the ability to construct personal…