Widely adopted Common Core State Standards emphasize textual analysis and writing "about" texts (Bomer & Maloch, 2011), but provide little guidance on "what" students should read beyond general references to traditional literature (fables, folktales, and myths) and informational texts. However, as Meek (1988) and others have argued, different texts support different visions of what texts and reading look like and what they are for, so the question of what is read is far from trivial. Researchers have posited that postmodern picturebooks, which break with a range of literary conventions, reflect the literacy demands of an increasingly digital and multimodal society; others have cautioned that these texts may unduly challenge child readers still becoming familiar with literary conventions. This case study was designed to investigate the ways in which a group of five rising fourth graders responded orally during readaloud discussions of a set of postmodern picturebooks and the extent to which the students' writing incorporated characteristics of postmodern literature. Whereas prior research analyzed oral response exclusively, or examined student writing in a context of explicit instruction and mandates to include postmodern characteristics, this study considered an instructional context more permeable to students' choices and intentions. Analysis of digital recordings of students' talk during literature discussions and writing time, as well as of their writing, allowed for a consideration of the range of literacy practices that students demonstrated as they engaged with literature and developed pieces of their own. This analysis revealed themes in students' engagement with postmodern features common to literature discussion and writing. Findings indicated that students engaged with intertextuality in terms of degree of borrowing as well as in terms of techniques for borrowing. Further, findings signaled that audience, performance, and play were useful constructs for understanding how specific techniques like voice acting and direct address supported students' sense-making from postmodern picturebooks as well as their authorship of texts. These findings suggest that policy-makers reconsider narrow conceptions of the relationship between the texts students read and the texts they produce given evidence of a more complex, recursive, and multidirectional sense-making process involving writing, drawing, and literature discussion. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]