This study describes how and what 2 classes of middle-track 10th-graders wrote and learned when their teacher employed reader-based and teacher-centered instructional tasks for discussing and writing about a short story. The students wrote an analytic essay in response to the story and completed 3 posttests of story understanding. Retrospective interviews of 4 case-study students were analyzed to examine the students' thinking and reasoning, and to explore their perceptions of the ground rules and teacher expectations as they wrote analytically about the story. The reader-based tasks enabled the students in developing both textual and experiential knowledge about and a thoughtful stance toward the short story. These patterns suggest why the reader-based tasks permitted students to attain significantly higher posttest scores than did the teacher-centered tasks. Reader-based tasks to reading and writing may enable teachers to rethink literature instruction in classrooms with middle-track students.
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