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This post was written by Shelbie Witte, Don Latham, and Melissa Gross, editors of Literacy Engagement through Peritextual Analysis (ALA & NCTE, 2019).
As teachers and librarians with a love of texts, we encourage our students to engage with peritext often, and yet we encounter many students who are unfamiliar with the term and the language of peritext. Common peritextual elements such as the text cover, table of contents, and source notes provide opportunities for readers to increase their comprehension of and to think critically about a text. Many times, readers will skip the reading and viewing of peritext and begin with the text proper. By doing so, they are often missing critical information an author has included about the text and haven’t taken advantage of all the layers of meaning surrounding the text.
Via Elizabeth E Charles
