Research Summary: Peritextual Analysis: What IS That? How can it help the Readers we Teach?

RESEARCH SUMMARY Linda McElroy, Ph.D. Column Editor

Peritextual Analysis: What IS That? How Can It Help the Readers We Teach?

Teachers are always seeking ways to support students in understanding the texts that they read. Using “peritext” is one helpful type of support. This research column will define this concept and discuss ways to incorporate it in instructional activities.

Excellent resources for the discussion are a current book, Literacy Engagement Through Peritextual Analysis, edited by Shelbie Witte, Don Latham, and Melissa Gross, which was copublished by the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Library Association, along with selected research articles which are referenced in the book. Clear definitions are provided by the 2019 book and by one of the research articles, “The Peritextual Literacy Framework: Using the Functions of Peritext to Support Critical Thinking,” by Gross and Latham.

The concept of “peritext” is grounded in a broader concept of “paratext”, which was developed by Gerard Genette. He described two components that go beyond an actual text to support readers’ understanding and engagement with the text. The components include:

(a) Peritext, which includes elements that are part of a work, such as the title page, introductory notes and acknowledgements, table of contents, index, and source notes.

(b) Epitext, which includes elements that are not part of a work, but point to it, such as book reviews, author websites, and works of critical literary analysis.

Gross and Latham’s 2017 article reviews numerous other studies related to use of paratext. It then explains the development of a Peritextual Literacy Framework (PLF) that focuses on peritext and categorizes the functions of peritext. The PLF is presented in both the book and the article. Portions of the PLF are listed below.

The Peritextual Literacy Framework: Types of Peritext:

Production (elements that uniquely identify a work) Author, book designer, copyright, ISBN, illustrator, publisher, series title, title and subtitle, translator

Promotional (elements that interface between the work and its potential audience) Advertisements, author biography, author website URL, award mediations, blurb/bla-bla, dust jacket, endorsements, list of other works by the author, list of other works by the publisher, list of other works in the series

Navigational (elements that assist the reader in understanding the organization of the work and how to search the contents)

Chapter divisions, index, intertitles, page numbers, table of contents Intertextual (elements within the work that interface between the work and the reader)

Acknowledgements, afterword, dedication, foreword, preface Supplemental (elements outside the text proper that augment understanding of content)

Pictures, captions, endpapers, glossary, maps, photographs, tables, time lines

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Documentary (elements that connect the audience to external works used in the production of the work or that extend the content of the work) Bibliography, discography, image credits, references, source notes, suggested reading, webography (Gross & Latham, 2017, p. 122)

Gross and Latham, along with colleagues Jennifer Underhill and Hyeria Bak, conducted a research study to test the efficacy of the Peritextual Literacy Framework by using a Peritext Book Club in which middle school students read STEAM texts (science, technology, engineering, art, and math). Participants in the study were twelve students who read STEAMrelated nonfiction books and met once a month to discuss ways the peritext affected their motivation to read, their ability to retrieve information from the texts, and how the peritext might affect their opinion of the credibility of the information.

The school librarian recruited students in grades six through eight to participate in the book club, and the librarian led the meetings. The book club met once a month and provided the participants with pizza and beverages, along with a copy of the book, which they were allowed to keep. The books were young adult nonfiction books. At each book club meeting, a new type of peritext function and associated elements were presented, and peritext functions from previous meetings were reviewed. The sessions were digitally recorded, and the researchers observed all sessions. Book titles and discussion topics are specified in the article. Interactive digital games and activities, pre- and post-intervention surveys, open-ended discussions, and a final paper-based quiz provided data about participants’ knowledge about peritext. In general, students understood the concept of peritext (elements in the book that are not part of the text), even though they could not all define each type of peritext. They could explain ways to use peritext in deciding whether to read a book, to navigate a text and search for information, and to assess the credibility of an author. Students reported enjoying the experience. Further research is needed to explore the use of peritext in other settings and to develop lesson plans and teaching strategies to support students’ reading skills and abilities to think critically about nonfiction texts.

Another research study cited in the book demonstrated that the concept of peritext can be helpful across a wide range of ages of students and types of texts. This study focused on the role of peritext in understanding narrative picture books which had been winners of the Caldecott Medal, an award for outstanding illustrations. The researchers analyzed peritextual elements in Caldecott winners published from 1938 to 2013. The peritextual features that were analyzed included dust jackets, dedication/copyright pages, beginning endpapers, illustration before the title page, title page, half title page, final endpapers, and notes (author note, illustrator note, informational note). Peritextual features can introduce characters, settings, and other story elements. Sometimes the choices of illustrations and even colors of endpapers in these peritextual elements can provide background and introduce moods. The richness of information in these peritextual features supports the effectiveness of including discussions about them when teachers are introducing picture books to readers, including the youngest emergent readers. In addition, older readers can benefit from learning about peritextual features in the Caldecott books, as teachers can use the picture books as mentor texts to introduce understanding the importance of peritextual features before readers encounter the features in more advanced texts.

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Other chapters in Literacy Engagement through Peritextual Analysis discuss using the concept of peritextual analysis in varied types of media texts. One chapter describes a study related to analyzing online news articles, by considering peritextual elements such as headlines, bylines, news provider/press agency, author biography and URL, still images, audio and video, hyperlinks, image credits, source notes, and related articles. Additional chapters expand on other ways to build peritextual analysis into instructional strategies for many other types of texts. The potential is amazing for instructional applications!

Final Thoughts: I recently settled in to enjoy a novel on my Kindle app. I noticed that the app opened with page one of the novel. Because of my current interest in peritext, I scrolled backward and found several pages of helpful information. I could easily have missed an illustration, a quotation that set the mood for the story, and extensive acknowledgement information that gave me background information and provided evidence for the author’s expertise with elements that made the story more credible. Small illustrations and quotes at the beginning of each chapter were much more meaningful, based on information from those introductory pages. Just as I could have easily missed these elements, so will our students skip right over these kinds of features unless we as teachers specifically model for them and teach them to value these peritextual elements.

As I have read this collection of current professional literature, I have thought back to my experiences as a classroom teacher and reading specialist and to all the ways I tried to build background knowledge for my students before they started to read stories. I have realized that I could have strengthened my instruction by including peritextual elements. I have also thought about my more recent experiences with helping preservice teachers to incorporate “critical literacy” where they carefully analyze a piece of text by considering the author’s expertise and perspectives and to consider whether the text supports one perspective and marginalizes other perspectives. Simply cautioning my preservice teachers to analyze these factors has been insufficient. I believe that introducing peritextual features will be helpful, and I predict that these new teachers will be more prepared to help their future students to notice the clues and support in the texts they will read!

Dr. Linda McElroy is a Professor at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. She previously taught in Oklahoma schools as a classroom teacher and as a reading specialist.

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References Genette, G. (1997) Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation. New York:

Cambridge University Press.

Gross, M. & Latham, D. (2017). The peritextual literacy framework: Using the functions of peritext to support critical thinking. Library and Information Science Research, 39(2), 116-123.

Gross, M., Latham, D., Underhill, J., & Bak, H. (2016). The peritext book club: Reading to foster critical thinking about STEAM texts. School Library Research, 19.

Martinez, M., Stier, C., Falcon, L. (2016). Judging a book by its cover: An investigation of peritextual features in Caldecott award books. Children’s Literature in Education, 47 (3), 225-241.

Witte, S., Latham, D., & Gross, M. (2019). Literacy engagement through peritextual analysis. Chicago: American Library Association.

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