Response to Literature

1. Response to Literature Jessica Dockter Fall 2009

2. A Transactional View • “meaning does not reside in the text alone, waiting for a reader to unearth it, but rather is created in the transaction that occurs between a text and a reader” (Galda, et al., p. 36)

3. A Transactional View • The Reader – • Experiences • Abilities & Preferences • Knowledge • Culture • The Text – • “The closer a text is to a reader’s own experience of the world, the easier it is to read; the farther away, the more work a reader must do in order to understand the worldview from which the text is written” (Iser, 1978)

4. Aesthetic and Efferent Stances • Rosenblatt, 1938/1976; 1978 • Aesthetic: • Reading for the experience / opportunity to enter the story world • “Real” – emotional connection • Efferent: • Reading for information, knowledge • On a continuum • The stance lies in the reader, not the text

5. Social & Cultural Dimensions • Author, reader, and reading experience • Texts exist “within a complex network of ideas and image and cultural values” (Nodelman, 1997) • Explicit & implicit • “Interpretive communities” (Fish, 1980) • Tasks related to the community shape readings as well

6. Readers • Who are you as a reader? • Patterns of response • Bogdan (1990): stock, kinetic, and spectator • Sipe (2008): traditional, intertextual, personal, “transparent,” & “performative” • Readers DO THINGS as they interact with books • Response is LEARNED

7. Other influences • Conceptions of literature • Cultural values & assumptions • “Do you really send your children out to do the most important thing in their life without the wisdom of their elders?” • Reading interests & preferences • And those of adults in children’s lives • Texts • Window & mirror

8. Ideologies • Call to move beyond the personal to consider the social and political dimensions of reading and response (Lewis, 2000) • Recognize “assumptions” of texts • Recognize power • Values not uniformly distributed • Practice critical readings • “Talking back” to a text

9. “Children’s literature is a form of education and socialization, an indication of a society’s deepest hopes and fears, expectations and demands… Whether deliberate or not, children’s literature functions as a form of social power, for adults control most, if not all, of a child’s reading. Adults write, edit, publish, market, and purchase books; they select, read, and even teach them to children” (Apol, 1998)

10. A Critical Reading of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian • Answer the questions on the handout for yourself • Then, share with a small group and the whole class