1. The Child Responds to Literature
Chapter 3

2. Ways of Reading 1. Reading for Content
2. Reading for Aesthetic Judgments
3. Reading by Textual Structures
4. Reading for Social Attitudes
5. Reading as a Transaction
Reader Response Theory

3. Reader Response Theory Louise Rosenblatt
Efferent
Aesthetic
Efferent Responses
gaining info
all learn the same info
Aesthetic Responses
reader is absorbed
draw on past exp.
participate in story
identify with characters
share conflicts
reader is important
text is blueprint
reader constructs literary meaning

4. Five Perspectives on Reader Response - Richard Beach
Experiential
Developmental
Social
Cultural
Textual
Experiential - A perspective that emphasizes the role of the reader’s personal experiences and feelings in shaping response.
Developmental - A perspective that recognizes that children in different stages of cognitive, moral, and social development respond t literature differently.
Social - A perspective that recognizes that a reader’s literary transaction can be shaped by the responses of other readers.
Cultural - A perspective that recognizes that reader’s cultural values, attitudes, and assumptions shape their transactions with texts.
Textual - A perspective that recognizes that readers’ responses are influenced by their knowledge of narrative conventions, literary elements, genre conventions, and other aspects of a text.

5. Langer’s Model (Experiential) Literary Meaning Making
A perspective that emphasizes the role of the reader’s personal experiences and feelings in shaping response.
Being out and stepping in
Being in and moving through
Being in and stepping out
Stepping out and objectifying the experience

6. Developmental Perspective
A perspective that recognizes that children in different stages of cognitive, moral, and social development respond to literature differently.
Applebee & Hickman thirteen- and seventeen year olds with their more sophisticated cognitive abilities, typically analyzed the structures of stories and made generalizations about their meanings.

7. Dramatic differences in the extent of children’s exposure to literature and its effect on ability to generate thematic statements. (Pg. 65 table)
Teachers must engage students in rich literature experiences.

8. Social Perspective Hickman: Build extensive book collections
Make attractive displays
Select High Quality books and present them in related sets, ie Halloween, friendship, etc.
Build in ample time for children to interact with books each day
Read aloud each day
Encourage students to share their thinking

9. Provide children with opportunities to revisit some books periodically
Support children’s understanding of literary craft by providing them with terminology
Encourage children to explore books through art, writing, and drama and support this with time, space, materials, and ideas
Provide children with opportunities to revisit some books periodically
Hickman found that repeated readings is effective for fostering more insightful responses.

10. Social Perspective - Literature Discussion & Groups
allow students to help each other sort out confusions
build meaning by sharing personal stories
extended comprehension by extending and enriching one another’s predictions and hypotheses
critiques stories together, commenting on author’s purpose and on issues related to the crafting of books.

11. Teacher Roles in Discussion
Teacher Role in Peer Group Discussions
Minimal role
Highly encouraging
Responded to opportunities to discuss literary elements
Peers vs Teacher Dir.
Far more reflective
Sought group’s help
Talked almost twice as much
Heard more story interpretations
Students asked questions instead of teacher

12. Cultural Perspective
Coming together to discuss different cultures allows people with different perspectives to exchange ideas, to step into the shoes of others and thereby to calibrate their own judgments.
Students of same ethnic background as the author of the book are able to share cultural insights that make literature experience a richer one.
Constructivist’s theory - one’s interpretation of an event, influenced as it is by one’s unique culture-based experience, is the event.

13. Textual Perspective
Mature readers understand text in light of others they have read.
Create intertextuality - process of bringing knowledge of one text to make meaning out of another.
Spin-off fairy tales