The Child Responds to Literature

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

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Reader Response TheoryLouise 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

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Five Perspectives on Reader Response - Richard
Beach

• Experiential
• Developmental
• Social
• Cultural
• Textual

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Langers Model (Experiential) Literary Meaning
Making

• A perspective that emphasizes the role of the
  readers 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

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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.

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

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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

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• Support childrens 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

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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 anothers predictions and hypotheses
• critiques stories together, commenting on
  authors purpose and on issues related to the
  crafting of books.

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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 groups 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.
• Constructivists theory - ones interpretation of
  an event, influenced as it is by ones unique
  culture-based experience, is the event.

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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