Explores the possibility that literary theorists and reading researchers are unconscious of each others interests, goals, and assumptions. Seeks to explore how the gaps between these two areas might best be bridged. (EL)

Examines the effects of literature discussion approaches on preservice teachers' purpose in writing. Explores the viability of the instruments developed by D. Wiseman using responses from older students. Contends that a transactive criticism approach can be a valuable way of incorporating literary analysis without negating the reader's experience…

Examines the relationship between current concepts of reading processes and contemporary theories of literary response. Argues that text-based reading theories are isomorphic with the New Criticism, and that reader-based theories of reading are isomorphic with reader-response criticism. Maintains that literary theory ignores interactive…

Presents summaries of empirical studies of kindergartners, fifth graders, high school students, and college students, which suggest that people use stereotypes and gender-based identification in encoding, retrieving, and making inferences. Discusses results of qualitative research on differences in male and female responses to literary texts.…

Explores the participation in reading-writing workshops of students who consider reading to be an important part of their lives. Finds students who are engaged readers of fiction bring a set of expectations that differ from their teachers' and from students who do not read regularly for pleasure. (NH)

This paper examines the work of Russian literary critic M. M. Bakhtin as a theory of reading. Focusing on two critical essays, "Discourse in the Novel" and "The Problem of Speech Genres," the paper demonstrates how Bakhtin addresses the three elements of a reading theory--language, representation, and interpretation. Next, the…

Assembled in the course of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, which examined the nature of collective and individual response to fairytale literature, this bibliography cites materials pertinent to response assessment. Listed by author, the subjects of the approximately 150 titles include language and meaning, poetics, literary…

This essay explores the concept of reader stance as defined by L. Rosenblatt (1978, 1994) as a useful framework from which to view the relative imbalance between the efferent and aesthetic reading of literature, particularly among schoolage adolescents. It then examines how 4 theoretical models and perspectives offer considerable explanatory…

Discusses the theoretical considerations of readers' response to literature. Explores procedures for monitoring and evaluating children's responses to literature. (HTH)

Responds to the common assumption among English teachers that prior knowledge of a subject enhances students' ability to comprehend materials that they read. Presents evidence from the think-aloud protocols of undergraduate students to argue that having prior experience of the subjects treated in texts does not ensure that students will make…

Presents results of a study of how readers fill in information "gaps" in a text to make meaning, using adolescents' response to a story by Brecht. Concludes that such gaps bore children uninterested in making meaning, and that those who make meaning from a mechanical stance may be limited in their comprehension unless deeper ways of…

A study determined whether using reader response logs in an introductory college literature class would prove to be an effective method of helping students learn to apply the critical methodology important to increasing understanding of literature. Subjects, 33 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory literature course, wrote response…

The spontaneous use of imaging and its relationships to verbal recall and literary analysis were investigated in a study in which 72 college students read a literary text under one of three sets of instructions that manipulated processing depth in an externally valid fashion. Imagery reports and free verbal recalls of the story were collected…

This paper is the last in a series of 14 detailing the procedures involved in setting up an interdisciplinary project that explores the similarities and dissimilarities in the response to literature in readers from different countries. It marks the end of the preparatory work for the "Folktale-project." The first section is an overview of the…

As part of the Folktale project, which explores similarities and dissimilarities in the response to literature from and in different cultures, advanced undergraduate students in classes on literary interpretation or literary history analyzed a Danish, a Greenlandic, and a Turkish folk tale. Two male and two female students in classes on literary…