Describes a study that showed how and what two classes of middle-track 10th graders wrote and learned when their teacher employed reader-based and teacher-centered instructional tasks for discussing and writing about a short story. Finds that reader-based tasks for reading and writing may enable teachers to rethink literature instruction in…

Uses stimulated recall to elicit a retrospective account from two alternative school students who choreographed a dance to depict their understanding of the relationship between the two central characters in a short story. Suggests that these students' account illustrates the way in which reader, text, and context participate in a complex…

Shares personal and profound experiences that permitted the emergence of a method of response to literature, circles of meaning, including excerpts of a master's thesis case study of a student making meaning of short stories using the method. Notes some of the learnings that this experience brought into the author's work with education students.…

Discusses students' responses to SIXTEEN: SHORT STORIES BY OUTSTANDING WRITERS FOR YOUNG ADULTS (edited by Donald R. Gallo), a collection of stories thematically grouped in a format based on a response-centered approach to literature. (MM)

Describes a study that investigated how young readers respond to text when a teacher uses an anticipation exercise within the framework of a small or large group discussion. The dynamics operating in classroom situations that use anticipation in small or large group contexts are observed and described. (FL)

Examining how teachers help students respond to short fiction, this book presents 25 essays that look closely at "teachable" short stories by a diverse group of classic and contemporary writers. The approaches shared by the contributors move from readers' first personal connections to a story, through a growing facility with the…

Examines the role of readers' subjectivity or personal responses in story interpretation, specifically in the formation of thematic generalizations. (MG)

Thomas Hardy has received great acclaim as a poet and novelist, but his short stories have remained largely ignored with regard to the usual short story "canon." Early reviews of Hardy's stories were mixed, but after his death the tide of critical opinion tended to turn against Hardy's stories. A significant historical factor was the…

To assess the effects of textual variation on students' preferred patterns of literary response, 166 college students were asked to read two poems and two short stories. The findings provided support for the notion that students' preferred patterns of response are strongly influenced by the nature of the texts they read. (HOD)

Answers the question of whether fiction can mean anything you want it to. Offers suggestions to help students use their personal experiences to make sense out of Kafka's "A Hunger Artist." (EL)

Discusses Margaret Atwood's "provocative and funny" short story "Rape Fantasies," and describes how, when teaching this story the author encourages students to sympathize with Estelle (the narrator) before they judge her (instead of rushing to achieve closure and begin interpretation). (SR)

In their anthology, Guth and Rico cite as preface to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," a student paper saying: "The mere doubt of the existence of good and the thought that other human beings are evil can become such a corrosive force that it can eat out the life of the heart." This is what happens to Brown. In the…

Analyzes Gabriel Garcia Marquez'"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" while calling attention to aspects of a critical approach that is universal in its grasp. Proposes that it is the reader who has to allow the text to engage the reader's critical participation. (PM)

Presents a point, counterpoint strategy which helps students build a repertoire of interpretive strategies that can be enlisted when dealing with complex short stories. Notes that the key to the strategy is that students begin with their personal responses and move toward more public and generalized interpretations. (RS)

A study used Elizabeth Flynn's interpretive strategies to look at high school students' reading responses. Subjects, 30 high school students, 15 males and 15 females (15 freshmen and 15 seniors) were assigned 3 short stories to read and were then asked to write responses to the stories. Results indicated that: (1) males were much more likely to…