C&I 490 RRC
Reader Response CriticismIn recent years, literary criticism has shifted emphasis from the text to the interpretive processes of the reader. This apparently minor shift in scholarly methodology signals a major paradigm change for the study of the relations between language and thought. Reader-response theories have challenged commonplace assumptions regarding learning, comprehension, assessment, the knowledge and literature canons, multicultural education, the gender-neutrality of ideas, the teaching of writing, the role of texts in content learning, and the role of teachers and students in learning.
Semester: Fall, 1994 Instructor: Bertram Bruce Time: Monday, 1-4 p.m. Office: 387 Education Place: 166 Education Tel: 217-244-3576, -8286 Call number: 02593 Email: chip@uiuc.edu This seminar will examine some of the major aspects of the diverse field of reader-response. We will explore issues such as how meaning is constructed, how understanding across "horizons" is possible, how readers adopt different stances towards a text, how the meanings of authors, readers, and communities interrelate, what a text is, and what it means to understand. These questions have a direct bearing on changing conceptions of literacy and schooling, and on how we interpret and respond to student work in any area of the curriculum.
We will read the work of scholars such as Bakhtin, Richards, Rosenblatt, Iser, Gadamer, Fish, Bleich, Flynn, and Holland. We will also consider the import of these theories for education, asking what they imply not only for the teaching of literature or reading, but what they say about the teaching of writing, the role of texts in learning, theories of meaning, assessment, and multicultural education.
Course requirements
You will be expected to participate in discussions of readings throughout the semester. You will also be asked to lead at least one discussion session. We will write for each other and respond to each other's writing, both in class and outside, using electronic mail.The major assignment is a term project, which could be a theoretical study of reader response, a literature review, a study of actual readers actually reading and responding, a curriculum unit, or other product that you feel is useful. You will be expected to present your on-going work to the class at least twice, once in the early stages to involve other members of the class in thinking about the issues you are addressing, and once later in the semester to report on your progress.
You will be asked to turn in a written self-evaluation at the end of the course (December 12). This should be based on your own evaluation of your efforts towards meeting your goals in the course, including the work on your term project, readings, class discussions and presentations, and participation in the learning community. Early in the semester (September 12), you should turn in a written statement of your goals and your plans for meeting them. I will schedule periodic individual conferences to discuss these plans with you.
Schedule
I have selected texts and a schedule of topics reflecting my own interests, background, and judgment about which issues that will be most interesting and useful. I am keenly aware though that this sampling is limited and idiosyncratic. One indication of this (and of the dynamic nature of the field) is that Beach's new book lists over 1200 references on reader response criticism, but does not include many that I have included. I would like all participants in the seminar to participate in the on-going re-construction of the schedule by suggesting areas of special interest, bringing in additional readings, and raising questions that may lead us along paths of common interest.Below is list of topics, subject to change, depending on the interests of the participants.
August 29: What is Reader-Response Criticism?
September 12: Critical & Interpretive Theory
September 19: Textual Theories of Response
September 26: Transactional Theories of Response
October 3: Cultural Theories of Response
October 10: Gender and Response
October 17: How Different Students Respond
October 24: Reception Theory
October 31: Interpretive Communities
November 7: Discourse Communities
November 14: Bakhtin I
November 21: Bakhtin II
November 28: Psychological Theories of Response
December 5: Curriculum, Instruction, & Evaluation
Bibliography
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination (pp. 259-422). Austin: The University of Texas Press.Banks, J. A. (1991). A curriculum for empowerment, action, and change. In C. E. Sleeter (Ed.), Empowerment through multicultural education (pp. 125-141). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Beach, R. (1993). A teacher's introduction to reader response theories. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Bohannan, L. (1975). Shakespeare in the bush. In A. Ternes (Ed.), Ants, Indians, and little dinosaurs (pp. 203-216). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Brewer, W. F., & Lichtenstein, E. H. (1981). Event schemas, story schemas, and story grammars. In J. Long & A Baddeley (Eds.), Attention and performances IX (pp. 363-379). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Brewer, W. F., & Lichtenstein, E. H. (1982). Stories are to entertain: A structural -affect theory of stories. Journal of Pragmatics, 6, 473-486.
Bruce, B. C. (1981). A social interaction model of reading. Discourse Processes, 4, 273-311.
Bruce, B. C., Osborn, J., & Commeyras, M. (1993). Contention and consensus: The development of the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading. Educational Assessment, 1(3), 225-253.
Connell, J. (1994). Assessing the link between Dewey's concept of transaction and Rosenblatt's theory of reading, Manuscript.
Cooper, C. R. (1985). Researching response to literature and the teaching of literature: Points of departure. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
Crowley, S. (1989). A teacher's introduction to deconstruction. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Crusius, T. W. (1991). A teacher's introduction to philosophical hermeneutics. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Dolan, J. (1988). The feminist spectator as critic. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.
Eagleton, T. (1983). Literary theory: An introduction. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Ebert, T. L. (1991). The "difference" of postmodern feminism. College English, 53, 886-904.
Emerson, C., & Holquist, M. (Eds.). (1986). M. M. Bakhtin: Speech genres and other late essays (V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Faust, M. A. (November 1992). Ways of reading and "the use of force". English Journal, 44-49.
Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class?: The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Flynn, E. A. (1988). Composing as a woman. College Composition and Communication, 39, 423-35.
Flynn, E. A., & Schweickart, P. P. (1986). Gender and reading: Essays on readers, texts, and contexts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Foucault, M. (1972). The discourse on language. In M. Foucault (trans. by A. M. Sheridan Smith), The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language, pp. 215-237. New York: Pantheon.
Freund, E. (1987). The return of the reader: Reader-response criticism. New York: Penguin.
Hartman, D. (1990). Eight readers reading: The intertextual links of able readers using multiple passages. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Langer, J. (1992) (Ed.). Literature instruction: A focus on student response. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Lutz, C. A., & Collins, J. L. (1993). Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [309 pp.]
Pratt, M. L. (1987). Linguistic utopias. In Fabb, N., Attridge, D., Durant, A., & MacCabe, C. (Eds.), The linguistics of writing: Arguments between language and literature. New York: Methuen.
Purves, A. C. (1993). Toward a reevaluation of reader response and school literature. Language Arts, 70, 348-361.
Ramsey, P. G. (1987). Where to begin. In P. G. Ramsey, Teaching and learning in a diverse world: Multicultural education for young children (pp. 40-58). New York: Teachers College Press.
Rasinki, T. V. & Padak, A. D. (1990). Multicultural learning through children's literature. Language Arts, 67, 576-580.
Rosenblatt, L. M. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem: The transactional theory of the literary work. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Rosenblatt, L. M. (1983). Literature as exploration. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Scholes, R. (1985). Textual power: Literary theory and the teaching of English. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Flynn, E. A., & Schweickart, P. P. (Eds.), Gender and reading: Essays on readers, texts, and contexts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Shull, E. (November 1992). Valuing multiple-critical approaches: Penelope, again...and again. English Journal, 32-37.
Sleeter, C. E. & Grant, C. A. (1987). An analysis of multicultural education in the United States. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 421-439.
Suleiman, S. R., & Crosman, I. (1980). The reader in the text: Essays on audience and interpretation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Swales, J. (1988). Discourse communities, genres, and English as an international language. World Englishes, 2, 221-236.
Todorov, T. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin: The dialogical principle (tr. W Godzich). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Tompkins , J. P. (Ed.) (1980). Reader-response from formalism to post-structuralist criticism. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.