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Reader Response Criticism
Throughout this course, you will learn about and apply six different literary theories. Think about what you read, where you read it most often, and why you read. How does your personal response to the text depend on where and why you are reading the text?
Your personal attitudes, beliefs, and experiences influence how you derive meaning from text. Examining the way in which you understand text involves adopting critical lenses. A critical lens is a way of judging or analyzing a work of literature.
Reader Response Criticism is a type of literary theory suggesting that readers’ perspectives often determine their perceptions. Much as putting on a pair of tinted lenses colors the way you look at the world, critical lenses influence how you study and perceive texts. The critical lens of Reader Response Criticism asks you to be aware of your personal attitudes, beliefs, and experiences as you read. It focuses on the relationships among the reader, the reader’s situation, and the text. The theory suggests that the process of making meaning relies not only on the text itself, but also on the qualities and motivations of the individual who is interacting with the text.
The diagram below illustrates this idea:
• Reading Situation: the circumstances surrounding the reading, including purposes
• Reader: person engaged in the reading process
• Text: what is being read
Reading Situation
Meaning
My Notes
ACTIVITY 1.4
continued
Literary Terms
Reader Response Criticism
focuses on a reader’s active engagement with a piece
of print or nonprint text. The reader’s response to any text is shaped by the reader’s own experiences, social ethics, moral values, and general views of the world.
Reader
Text
Unit 1 • Perception Is Everything 11
ACTIVITY 1.4 continued
10 Begin your introduction of Reader Response Criticism by asking students to discuss what they normally read, where they read most often, and why they read. Ask whether and how their personal responses to a text are affected by where and why they read.
11 Instruct students to read the information on Reader Response Criticism and to mark the text to identify key ideas. Invite students to take notes on the diagram to offer another way to think about Reader Response Criticism.
12 Next, engage students in a group discussion about the ways in which the reader, the reading situation, and the text can affect the process of making meaning.
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SCAFFOLDING THE TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS
3. Craft and Structure (RL.11–12.5) What connections can you make between the
rhythm of poem and the dancing of the waltz,
a ballroom dance set in triple time? How is the poem structurally like and unlike a waltz? Read the poem aloud to better understand its rhythm. Which lines follow the rhythm of a waltz? Which lines do not? How might this connect to the poem’s underlying emotional tone?
4. Key Ideas and Details (RL.11–12.3) What is the conflict at the center of the poem? How does the speaker reveal it? Identify the perspectives of the different family members. How does
each one feel or behave in the situation the poem describes? What specific words and phrases does the speaker use to reveal these perspectives?
Unit 1 • Perception Is Everything 11
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.