Abstract
Reader response literary theory dominates the study of literature in the K -12 school curriculum. Because this theory reflects the student - centered, constructivist orientation currently driving curriculum development, reader response literary theory is central to guiding the literary experiences of children in schools. Student readers creatively engage in a transaction with a text driven by their personal purposes and experiences that leads to the construction of new, alternative voices and perspectives. This study employs hermeneutic phenomenology to inquire into the experiencing of the transactive space of literary engagement to understand more fully how the transaction is lived and felt. Phenomenology can allow a better understanding of the lived, embodied experiencing in the transactive space created between reader and text and provide a fresh and meaningful account of how literature "works."
Highlights
Through symbol, sound, and the magic of meaning literature transports readers into imaginary realms and fosters complex reading behaviors that invite children to experience emotional and intellectual invocations far greater than the sum of the factual constituents on any given page
Reader response literary theory focuses on active readers and the literary text existing in the transaction between reader and text
First a clear explication is required of the experiential, life forwarding dimension of the transactive space between reader and text as it is described by reader response theory
Summary
Sound, and the magic of meaning literature transports readers into imaginary realms and fosters complex reading behaviors that invite children to experience emotional and intellectual invocations far greater than the sum of the factual constituents on any given page. Experiences centered on interpreting and creating literacy texts enable students to participate in other lives and worlds beyond their own. Students reflect on their own identities and on the ways in which social and cultural contexts define and shape those identities. Literature offers the reflective stance, inviting students to formulate moral and philosophical understanding of the meaning of life (Dewey, 1916; Green, 1973). To fully understand the essential place of literature in the curriculum it is important to investigate phenomenologically the experiencing interaction between feelings and word- symbols and describe experientially the power of language to move our lives forward What is the experience of having powerful new feelings, ideas and insights aroused by what we read? What is the nature of this life-forwarding capacity of literature? How do stories and poems exercise the moral imagination? To fully understand the essential place of literature in the curriculum it is important to investigate phenomenologically the experiencing interaction between feelings and word- symbols and describe experientially the power of language to move our lives forward
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