Abstract
Student readers/writers need the opportunity to bring to literary texts the imaginative knowledge crucial for retelling the author's story (concretizing the author's schema) in order to complete the act of reading. Paul Ricoeur's analysis of reading as a three-fold mimesis as articulated in his multi-volume series Time and Narrative suggests the necessary role of the reader as implementer of the text. This essay looks in detail at one 'free response' essay written by Julia, a bicultural student fluent in Japanese and English as she makes sense for herself of Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon . Arguing for the necessarily heightened sensitivity and engagement of bicultural readers in questioning texts to make sense of both texts and life, this essay links Julia's writing about the novel with Ricoeur's theories and suggests a few principles for the teaching of literature in order to engage them in mimesis 3 as Ricoeur envisions the reader's role in the act of reading.
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