Transactional Theory Of Reading Research Articles

Recursive readings and reckonings: kindergarteners’ multimodal transactions with a nonfiction picturebook

PurposeOur world had always been multimodal, but studying how young children enact and embody literacy practices, especially reading, has often been overlooked. The purpose of this study was to examine how young children respond to nonfiction picturebooks in multimodal ways. This paper aims to answer the question: What multimodal resources do readers use to respond to and construct meaning from nonfiction picturebooks?Design/methodology/approachUndergirded by Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading and social semiotic multimodality, a 9-min video clip of three boys making sense of one nonfiction picturebook during reading workshop was analyzed using Norris’ approach to multimodal data analysis. This research stemmed from a five-month-long case study of one kindergarten class’s multimodal and collective responses to nonfiction picturebooks.FindingsFindings demonstrate how readers use gesture, gaze and proxemics in addition to language to signal agreement with one another, explain new ideas or concepts to one another and incorporate their background knowledge. In addition to reading images, the children learned to read each other.Originality/valueThis research indicates that reading is inherently multimodal, recursive and complex and provides implications for teachers to reconsider what kinds of responses they prioritize in their classrooms. Additionally, this research establishes the need to better understand how readers respond to nonfiction books and a broader examination of multimodality in the literacy curriculum.

“Something fruitful for all of us”: Social annotation as a signature pedagogy for literature education

New social annotation practices have the potential to become a “signature pedagogy” for educators in literary studies, because social annotation encapsulates both the expected learning outcomes and the underlying value commitments of literature education. We give an account of a project conducted by colleagues at the Education University of Hong Kong, during which colleagues explored social annotation technologies in literary studies courses. After implementing social annotation in our courses, instructors held roundtable discussions, collected surveys and conducted focus group interviews. Basing our interpretation of these data on Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading and writing, we propose that social annotation can help students engage with literary texts more effectively by showing them how to move toward an aesthetic mode of reading. Students participating in social annotation, moreover, understood its application to literary studies in ways that directly reproduced Rosenblatt’s account of literary interpretation.

Collaborative Meaning-Making and Dialogic Interactions in Critical Friends as Co-Authors

ABSTRACTFrom this year-long study, we offer new perspectives for being and becoming critical friends as co-authors. Informed by the Transactional Theory of Reading, a narrative view of experience and feminist communication theory, we positioned ourselves as collaborative, active meaning makers who could read and make meaning from our lived experiences and who could disrupt and problematize our narrative lives as teacher researchers. Through use of a collaborative conference protocol, we discovered what it means to be and to become critical friends who can co-author narrative understanding of self in the study. We have revisited the concept of critical friendship by repositioning our coauthoring as not just a resource for the completion of a better end product, but also as a way of being and knowing that enables an individual to revisit, reignite, disrupt, problematize and challenge one’s past and present storied lives.

Reading as enactment: transforming Beowulf through drama, film and computer game

In this article, we offer an account of a two-day workshop conducted with a group of postgraduate English and Drama student teachers, part of a larger AHRC-funded research project. Our focus is on reading and the reception of a canonical text, in this case Beowulf. We argue that taking a transmedia approach helps learners to think about the literary text in new ways. Using Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading as our starting point, we develop Myra Barrs’ understanding of reading as a form of enactment or performance and writing as a form of role-play. We specifically consider the meaning and function of “role” across different media platforms, including written text, digital film and computer games.

To Read or Not To Read: Listening to Children Talk about Reading Motivation

Developing the will to read is an important, albeit sometimes neglected consideration in fostering literacy among children. Drawing from research on reading motivation by Wigfield and Guthrie (1997), who talk about reading motivation as anchored upon self efficacy beliefs, purpose, and a social component, Rosenblatt’s (1994) Transactional Theory of Reading which highlights the stances one takes while reading, Krashen’s (2004 and 2009) research on the conditions that make Free Voluntary Reading optimal, and Miller’s (2011) research on materiality and how objects have an agency that could either build or cripple the capacities of students influences this study as it examines the factors that contribute to reading motivation among middle graders. In order to answer my main research questions, I engaged eight students from grades 3 to 6 in informal interviews (pakikipagkuwentuhan) about reading. These students came from either public, private or state-funded laboratory schools. Depending on the flow of each conversation, the questions asked the students varied at times. Results indicate that both human and symbolic mediators work together to Foster reading motivation among middle graders. These different mediators of reading motivation are the focus of this research. Implications for reading instruction may be gleaned from this study.

Pivoting towards Empiricism: A Response to Fletcher and Monterosso

Suzanne Keen’s response to Fletcher and Monterosso evaluates their contribution to cognitive narratology and the psychology of narrative impact. Arguing that “there is more than one possible function for FID,” Fletcher and Monterosso design a clever experiment manipulating textual samples by increasing the amount of discourse in free indirect style in contrast to thought report (psycho-narration) or externalized narration in the originals. Employing follow-up questionnaires about affective response, perspective taking and role taking on the one hand, and attitudes towards revenge on the other hand, Fletcher and Monterosso discover that while FID enriched samples aroused emotional engagement in some readers, the increased emotional response was felt for the victim’s suffering rather than inducing empathy with the revenger’s emotions and actions. Keen discusses the narratological component, free indirect discourse, the link to reader’s empathy, and the methodology of Fletcher and Monterosso’s textual manipulations. With a nod to Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading, Keen notes that Fletcher and Monterosso’s work depicts active readers responding differently from one another. She offers cautions about the constitution of research subject pools, which should be as diverse as possible to arrive at persuasive observations about the impact of form. Keen affirms that narrative theorists can both contribute to and benefit from study of the various psychological responses to manipulations of narrative techniques.

Experiencing documents

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to invite further consideration of how people experience documents. By offering a model from Reader Response theory – Louise Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory of Reading – as well as examples from research on numinous experiences with museum objects, the author hopes to open further avenues of information behavior studies about people and documents. The goal is to incorporate more aspects of lived experience and the aesthetic into practice with and research of documents.Design/methodology/approach– Theoretical scope includes Louise Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory of Reading, John Dewey's concepts of transaction and experience and lived experience concepts/methods derived from phenomenology.Findings– Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory explicates the continuum of reader response, from the efferent to the aesthetic, stating that the act of “reading” (experience) involves a transaction between the reader (person) and the text (document). Each transaction is a unique experience in which the reader and text continuously act and are acted upon by each other. This theory of reading translates well into the realm of investigating the lived experience of documents and in that context, a concrete example and suggested strategies for future study are provided.Originality/value– This paper provides a holistic approach to understanding lived experience with documents and introduces the concept of person-document transaction. It inserts the wider notion of document into a more specific theory of reading, expanding its use beyond the borders of text, print and literature. By providing an example of real document experiences and applying Rosenblatt's continuum, the value of this paper is in opening new avenues for information behavior inquiries.

“Нова критика” й теорія читацького відгуку в літературознавстві США: компаративний аспект

The aim of our research is to accomplish the comparative analysis of two powerful in the USA literary critical movements of XX century: New Criticism and Reader-Response Theory (paying attention more to the last one, less studied in Ukraine). Their features, main contradictions, common ideas, points of coincidence, reasons of emergence and decline, degree of influence to the development of theoretical and critical process and value for contemporary science are revealed. Though in majority of guides and glossaries pointed that Reader-Response Theory stands in total opposition to the hegemony of formalistic New Criticism and as the reaction to assay Affective fallacy of W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in late 1960th and early 70th in the USA. As we thought, exactly L. M. Rosenblatt (1904-2005) should considered to be the founder of denoted theory and her book “Literature as Exploration” (1938) as the pioneer work in reader-oriented criticism. It is interesting that both New critics and Reader-response theorists considered the book of I.A. Richards “Practical Criticism” (1929) as the important basis for their theories, but accenting different aspects. Therefore to a certain extent these theories from the beginnings have got common source, but different vectors of development and time of growth.In article the main classifications of RRT of N. N. Holland and L. M. Rosenblatt are represented, analyzed and compared. Also common and distinctive features of New Criticism and RRT are defined. In general the most suitable for practical use is L. M. Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading, in which the same attention is paid both to the reader and the text, and meaning is evoking during the process of transaction between them.

A Novel Study Through Drama

In this article, Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading is used to build a rationale for using drama to promote an aesthetic stance to novel study. One teacher's experience with implementing a variety of drama strategies within the study of the text Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, is explored. The focus of the exploration is on the types of drama strategies the teacher used to enhance her students' personal involvement during the novel study. Through drama, the students were provided with the opportunity to savor the images, sounds, smells, actions, and feelings that the words of the text evoked. The students were encouraged to adopt a range of stances on the aesthetic‐efferent continuum through a variety of sound and serviceable drama strategies. An in‐depth analysis of the student responses is provided.

Rethinking the reading‐writing workshop: Tensions and negotiations between a stephen king reader and her teacher

This study used grounded theory and other inductive research methods to explore what happens when engaged readers of popular fiction bring their out‐of‐school interests into a school‐based reading‐writing workshop. Previous studies of adolescents’ participation in workshops have tended to focus on the structure's impact on disengaged or inexperienced readers. In contrast, this study explored the participation of students who already considered reading to be an important part of their lives. In particular, the interactions between Catherine, an 11th grader with a passion for Stephen King, and her teacher are profiled. Results suggest that students who are engaged readers of popular fiction outside of school may come to the reading‐writing workshop with a set of expectations that is different from their teacher's and from that of other students who do not read regularly for pleasure. Students who fit Catherine's profile may need certain kinds of scaffolding in order to expand their range as readers. They may also need their teachers to provide a clear articulation of the purposes for workshop, as well as to differentiate those purposes for students with varied experiences and interests. The study proposes a conception of reading‐writing workshop that is consistent with assisted‐performance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) perspectives on instruction and draws on scholarship that extends, elaborates, and critiques Rosenblatt's (1978,1983) transactional theory of reading.

Towards a Transactional Theory of Reading

The task assigned to me in this Seminar on Reading Theory grows out of my interest in the interpretation of literary works of art. The effort to develop a model for the kind of reading thought of as aesthetic has led to a view that seems relevant to the whole reading spectrum, aesthetic and non-aesthetic, advanced and elementary. Reversing the usual procedure of beginning at the, simpler level, I shall attempt to sketch some emphases that result from consideration of the interpretation of fairly complex literary works of art. This will provide the basis for clarifying resemblances and differences between aesthetic and non-aesthetic reading processes. Some implications may emerge for the dynamics of the reading process in general. Materials drawn from a study by Rosenblatt (1964) of the responses of a group of men and women to four lines of verse may serve as a springboard for discussion. It should be pointed out that these materials do not offer introspective evidence, about which there is justified skepticism. Before being given the text, the readers were told that they would remain anonymous and were asked simply to start writing as soon as possible after beginning to read. They were to jot down whatever came to them as they read. These notes turned out to be analogous to stills at various stages