Content area
Full Text
Reader-response activities combat lack of interest in the introductory literature course.
Introduction
I can still remember the poems and stories that excited me and made me determine that I would become an English teacher. However, once I actually got to teach an introductory literature class, I realized that many of the students were not interested in reading the assigned literature. They could not have cared less whether Robert Frost was bending birches or mending walls. William Wordworth's "London 1802" was too far removed from them. If Hester Prynne was stupid enough to actually wear that scarlet letter on her person, then she deserved whatever happened to her. T. S. Eliot could continue to measure his life in teaspoons, and Alice Walker could go on searching for her mother's gardens all by herself. And worse than the students' lack of interest were the writing assignments they submitted that evidenced it. The papers generally lacked thought, depth of understanding, and a sense of commitment to a literary response.
Trying to remedy students' apathy so that reading and discussing literature could become enjoyable for both teacher and students, I sought to connect the students to the literary experience through a reader-response approach. I have had success with this approach by incorporating regular reader-response activities that validate students as literary critics in their own right and by allowing them to assist with selecting course readings.
The Value of a Reader-Response Approach
Reader-response criticism allows students more latitude in responding to what they read and encourages varied responses. According to Ross C. Murfin, "[it] focuses on what texts do to-or in-the mind of the reader, rather than regarding a text as something with properties exclusively its own" (253). Employing a reader-response approach in the introductory literature course helps maintain the student interest and involvement necessary for a good course. This approach
enables students to experience relevance in the reading task, involves them in an active, not passive, encounter with the literature,
validates them as critical readers who are capable of determining meaning in texts, and
provides them with the opportunity to express themselves freely
The issue of relevance for the introductory literature student is major, as many critical theorists attest. Patricia Prandini Buckler asserts that "the most valuable pedagogical...