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DOCUMENT RES UM E ED 341 999 CS 213 178 AUTHOR Langer, Judith A., Ed. Literature Instruction: A Focus on Student TITLE Response. National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, INSTITUTION National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C.; SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-3318-5 PUB DATE 92 CONTRACT G008720278 NOTE 218p. National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 Kenyon AVAILABLE FROM Rd., Urbana, IL 61801 (Stock No. 33185-0015; $10.95 members, $14.95 nonmembers). Collected Works - General (020) -- Reports - PUB TYPE Evaluative/Feasibility (142) mm1/Pco9 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Elementary Secondary Education; English Curriculum; DESCRIPTORS Higher Education; *Instructional Improvement; Literature Appreciation; *Reader Response; *Student Reaction; Teacher Student Relationship; Theory Practice Relationship Aesthetic Reading; Center for the Learning and IDENTIFIERS Teaching cf Literature; Educational Issues ABSTRACT Intended to provide an overview of current thinking on response-oriented literature i:Istruction and meant to stimulate dialogue leading to reform, this book reports research findings and ideas from teacher conferences of the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature at the State University of New York at Albany. The book contains the following articles: (1) "The Background for (2) "Testing Literature" (Alan C. Reform" (Arthur N. Applebee); Purves); (3) "Rethinking Literature Instruction" (Judith A. Langer); (4) "Five Kinds cf Literary Knowing" (Robert A. Probst); (5) "Challenging Questions in the Teaching of Literature" (Susan Hynds); (6) "Teaching Literature: From Clerk to Explorer" (Jayne DeLawter); (7) "Literary Reading and Classroom Constraints: Aligning Practice with Theory" (Patrick X. Dias); and (8) "To Teach (Literature)?" (Anthony Petrosky). (NKA) ******** ************************************ ********** M*********** ***** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ************** ***** ** ********* ** ******** ******************************* U DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Ottwe 01 Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RE SOURCES INFORMATION CE NTE R tERIct r This document nes been retvoducod as received from the person or Organization or.g.nahng .1 r Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction Quality E'enntS Of we,* Or 00InIOnS Stated ,n this Onicu mem do not necessarily represent official OERI POSition or policy a Ii a _A I 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Literature Instruction A Focus on Student Response Edited by Judith A. Langer Albany State University of New York at National Council of Teachers of English 61801 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois NCTE Editorial Board: Richard Abrahamson, Celia Genishi, Joyce Kinkead, Louise W. Phelps, Gladys V. Veidemanis, Charles Suhor, chair, ex officio, Michael Spooner, ex officio Staff Editor: William Tucker Cover Design: Canton Bruett Interior Book Design: Tom Kovacs for TGK Design NCTE Stock Number 33185-3050 0 1992 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and to obtain all permissions. In the case of those copyright holders who could not be located or those, if any, who did not respond, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements upon receiving notice. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. Preparation of these reports was supported in part by a grant number G008720278, which is cosponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (0ERVED), and by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of OERI/ED or NEA, and no official endorsement of either agency should be inferred. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : a focus on student response / edited by Literature instruction Judith A. Langer. cm. p. Outgrowth of a variety of projects of the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, State University of New York at Albany. ISBN 0-8141-3318-5 1. Litirature--Study and teachingUnited States. Langer, I. II. State University of New York at Albany. Center for Judith A, the Learning and Teaching of Literature LB1575.5.U5L58 1992 807dc20 91-38081 CIP Contents vii Introduction Judith A. Langer 1. The Background for Reform 1 Arthur N. Applebee 10 2. Testing Literature Alan C. Purves 35 3. Rethinking Literature Instruction Judith A. Langer 54 4. Five Kinds of Liteiary Knowing Robert E. Probst 78 in the Teaching of Literature 5. Challenging Questions Susan Ifynds 101 Explorer 6. Teaching Literature: From Clerk to Jayne DeLawter 7, Literary Reading and Classroom Constraints: 131 Aligning Practice with Theory Patrick X. Dias 163 8. To Teach (Literature)? Anthony Petroskv 207 Editor 209 Contributors Introduction Judith A. Langer State University of New York at Albany of projects of the This book is not only the outgrowth of a variety but also an ongoing Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, stimulate national reform in the part of its continuing mission to emphases has been teaching of literature. Among the Center's major reconceptualization of the teaching of literature a revitalization and and critical with a particular emphasis on the special kinds of creative Thus, the thinking that separate literary experiences from others. the tolerance exploration of possibilities, the welcome of ambiguity, separate the for multiple interpretations, as well as the quest to the heart of indefensible from the theoretically sound have been at This has placed students' growing ability our instructional concerns. and others' understandings at the to develop and ponder their own center of instruction. research carried out Some of the chapters that follow are reports of from 1987 through during the first three years of the Center's existence, conference the 1990. Other chapters were prepared for a teacher's Teaching of Literature.- Center sponsored called "New Directions in the additional issues Still other chapters were commissioned to provide Center's Report for consideration. All have appeared as part of the following. This NCTE Series, and have been read by a small hut loyal ideas to be presented publication provides the first opportunity for these reach a wider readership. as a related whole and to latest thinking Together, the chapters provide an overview of the pointing to new and needed directions on response-oriented instruction, the argument for for instructional change. Chapters 1 and 2 provide particular concerns that change in literature education, and point to Applebee discusses need to be addressed. In the first chapter, Arthur studies of literature the findings from a series of surveys and classroom what he learned to raise a instruction across the United States, using points for any number of issues he feels must be addressed as starting vii t; Judith A. Langer viii meaningful reform. In the next chapter, Alan Purves discusses his the studies of formal and informal literature testing and descrfoes limitations he found in the conceptualization as well as presentation of present-day tests. He then suggests several dimensions that should be considered in the future. Both Applebee and Purves argue that theories instruction and assessment in literature continue to be based on of criticism and of learning that are no longer current in their respective fields, and consequently call for a new theory of effective teaching longer and learning of literature to guide both day-to-day practice and Judith Langer discusses her range curriculum planning. In chapter 3, student-re- two complementary strands of research that underlie a sponse-based view of the learning and teaching of literature. First, she examines the nature of literary understanding and the ways it develops during reading and discussion, and contrasts it with meaning making she when reading other types of materialfor other purposes. Then, describes findings from a series of collaborative studies that explored the effective ways in which literature instruction could support students' literary understandingsupporting their ability to arrive at and go beyond their initial responses. Each of the remaining chapters suggests a particular approach to literature instruction from a student-response perspectiveone that they are supports students not oniy in coming to understand the texts reading, but in learning to engage in the kinds of creative and ciitical thinking that underlie the literary experience, in chapter 4, Robert Probst, from a reader-response perspective, discusses ways in which literature instruction can reflect the literary experience as a coming as a significant event in a reader's together of reader and text, 1 k describes five kinds of reader- intellectual and emotional life. knowledge the teacher can tap in supporting such transactions. In chapter 5, Susan Hynds focuses on the use of questions, suggesting of that by reflecting on the cognitive, social, and cultural dimensions of the questions they ask, teachers can gain insight into the kinds thinking they prompt their students to experience. She then addresses thinking, in questions and classroom contexts that support student chapter 6, Jayne DeLawter focuses on the elementary classroom, clerk" with contrasting the skills-oriented teacher's role as "curriculum describes the student-response-oriented teacher as "explorer." She then instructional patterns that go beyond the basalization of literature and lived-in organize classrooms to support students engagement in the literary experience. In chapter 7, Patrick Dias suggests issues to be considered when rethinking instructional practice and provides a lie de- portrait of what response-based classrooms might look like. 7 --INIMIVIIIMMIN, ix Introduction in order to illustrate the scribes one instructional procedure in detail roles and tasks promote authentic thinking ways in which particular In the last chapter, and invite readers to create their own poems. models that support uni- Anthony Petrosky argues against teaching of teachers and students dimensional and restricted thinking on the part multiplicity of viewpoints that are alike, and contrasts them with the "field of play." As an example actively considered and reconsidered in a supports rethinking and of his position that continuous conversation reviewers of his chapter reformulation, he uses the comments of the his him to reconsider his original paper about as a voice that caused is literature instruction. Thus, his original paper own approaches to and epilogue. The prologue presented intact, bounded by a prologue developed in response to the reviewers' presents theoretical ideas he his realization that his original comments, and the epilogue presents experiences. Thus we are lesson was driven by his own idiosyncratic provided him with the led to see how the reviewers' comments first position. This demonstration perspective to move beyond his understanding is always becomes part of his argument that literary ideas or others'. subject to reconsideration, based on one's own for student-response-based In all, this book discusses possibilities through college. Although literature instruction from elementary grades funding for the Literature Center is no longer the case, original it middle and high school grades. limited the scope of its activities to the volume reflect this focus, While the majority of chapters in this with elementary and DeLawter's is the only one to deal expressly theoretical notions un- Petrosky's with college classes. However, the the teaching practices that derlying response-based instruction and both grade and "achievement support it are ageless, cutting across levels." dialogue leading to principled This volume is offered to stimulate conceptualizations of what reformone that is anchored in new how to determine what student response entails, how to teach it, and how to create educational counts as knowing fa this perspective, and thrive. environments in which hiudent response can grow for Reform 1 The Background Arthur N. Applebee Albany State University of New York at of literature has received During the past few years, the teaching profession and from the public increasing attention both within the cultural from a concern that traditional at large. This attention stems (e.g.. Hirsch, 1987), from values are not receiving sufficient emphasis curriculum (e.g., Bennett, 1988), attempts to reinforce the academic whether recent changes and from teachers who have begun to question implications for the teaching of in writing instruction may have discussions have been intense, literature as well. Though some of these evidence about the characteristics of they have lacked a solid base of practiced in American schools. literature instruction as it is currently guide their teaching of literature? What goals do teachers propose to these selections presented? To What selections do they use? How are instruction differentiated for students what extent are curriculum and What, in fact, are the most pressing of differing interests or abilities? teaching of literature? issues of theory and practice in the the Center for the Learning and To answer questions such as these, series of studies of the Teaching of Literature has been carrying out a These have included a elementary and secondary school curriculum. works that are required in the secondary survey of the book-length of the role of literary selections school (Applebee, 1989a), an analysis and Purves, 1989), case studies of in published tests (Brody, De Milo, English (Ap- with reputations for excellence in programs in schools of literature in elementary school plebee, 1989b), analyses of the place of the selec- Walp, 1989), a content analysis programs (Wahnsley and in secondary school literature tions and teaching apparatus included designed to provide a anthologies (Applebee, in press), and a survey in representative samples of broad portrait of methods and materials these studies have been schools nationally (Applebee, 1990). Together, of current instruction---the back- designed to provide a rich portrait will take place. ground against which any reform 1 Arthur N. Applebee 2 Competing Models of the English Language Arts Since the 1970s, a variety of movements have affected the teaching of the English language arts in general and the teaching of literature in particular. One important set of movements affecting the teaching of English has come from outside the profession. In the 1970s, public the job concern about students' abilities to perform successfully in market led to a widespread emphasis on "basic skills." This, in turn, led to the institutionalization of a variety of forms of minimum competency testing in the majority of states, and reinforced a "language skills" emphasis in the teaching of the English language arts. The emphasis on basic skills prompted its cwn reaction during the following decade, in the form of a reassertion of the traditional values of a liberal, academic curriculum. Calls for a return to -excellence," for a of "cultural more academic curriculum, and for the preservation literacy" are all rooted in this liberal (and paradoxically, in this context, conservative) tradition. Like the emphasis on basic skills that preceded this emphasis also came largely from outside the professional it, education community but has led to a widespread reexamination of curriculum and materials in the teaching of the English language arts. Even as these external calls have been shaping the teaching of English, leaders of the profession have been searching for a new basis for the curriculum. The difficulty of that process was evident in a report from the NCTE Commission on the English Curriculum, Its report, Three Language Arts Curricuhon Models (Mandel, 1980), did not attempt to reconcile the many competing models within the profession, but instead presented three alternative, comprehensive curriculum models for prekindergarten through college. The three models represent long-standing traditions in the English language arts: one was student centered, emphasizing -personal growth"; one was content centered, emphasizing the preservation of a cultural heritage; and one was skill centered, emphasizing the development of language competendes. In contrast to the eclecticism represented by the Curriculum Corn- mission volume, the most fully developed models to be offered for language arts instruction in recent years have been based on construe- tivist theories of language use and language development. Construc- tivist approaches have a variety of roots, with related frameworks fields as seemingly diverse as linguistics, psychology, emerging in history of science, sociology, and philosophy (on constructivist theories, What scholars in see Langer and Applebee, 1986; Applebee, in press). this tradition share is a view of knowledge as an active construction built up by the individual acting within a social context that shapes 1 0