As writers, we have the goal of communicating ideas to our readers. In a perfect world, we can probably expect them to take our words at face value, and be influenced by our theories, convictions, and whatnot.
But in real life, readers come from all sorts of backgrounds and influences that affect how they receive the information we share. This is the foundational premise of the reader response theory.
A theory that grew in importance during the 1960s, the reader response theory holds that the reader’s reaction to any given text is more important than the actual content. This was largely driven by a post-structuralist emphasis on the reader’s role as being more actively constructing texts instead of just being passive consumers.
The main persons behind the theory include literacy scholars like Wolfgant Iset, David Bleich, and Stanley Fish, and it has gained popularity especially in Germany and the United States.
For example, the New Criticism approach believes that any work already comes with objective meaning. In contrast, the reader-response theory believes that any text does not have any definite meaning until the audience comes along and reads it.
From this perspective, a reader response critic plays a very important role. He looks into the scope and various nuances of reader reactions to any given text. Then he analyzes the different ways that individual readers or groups of them, referred to as “interpretive communities,” make sense of any of the content.
This takes into account their unique personal reactions, as well as culturally or socially conditioned attitudes and thought processes. This means that demographic factors can play into how a particular reader receives a given text. For example, their gender, culture, educational background, ability, and many other factors can influence the way they respond.
Although the reader response theory makes sense, some arguments against it are presented in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-structuralism in Tomkin’s edited volume in 1980. He believes that reader response does not automatically translate into a uniform position, but that it’s the work of theorists who focus on the reader and the reading process.
Also, it doesn’t mean that all text is subject to reader interpretation. For example, for ancient texts like the Bible or classical works, scholars agree that the best way to understand them is to learn the context and the author’s original intent. This might perhaps be the opposite stance to reader response, wherein the readers are encouraged to enter the author’s world, instead of vice versa.
While reader response is a theory that focuses on the importance of a reader’s background in responding to a text, many schools give out what we call a reading response paper. These are not the same thing.
A reading response assignment usually comes in the form of a reaction paper, an essay that describes how a certain book or reading material affected you, the student. It can draw on the reader response theory in that it honors individual differences and focuses on how each person responds in a unique way to the same text. This means that teachers are called upon to appreciate each person’s response, instead of looking for a right or wrong answer.
Schools increasingly use reader response as a strategy for students to interact more actively with the text. A reader’s response can be an essay, a critique, an analysis, or a paper about a certain piece of writing. This might be a novel, a poem, a short story, or a nonfiction work.
One form of reading response is during-reading response, wherein the students actually write at the very same time as they read the text. These help readers probe, challenge, and question while reading, and it also helps them make connections. This strategy is a form of scaffolding to encourage students in critical thinking.
Some prompts for during-reading response include:
While the during-reading response usually employs short, spontaneous lines conveying impulsive thought, an actual reading response paper takes a bit more time to prepare.
A reading response assignment has the following benefits:
British educator Charlotte Mason believes that we only assimilate what we’ve read once we narrate it back, whether to ourselves or to someone else. The reader response helps the student contemplate on what they’ve read, and writing down their thoughts helps to cement those ideas.
After encouraging students to ruminate on what they’ve read, it also lets them form their thoughts out on paper. This forms the other half of the communication process, from input to output.
The required output also helps teachers see just how deeply the student understood the text, and if there are any gaps in comprehension.
The good news is that since a reader response paper talks about your personal reaction to reading the given piece, teachers usually do not grade it based on right or wrong answers. Instead, it lets you explore your own interpretations and reasonings behind it.
Here are some things you might want to include in your reader response:
The reader response theory offers big help to the academe, in that teachers can require a paper that lets the student express how they respond to a given text. This does away with objective-type answers where everyone needs to know just the right facts, and instead encourages critical thinking and making connections.
Although we believe that the reader response theory plays an important role, it also doesn’t mean that all text is subject to interpretation. It depends greatly on the genre and the nature of the material, and we encourage you to use your own discretion.
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!
Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
