Chapter 33

Chapter 33
“The Effect of Reader Stance on Students’ Personal Understanding of Literature”

Joyce E. Many reviews the results of the Rosenblatt study in which a reader’s understandings are varied depending on the reader’s personal version or individual interpretations. Many’s purpose of her study was to further explore the variations by investigating an older population. Her specific purposes were 1) to describe the stances taken in eighth-grade subjects’ responses to literature, 2) analyze the relationship between the reader’s stance in a response and the level of understanding reached in the response, and 3) analyze whether the relationship between reader stance and level of understanding is consistent across individual texts.
• Subjects- 26 male and 25 female eighth-graders, one school served students from low SES and the other serving students form middle to upper SES and one class was randomly selected from English classes at each school.
• Materials- three realistic short stories.
• Procedure- Results from an earlier pilot study were used to chose stories used in the actual study and to refine data collection procedures. For data collection, subjects read and then responded to the prompt “Write anything you want about the story you just read.” Data was then analyzed to determine the primary stance of the response as a whole and the level of understanding. Several different instruments were used that rated levels of reader stance on an efferent (information learned from reading) to aesthetic (literary experience and emotions) continuum and the levels of reader’s understanding.
• Results-
o Analyses of stances subject took revealed responses at all points on the efferent-to-aesthetic continuum. Most efferent responses tended to be on evaluating literary elements or on the author’s writing style. Many of the analyses of the literary works tended to be shallow, but not all. Both Rosenblatt and Many indicated that readers may fluctuate between an efferent and an aesthetic stance when reading. In 18 % of the total responses, no primary stance could be determined. 44% fell at the aesthetic end with 33% falling in the most aesthetic stance.
• Aesthetic responses often involved visual imaging or personal feelings/ identification with characters.
• One story evoked what Cochran-Smith called life-to-text connections. Readers related their own problems or experiences to those in the story.
• Some readers chose a primarily aesthetic stance and extended story lines while others wrote what they were thinking as they read. Some readers filled in the gaps to rationalize events or behaviors or related the story to other stories they had read.
o Analysis of the relationship between stance and level of understanding were fairly consistent across texts. Students who focused on the aesthetic stance were more likely to interpret, apply, and draw generalizations of story events to life or about the world. For students who focused on the ‘lived-through’ experience had a higher level of understanding then those who responded with no primary stance. All in all, the results indicated that the relationship between stance and level of understanding were not text specific.
• Conclusions- The aesthetic stance provided a literacy experience more meaningful and relevant. Those that were asked to take an efferent approach (i.e. literary elements such as plot, character development, etc.) responded with shallowness. Responses written from the aesthetic stance indicated higher levels of understanding. Stance is a factor affecting response to literature regardless of literary text. If teachers want to illicit personal meaning in literature, they should consider aesthetic teaching strategies that may invite open responses, give students time to respond, provide time for discussions, encourage connections, and focus attention on the lived-through experience of literature. Lastly, this study provided empirical support for use of the aesthetic stance.