Responses to Literature

Children seek pleasure from a story, but are limited by their physical, cognitive, and affective development. A person's response to a piece of literature is the only way to know what they understand and feel about a piece of literature or literature in general.

Responses may be immediate or deferred and internal or external. A deferred response may not happen until another influence sparks it, thus making it hard sometimes to distinguish literature as an influence in a person's life.

The most important kinds of responses come with personal involvement, without it people stop interacting, and voluntary involvement with literature is halted. The choice to be involved and maintain their involvement, usually lead to a positive emotional response or positive feelings toward literature and people involved with it.

Kinds of Responses

Emotional responses

"I can feel the frustration!"

"That character reminds me of when I..."

"I would like to live in that place."

"I would not like to have lived during that time."

"I would like to know that character."

"This reminds me of ..."

A child smiles and giggles after reciting a poem and repeats a few rhythmic lines over and over.

People who are involved emotionally comprehend and evaluate their reading / viewing / listening better than those who aren't. Therefore, knowing the reader / listener / viewer can help you anticipate his or her emotional reactions and interact to facilitate his or her growth.

Interpretive responses: All involved readers / viewers / listeners are continually making meaning of literature with their interpretations. They interpret words, visuals, or sounds singularly and in combinatins for the stylistic devices such as rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, metaphor, allusion, irony, and/or symbolism. They make inferences about the nature of characters, the setting, and the author's motives. They react to plot, mood, point of view, tone, and define the genre of the work.

That character is really evil.

This story isn't true, is it?

I liked it when the author said that the wheat fields looked like his brother after a buzz cut.

I don't think Camazots is on Earth. In fact it's not in the solar system and maybe not even in our galaxy.

Evaluative responses: is when the reader / listener / viewer explains what they think the author did or should have done based on a standard. If a child says that the book is one of the best s/he have ever read and tells why compared to another piece of literature or other standard, they are giving an evaluative response. If a child says that a character should do something. You wouldn't know if it was an evaluative response unless it's explained in relation to a standard.

"This book is boring because there is not enough action."

I liked the way the author describes everything that makes you feel like you are there. She makes it seem so real. Like when she said Jess's muscles were popping like bacon on a griddle and by what she had Jess say to himself when he was trying to run away when he was told about Leslie's ...

A person asks if there are more books like the one(s) she or he just read and describes what they mean by just like.

A person's reaction to a song, video, advertisement, movie explaining what they liked and why.

As mentioned earlier, personal involvement is required to create meaningful responses, which can be internal or external. However, for the student to communicate a response, it must be external. This can be done through body expressions, oral remarks, drawings, diagrams, webs, written words, creative movement, dramatics, play activities, puppet manipulation, sculptures, and/or model making and many other kinds of activities.

Responses can be evaluated by listening to student's or looking at the artifacts they create. Information collected from different activities might fit into the following categories:

knowledge of literary elements and genre..

ability to interpret different pieces of literature

ability to evaluate different pieces of literature

ability to create literature that is video, music, oral, dramatic, graphic, or written

desire to participate in literary experiences

desire to respond to literature

desire to create literature

value literature and the creative process

In the elementary school these emotional and interpretive responses are critical as they allow readers to enter into a story and make it their own. Resulting in better evaluative responses through increased comprehension (literal, inferential, and evaluative or critical), and appreciation.

The interaction of these with a comprehension and reading model are illustrated in this model.

The development of these responses can be measured with this scoring guide.

While reading and comprehension skills are attained with experience of literature, experience alone is insufficient to move students to literacy. Personal development of children and adolescents moves students toward a more comprehensive understanding of literature. To better understand this development and how it is related to various developmental levels as described in various theories check out this link.

Dr. Robert Sweetland's Notes ©