By: Travis Crowder
I watched as he finished his book, then stared at the cover.
After several moments, he glanced around the room and caught my eyes. We need to talk, his expression said. So, I maneuvered my way through the tangled mass of readers to check in with him.
Last school year marked my seventh year in 7th grade. At the year’s end, I was asked to move back to 8th grade, practically looping with many of the kids I had taught and returning to the grade level where I started my career. I knew this reader because I had watched him advance from formulaic to complex narrative structures the year before, finding his way into books with multiple narrators and novels written in verse. Last week, he had already finished his first book, and this was his second. Now, he needed to talk.
“Hey, John, what did you think of the book?” I asked.
His response was laced with emotion and reflective thinking. He told me about characters, motivations, and why he loved the book. At the end of our conversation, he admitted, “I would not have been ready for this book last year. Now, I’m more interested in nonfiction. I want to read more like this.” So we looked at his to-read list and other books in the classroom library related to the one he had just finished. He found one and settled into it during the last precious moments of independent reading.
Earlier in my teaching life, I leaned toward teacher-centric approaches to teaching reading. I viewed my role in a traditional way: students read books, poems, informational texts, and short stories and answered the questions I generated. I graded their answers, went over them in class, then introduced another text that I massacred with more questions. When I started reading professional texts, the ideas I found in them challenged how I thought about reading and thinking about texts alongside students. Response—the thoughts, reactions, feelings, wonderings and noticings readers have about texts—seemed to be the more humane option. I have never regretted altering my approach.
I tend to believe that standardization has caused us—students and educators—to forget that we are sentient beings and capable of expressing feelings about the things we read. Part of pushing back against this paradigm involves me asking students how they feel about texts. And why. Naturally, we establish ways to interrogate those feelings, but response remains an important part of textual analysis. I’ve found that it leads readers to deeper thinking and connection.
But not everyone agrees.
While there is literature to support response (Probst, 2014; Roessing, 2007; Rosenblatt, 1995; Vijayarahoo & Samuels, 2013), response can get pushed aside in favor of more “academic” pursuits, sometimes in the form of multiple-choice tests, “right” answers, and teacher-centered discourse. And I get it—especially when teachers feel pressure to “teach to the test.”
But it does not have to be this way.
And for administrators reading this, I encourage you to consider what students and teachers are missing when response is not validated in the classroom. Response goes beyond “I enjoyed it” or “It was interesting.” It comes from the heart AND the mind. When readers respond, they lean in to their thoughts, feelings, questions, and concerns. After we discuss critical lenses, students not only question the texts (what’s missing—voices, ideas, perspectives—and why?) (German, 2021; Moje, 1999; Slattery, 2013) but also reflect on their reactions and feelings. What might have caused me to react this way? What does this tell me about myself as a reader? What questions do I have? What is my reading life missing? What texts would help fill my reading gaps and answer the questions I have? Response carries students further. It is a necessary component of our instructional practice.
John used response to think more deeply about his book. After discussing what he liked and how the book made him feel, I nudged him further. What is something you noticed? He mentioned how the book’s structure, written in a multigenre format, and how that structure engaged him as a reader and helped him understand the characters even more.
“How?,” I asked.
“Because I could see them from different perspectives.”
“Can you show me an example?,” I asked.
He turned through pages, showing me several instances of solid characterization and character development.
“Why do you think the author did this?,” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he replied.
So I invited him to spend several minutes in his notebook and share with me a bit later. If we don’t understand the main character, we don’t understand the story, he wrote. Seeing different perspectives helps me understand why the character did what he did. But with all of these different friendships and relationships with people, why would he make the decision he did? His response led to analysis (Probst, 2014). And while I could invite him to think further, his final inquiry demonstrates that he is still wrestling with an analysis. He picked up another book with multigenre elements and multiple narrators for his next read. As he reads this new one, new insights will form that will open new possibilities for response (and analysis) regarding this current book and his last one. I can’t wait to hear his thinking.
I continue to advocate for response because, again and again, I watch students’ ideas evolve when they have opportunities to write or speak to their ideas and feelings. They respond their way into intersections of inquiry and many times realize the text holds more than they first realized. Beautiful thinking emerges, and instead of focusing on my questions, they are focusing on theirs.
Given time to respond to the texts, I am confident that students will lean toward analysis, citing evidence to support their thinking. I am also confident that provocative, relevant texts can generate plenty of conversation between and among students, prompting them to dig beneath the surface, consider their relation to the text, change their minds about ideas, and ask questions. Response is that powerful.
Louise Rosenblatt (1995) stated that part of the work of the literature teacher is helping students understand what literature means and does for them. Response guides students to this discovery. And it’s just good practice. Without response, I wonder what John would have noticed. I believe that time to talk about his reactions and to write about his wonderings strengthened his understanding. He started with what the text meant to him, then responded his way to analysis.
I look forward to another year of thinking and learning alongside students. As we continue to read, I will nudge them to pay attention to their reactions and feelings. Here’s to another year of reading and honoring the beauty of response.
I look forward to what you and your students will notice, wonder, and learn.
References
Probst, R. (2014). Response and analysis: Teaching literature in secondary school (2nd ed.).
Heinemann.
German, L. (2021). Textured teaching: A framework for culturally sustaining practice.
Heinemann.
Slattery, P. (2013). Curriculum development in the Postmodern Era: Teaching and learning in an
age of accountability (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Moje, E. (1999). From expression to dialogue: A study of social action literacy projects in an
urban school setting. The Urban Review, 31(3), 305-330.
Rosenblatt, L. (1995). Literature as exploration (5th ed.). Modern Language Association.
Vijayarajoo, A. R. & Samuel, M. (2013). Reader-response pedagogy and changes in student
stances in literary texts. The English Teacher, 42(3), 174-186.
