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OVERVIEW: Last week, I asked you to read and respond to Louise Rosenblatt and Frank Smith and consider what they have to tell us about what we do when we read, how we do it, how it shapes us, what the ideal conditions are for reading. Rosenblatt was a teacher and cared about reading as a teacher of reading. Smith was a linguist and. cared about reading from a physiological perspective.
This week, we wrap up our reading of reading theory with Wolfgang Iser. I know that Iser is not an easy read. Iser is writing at the height of postmodernism--the early 1980s--at a moment in literary criticism when folks were very engaged in Big Theory. His writing deeply reflects that. He writes about reading as someone who cares about defining and evaluating literature--capital L for sure. To be clear, I am not interested in defining and evaluating literature and that's not why I'm asking you to read Iser. Rather, I think that the value of Iser is that he helps me, as a teacher of literacy, explain to myself why it's important for me to challenge my students as readers--to bring difficult texts into the classroom that my students might struggle with. FOR TODAY'S POST: Explain me to me. In other words, as you summarize and analyze the Iser selection, please connect with what I'm saying about the value of difficult texts in the classroom. Using Iser's terminology and argument, identify what a "difficult text" would look like for a reader. What makes it difficult? What is the job of the reader when they approach a difficult text? And why is this a good thing? KEEP IN MIND: There is definite overlap between Smith and Iser in particular. Make that connection in your post. FINALLY: Remember how I tell my first year students that if they are confused by parts of the text they should feel free to ask those questions, to talk about that confusion? You are allowed to do that to and, in fact, I encourage you to do that. IN RESPONSE TO ONE OR MORE OF YOUR COLLEAGUES: Help your classmates out by offering your ideas about what they don't understand. Additionally, if you think someone missed the point of something, add that to their response. If you can connect ideas in Iser to ideas in either Smith or Rosenblatt--particularly if those connections help to clarify ideas in Iser.
17 Comments
Elizabeth Cheesman
6/15/2021 04:38:02 am
Iser describes literacy in three stages: identifying qualities that make each story unique, basic elements and indeterminacy. Nobody has an ordinary experience with a text and all readers react to it differently. It is important to bring texts into a classroom that encourage students to explore all stages. Instead of providing students with text dependent or inferential questions, educators need to challenge students. Diving into the qualities and elements of the story to create a connection and meaning may strengthen students’ ability to grow in literacy. When thinking back to Rosenblatt’s theory of the mind, body and brain, Iser helps educators see that each part of these elements act like a muscle. A difficult text would look like a reader thinking about why an author chose to use various story elements and details may strengthen the muscles or mental tools they need to grow as not only readers but also writers. This is why challenging texts are important and also what makes hard texts difficult; constant manipulation and analysis of the text with all muscles. Iser argues that readers’ reactions and attitudes to a literacy text contribute to the “reality” of a text. It may be difficult to find the reality of challenging texts but with practice and investigation, students acquire more critical thinking to help them in the future. Smith argues that thinking and responding to reading and writing should not be static. Moreover, the job of the reader when approaching a difficult text is to use all muscles of the brain, body and mind to create a new reality and experience with the text to further literacy skills. This is a good thing because the more stretching and practice of skills to break apart and make meaning for a text, the more that reading experience can be created.
Sarah Egan
6/15/2021 06:47:52 am
Elizabeth,
Sarah Egan
6/15/2021 06:26:44 am
The author discusses that if texts provided their readers with the overall message of their work and allowed for little interpretation, there would not be much of a purpose for the reader to read the work. Some may argue that the meaning of the text is nothing more than the experience that an individual may encounter. The author states, “meanings in the literary texts are generated in the act of reading; they are the product of a complex interaction between text and reader” (2). The meaning of literary text cannot have one particular meaning. A literary text can never provide their readers with factual information (similar to a legal text), these texts are fictional. An author should allow their readers to engage and participate in the fate of the characters. We can’t identify the literary work with just the text or the realization of it, it has to be a little of both the aspects. Reading is a creative process and the author has to find a way to create this experience by leaving room for interpretation. The author leaves “gaps” for the reader that allow the reader to make assumptions about the text and actively participate in it. Wolfgang notes that the meaning of a text comes alive through the readers imagination. A difficult text would be something that leaves little room for a reader to develop their own ideas. The process of reading a text is an important one as it allows readers to discover their own truth and students have to be challenged. Texts use different elements and strategies to allow readers to work their imaginations.
Aliyah Pires
6/15/2021 09:41:47 am
Sarah,
Aliyah Pires
6/15/2021 09:38:00 am
Iser’s writing and argument deals a lot with what literacy is and how important it is for educators to incorporate it in different ways. Ultimately, he describes literacy in three stages including identifying qualities that make each story unique, basic elements and indeterminacy. Educators realize that students interpret texts differently based on many different aspects and it is so important to leave room for that different interpretation among all students. This relates back to Smith’s argument perfectly as he states that teachers should prompt their students to develop their own meaning of a text instead of providing a meaning for them to go from. In order to decide what a difficult reading is you have to keep this argument in mind. For Iser, a difficult text is based on how much constant analysis and manipulation of the text the reader is doing to try to understand the reading more clearly. Difficult texts have readers trying to figure out exactly what the author is trying to say rather than building their own interpretations of the reading. Difficult texts leave little room for imagination of the reader to expand. Having these difficult texts involved in students learning helps them in gaining better critical thinking skills as they work the muscles in their brain and that is why it is so important to introduce them to students.
Alexis Medeiros
6/15/2021 11:26:05 am
Great response. I noticed our responses share some of the same points! It's crazy because I do my responses a week ahead because of my crazy schedule but its refreshing to see that someone else sees the text in the same way that I do! I made the same connection with Smith as you did! You're right as educators we need to realize that all students see the text differently. I feel like as educators we have driven away from that every point and instead we want all students to see the text in the same way and be cookie cutter images of themselves. We have really driven away from creativity and come together to try and unify the way students interpret literature. We need to go back to this point and allow students to interpret the text they do. In our society if we emphasize diversity we should be emphasizing that same point in the way students understand literature! Students should be able to interpret the text for the way they want to and not the way the teachers want them to.
Lauren Wrigley
6/15/2021 01:21:59 pm
I accidentally posted my reply to you on the main comments, so I thought I’d copy and paste it here under your actual response.
Alexis Medeiros
6/15/2021 11:21:50 am
The reading from Wolfgang Iser’s The Anthropology of Reading was eye opening. The reading related a lot to our previous read Literature as Exploration and Understanding Reading, as I feel they made a lot of the same points. This particular text started with the basic fundamental question, “The fundamental question is, however, what actually does take place between text and reader?” (Wolfgang 3). Often times as teacher’s and especially in my own life I feel as though I never think of the basic interaction that occurs between the reader and the text. The relationship between the text and the reader can be determined through 3 stages. Those three stages are, “to indicate the special qualities of a literary text that distinguish it from other kinds of discourse”(5), “analyze the basic elements that trigger the response to literary works”(5), and lastly, “clarify the observable increase of indeterminacy in narrative literature since the eighteenth century” (6). The reader needs to indicate what particular attributes of the text they are reading make it different from other texts. Often times I know I try to compare texts from one another instead of seeing the ways in which they stand our from others, so I thought that what was a great way to really focus on the text at hand instead of trying to see how it relates to another. The reader is then suppose to analyze the basic elements that make the text determine a response for it readers. Lastly, the reader needs to determine what particular attributes make it stand out. All of these three steps that a reader does while reading could be different from reader to reader.
Emma Healy
6/15/2021 11:56:53 am
Alexis,
Gabriel El Khoury
6/15/2021 12:12:53 pm
Great point at the end there, Alexis. Students, I would argue, want to be challenged, want to be forced to engage deeply and to build skills in the process of their thorough engagement with a text. However, are there texts that are truly too difficult to teach? Difficulty is undoubtedly difficult to gauge, seeing as how, as Emma keenly noted, "difficult reading occurs for all readers, even those who are experienced." Additionally, I am wondering, are there any readings that are universally applicable in a classroom setting? Again, there is quite a range in students' abilities to comprehend, which likely means that there is no one-size-fits-all material to assign to any classroom. Still, these questions are doubtless worth considering and doubtless generative of future discussions.
Gabriel El Khoury
6/15/2021 11:49:22 am
Wolfgang Iser’s The Anthropology of Reading borrows heavily from the philosophy of Susan Sontag, who strongly advocates for “an erotics of art” (3) to go beyond the commonplace hermeneutical approach to reading and deriving meaning from what has been read (3). Is meaning individualist in nature, shaped by our psychology, or is it inherent and inextricably linked to text? Readers are just as equally responsible for ascribing meaning to a piece of writing. “It is we who bring the text to life” (5); it “comes alive in the reader’s imagination” (41). A work of writing’s reality is constructed insofar as a reader is actively participating and responding to it (7). If a work of writing strays too far from our understanding of how the world ordinarily operates, if it presents too many “gaps of indeterminacy” (7), then we superimpose our experience of the external world onto a work of writing in order to make sense of it. Particularly striking is this idea Sontag forwards of a work of writing clashing with our preconceived notions of the world, coming in conflict with our familiar world (8) and taking on an almost adversarial nature, counterbalanced only by life experience. Another aspect of this week’s assigned reading I felt was worth recording for future reference: Writing (and the effects it has on us) exists in a “halfway position between the external world of objects and the reader’s own world of experience (8). Literature exists solely in a state of inconclusiveness (9) and constant inference; it plays with inexactitudes, forcing readers to fill in the gaps of the reading process themselves. Reading demands participation (10). “Cutting technique,” which Dickens and other serialized others knew well, is used to suspend suspense indefinitely (11); it is in these deliberate and calculated interruptions (11), these intentional breaks in the continuous reading process which help stimulate a reader. These pauses improve participation; causing the reader to insert himself or herself into “the unwritten part of the book” (21). James Joyce’s Ulysses is presented as an example of an author unfulfilling a reader’s expectations (in a good way). It seems almost counterintuitive, to not fulfill the reader’s expectations, and yet what would be the purpose of reading anything else if a single work of writing truly fulfilled us? As the writings of Beckett express, writing must engage and exasperate a reader in equal measure (28). “Literature stimulates life” (29) is a splendid way of conceptualizing the purpose of reading. Powerful writing has as much of a life off the page as it does on, prompting questions and inquiries that continue even when the book is closed. The reciprocal nature of the relationship between “structure and its recipient” (31), the give and take of the text.
Emma Healy
6/15/2021 11:49:41 am
Iser asks the question, what takes place between the text and the reader? A reader’s job is to bring a text to life, essentially bringing the past to the present over and over again. The meaning of a text stems from the relationship between the reader and the text. The relationship between a text and reader is divided into three sections: indicating the special qualities of a literary text, analyze the basic elements that trigger responses to literary texts, and clarify the increase of indeterminacy. Iser suggests a reader can have two reactions to a literary text, either fantastic or trivial. Fantastic responses come from experiences that differ from our own while a trivial response is something, we are strongly familiar with. Reading a text, a second time changes from the first time because the reader has more information and more knowledge that can be implied for interpretation. The three stages of contextual levels are semantic, pragmatic, and syntactic, which steer the reader in one direction on how to read a text. The narrator’s role in a text is to keep the reader interested and guessing. The reader’s goal is to discover the narrator’s purpose for telling the story. Each chapter of a book requires readers to fill in the empty spaces and fulfill their own expectations. The meaning of the text is filtered in, but it is up to the reader to bring it out, specifically, through the imagination. A reader wants to experience literature to step into another world than their own and gives them freedom to interpret in their own way. Relating this to difficult texts, Iser is heavily influenced between the relationship of the reader and the text. A difficult text’s meaning isn’t usually explicitly stated, therefore, it may take a few read throughs to uncover meaning. Iser also claims there are multiple ways to approach and react to a text as a reader which can influence how a difficult text is understood. A difficult text is a good thing for readers because they are continuously being challenged, are learning, and gaining new knowledge. Smith believes reading a text is up to the reader on how to interpret it. To understand difficult texts, readers need to have fluent reading abilities. Fluent reading involves making predictions. The more we read, the better we are; therefore, experience increases our reading abilities. As Smith states, difficult reading can occur for experienced readers too, not just beginning readers, aligning with Iser’s views. Both articles argue that reading, specifically difficult texts, facilitates deeper levels of thinking.
Lauren Wrigley
6/15/2021 12:30:44 pm
Wolfgang Iser’s reading theory closely parallels Frank Smith’s ideas in that, interpretation of reading is individualized by the reader-- that readers rely on their individual experiences when reading and interpreting the meaning of texts. In this selection, Iser explores the relationship between text and reader by analyzing three components: the special qualities of literary texts, the basic elements that trigger literary response, and the concept of indeterminacy in literature. Similar to Smith’s idea that the conventions of a text permit the expectations of readers, Iser refers to these qualities in reference to the level of indeterminacy that occurs in a text, suggesting that the interpretation of meaning is dependent on the level of indeterminacy. Iser also maintains that the meaning of a text is only derived through the process between the reader and the text itself. Essentially, the meaning of a text is a product of both: the literary elements provided by the author and the individual experience of the reader.
Elizabeth Cheesman
6/15/2021 01:02:26 pm
Knowing students need to have a connection and relationship with the text is important for understanding and thinking critically. Interpretation of text is so important and I still am confused at what Interdemendacy is but you saying that it closes room for interpretation makes much more sense to me. I agree that students need to be exposed to challenges to grow, especially in the system of Smith’s elements of the brain, body and mind working together. Students who struggle in literacy may lack connections and engagement or activation of all tools we need to be successful in literacy.
David Golden
6/15/2021 07:49:36 pm
Students will look for any connection they can find to their own lives when they are reading a piece. If that piece is relatable to them, that will affect their interpretation of the piece. I believe the comparison to indeterminacy and a reader's overall comfortability to a piece to be quite unique. I agree with the thought of indeterminacy as a gap that the reader needs to fill. Although I do believe the reader can always fill in the gaps of a piece if they spend enough time becoming comfortable with it. Experience is what drives the author and reader. If both strive to become better, then the entire experience will be quite pleasant.
Lauren Wrigley
6/15/2021 01:09:19 pm
I like the way you’ve interpreted the reading process with challenging texts; A focus on “how much constant analysis and manipulation of the text the reader is doing” can demonstrate how challenging the text is to the reader. I agree that a difficult text leaves little room for imagination when it comes to interpretation, but more exposure to these texts can help readers hone their skills at discovering these narrow meanings. I like that you used the term “work the muscles” because reading can be seen as an exercise— building the muscles of the mind. Students can build their critical thinking skills by ‘excersicing’ or reading more challenging the texts that demand these skills.
David Golden
6/15/2021 07:40:48 pm
Wolfgang Iser's "The Anthropology of Reading" was a particularly thrilling read. Iser and Smith's ideas are closely related. They both believe that a reader's understanding is vitally important when they are trying to understand a text or piece. Iser explains this as "The reader is compelled to take a more active part by filling in these additional gaps. If a novel seems to be better in this form, then this is clear evidence of the importance of indeterminacy in the text-reader relationship". Iser believes there is a special relationship between the text and the individual. It is up to them to derive the meaning of the text. If they do not have any background knowledge or the author does not make it particularly clear then the reader is not going to understand the piece. Leave a Reply. |
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