Rosenblatt & Smith: What do we do when we read and what does it tell us about the ELA classroom. Synchronous Class Discussion Board (Due by start of class on Thursday, 24 March 2021)

TORDA'S SPRING 2021 TEACHING

Rosenblatt & Smith: What do we do when we read and what does it tell us about the ELA classroom. Synchronous Class Discussion Board (Due by start of class on Thursday, 24 March 2021)

3/23/2021

OVERVIEW: Our first two readings come from two very different thinkers. Louise Rosenblatt is an important literary theorist and educator, though during her long career she was known more as an educator and teacher trainer than a literary theory because it was 1930 and she was a woman--Happy Women's History Month to us all. Much of her work would be rediscovered in the 80s, when Reader Response theory (which we will read a little bit of), became a thing.

Frank Smith, on the other hand, is a psycholinguist. This means that he paid attention to the things that go on in the brain when we read. I will admit: Frank Smith can be a slog. It's dense material about what the eye and brain do when we are trying to figure out a text. But knowing this stuff can really help us problem-solve when it comes to what our students are experiencing as readers.

After reading our two selections, please post your 200-300 word reading journal to this prompt: Identify key concepts in both Rosenblatt and Smith. Identify the ways these two theorists are saying similar things about reading in general and reading in the classroom.

Be prepared: In class, we'll read each other's posts and respond. No need to respond to classmates ahead of time. Also in class, I will ask you, in small groups. to explain to me what happened to us as readers during our Gertrude Stein experience in class on Tuesday. No need to do anything with that now, just preparing you for what I'm going to ask you to think about in class.

19 Comments

Sara McNaughton

3/23/2021 02:45:20 pm

Rosenblatt argues that we need to encourage students to become personally involved with the text. When we read, we join words and sounds in our head with an idea or past experience. Since humans have individual experiences, the meaning of a text will be individual as well. As teachers, Rosenblatt argues we can get our students involved with the text by letting them draw individual meaning from the text. When we feed them too much background information or interpretations, we stifle their originality. As she says, "No one, however, can read a poem for us" (Rosenblatt). Therefore, as teachers, we need to help our students develop and foster the skills they need to make individual meaning from the text with evidence and reasoning.
Smith has a similar approach to Rosenblatt because he recognizes that reading is a personal experience. He begins by saying the act of reading will always include the search for purpose. He mentions that how a word is used is more important than its definition. As future teachers, we can take note of that and teach that to our students. My main takeaway from Smith’s article is that “the basis of fluent reading is the ability to find answers in the visual information of written language to the particular questions that are being asked” (Smith). Therefore, our questions for students dictate part of our student’s comprehension. We need to make the questions something that the students will want to know. This translates to producing engaging assignments as well. Additionally, when we read, we formulate a chain of predictions about text. As teachers, we must encourage our students to constantly question what they are reading so that they can stay engaged. Both authors provide different perspectives about the reading process and contribute to a larger conversation about reading comprehension.

Catie Mullen

3/24/2021 07:58:14 am

When talking about the key concepts associated with Rosenblatt, she focuses mainly on the teaching process of the literature experience. This is also the reader's response to certain text: how are they interpreting and taking in the information? My thoughts on this is that literature can be hard to understand. In class on Tuesday when we read the Gertrude Stein piece, it was frustrating, especially as an English major, that I couldn't interpret the writing piece. However, after reading about what Rosenblatt has to say, the thought processes of understanding how to interpret literature comes from past experiences. "It is easy to observe how the beginning reader draws on past experience of life and language to elicit meaning from the printed words, and it is possible to see how through these words he reorganizes past experiences to attain new understanding" (25). I can connect to this because of my ELED 250 class and we are talking about comprehension strategies. One of the strategies is using prior knowledge to connect to the text. "The reader approaches the text with a certain purpose, certain expectations or hypotheses that guide his choices from the residue of past experience" (26). Understanding and taking in the information that a reader takes in while reading is all associated with past experiences and that's how comprehension comes in.

It's actually very interesting that these two people, Rosenblatt and Frank Smith, have similar ideas and thoughts, and how they connect. Comprehension plays a big part in their ideas. Frank Smith discussed some key points on how the information that we read goes into the brain. He stated that "readers read for a purpose." The discussion of academic reading and reading for pleasure can be brought up here and it was brought up in his reading. Different types of books are going to evoke different thought processes from it. For example, as social studies text is going to have a more detail oriented thought process, but a novel is going to come from experience (168). His idea is that readers should focus on comprehension rather than the physical words itself. It's a great thing to know this as a future educator because his ideas don't discuss phonics and that not playing a role in the importance of reading the text, it is from personal experiences and comprehension that help a reader connect to the text itself.

Stasia Wing

3/24/2021 03:10:29 pm

Between reading both Louise Rosenblatt and Frank Smith’s work it is easy to see that they share some of the same ideas when it comes to reading and writing. The parts that I found most interesting and important to know is how they discuss what it is like for students to think and experience what they are reading. Smith writes “Reading is thinking” (180). In order for any person to read and take in the information thinking is required. By thinking you are internalizing the information in the words given to you. It is impossible to not think while reading and comprehending. He writes that the only way someone may not think while reading is that “The only time we might attempt to read without thinking is when the text we are trying to read is meaningless to us” (180). There have been plenty of times where I have done readings for school and I have no idea what I have read. Although I do believe it is important to read and comprehend I find it might be harder to do so when I am simply not interested in the subject matter, or if the author’s writing style doesn’t seem to mesh with my thinking process. In Rosenblatt’s piece she writes about how the reading experience is meant to be sensuous and qualitative. She goes on to write that “Perhaps adolescent students are often impervious to the appeal of literature because for them words do not represent keen sensuous, emotional, and intellectual perceptions” (49).
If students are interested in what they are reading it is no secret that they will comprehend the reading better than if they were uninterested. Getting students more involved with the readings that they are given may just help spark more of that interest. There are plenty of times where I’ve been given readings to complete for school for the sake of the teacher saying that they assigned homework that night. If there is no more to it than that I can definitively say that the chance of a lack of interest is much higher. We want students to enjoy what they are reading, staying engaged, and thinking while having an experience throughout.

Sydney Silverman

3/24/2021 06:26:09 pm

Louise Rosenblatt made a point that students should become deeply involved with the text in literature. She claimed that teachers of adolescent age groups not only try to help their students understand the text, but also enjoy the text. Rosenblatt believes, "Just as the personality and concerns of the reader are largely socially patterned, so the literary work, like language itself, is a social product."(28) In other words, a student's interpretation of literature is based on individuality
Smith's point was that one cannot read without thinking. He writes, "The only time we might attempt to read without thinking is when the text we are trying to read is meaningless to us." He proves this point making a claim that even when an individual reads to take their mind off of a situation, they are still required to do some thinking in order to forget their initial thoughts.
Based on what I have read from both passages, Rosenblatt and Smith share similar ideas when it comes to the concept of reading. According to Rosenblatt, text must be absorbed willingly and hopefully enjoyed, and according to Smith, I must be thinking about the text I am reading currently in order to fully comprehend. I find both of their points equivalent because when I look back to the writing piece I had read by Gertrude Stein, I could not fully think about the words I was reading. I had read the passage more than once to try and understand, but the story was unsatisfying for me, and therefore, I could not think about the text I was reading.

Marie-Elizabeth Sholes

3/24/2021 07:12:15 pm

Louise Rosenblatt talks a lot specifically about the way in which students read and interpret and the roles that students, teachers, and the text itself must play in that process, noting for instance “The child should have attained the physical and intellectual capacity to perform this highly complex operation” (Rosenblatt 24-25) It’s the task of the teacher to guide young students down the path of learning to read just as it is the task of the student to read and interpret the text while both show caution in making sure that the student reading the text is open to the reading and doesn’t jump to hasty conclusions about the reading. Rosenblatt also talks about what happens along the process of reading and relating what we read back into the world through the way the author communicates to us calling literature an “emotional outlet” a philosophy that lives on today.
Frank Smith touches quite a bit on why we read, stating right at the start, “readers always read something, they read for a purpose, and reading and its recollection always involve feelings as well as knowledge and experience” (Smith 167) basically the choices of what we read in some ways reflect us, what we feel, and what we know or want to know. As well as talking about the reasons we read different types of texts (he even mentioned math and the phone book,) and going into details about the reasons and results of reading each type of text.
What these two seem to have most in common is that reading, reasons for reading, and interpretation differ from person to person depending on who they are and what they’ve experienced, which is more true than most people seem to understand. People don’t read things the same way, where one reader may see a mismatch of words and events that make no sense, another reader can see the raw emotion of an author’s intent. Reading is a very personal experience, the interaction of the author’s words and the readers mind can’t be mimicked or forced and is always different.

Olivia Halpin

3/24/2021 08:10:45 pm

In Chapter Ten “Reading Writing, and Thinking” Frank Smith explains that reading is purposeful and should be taught in a purposeful way. “In other words reading can never be separated from the purpose of the reader and the consequences upon them” (167) Smith then goes on to explain how this chapter is mainly about what reading means to the reader. Smith also makes the point the formal scientific definitions of reading (such as “reading is extracting information from print”) do not provide any useful details of what happens when a reader reads (167). In order to be precise sometimes writers lose clarity. This is why Smith highlights Philosopher Karl Popper's point that “it is better to describe how a word is used than define it.” Another major point of Smith is that reading comprehension is “relative; it depends on getting answers to the questions being asked” (170). He points out that a reader will understand/ comprehend a text from the authors/speakers point of view if they are asking questions from their point of view. Another point Smith brought to light is that “ And reading is interesting and relevant when it can be related to what the readers wants to know” (170). Smith also explains the differences between the lakers of prediction --word expectations, sentence expectations, paragraph expectations, chapter expectations, and book expectations' ' (17) in comparison with the time it takes to read the book from the first page to the last. “Writers of books oten begin with global itnentions of what the book as a whole will be about and of the way the subject will be treated. The gloablmintenitons in the chapter then determine lower level intentions for every chapter” (173). bThere can be layers in intentions in writing a book (175). Smith notes that critical thinkers will question beyond what the author intends for the reader to think and question. “Text exists independently of reader and writers” (177). I loved Smith's point that “the more we read the more we are able to read” (178). This reminds me of Rose’s point of the importance of being immersed in literature and reading activities within a classroom. Smith wrote that “With books we remember what we understand and what is significant to us”-- this I have found to be true from my own experience reading (179).
Rosenblatt, similar to Frank Smith, starts off her chapters with a critique of minimizing the reading process with generic terms (24). One of her quotations which sounded like the writing of Smith stated that “The reader approaches the text with a certain purpose, certain expectation or hypotheses that guide his choices from the residue of past experience’’(26). Roenblatt states that reading is a give-and-take. Rosenblatt describes that the new emphasis on postmodern critical approaches to literature such as New Criticism can minimize the human meaning of literature (29). Another point that reminded me of Smith’s points about what readers learn and their expectations is when Rosenblatt stated, “ From the welter of impresion with which life bombards us, the writer chooses those particular elements that have significant relevance to his insight” (34). The readers experiences and the purpose for which they read the text will affect the insight they gain or their comorheuson of the reading. Another similarity between Rosenblatt and Smith is they both write about how literature “offers us an emotional outlet” (36). I loved Rosenblatt’s point that literature can “may provide experiences that would not otherwise be either possible or wise to introduce into our lives” (36). Rosenblatt makes notes of how students will make statements like “ I have had Shakespeare” and shows how literature can be viewed as something of the past and irrelevant at times (59). Rosenblatt offers practical teaching advice for literature in the classroom like not having a “proper” reaction to any literary work so that students are free to have their own reactions (63). Rosenblatt writes that the key is for the teacher not to “superimpose meaning” but rather to help the students “develop their understanding, in the context of their own emotions, and their own curiosity about life and literature” (63). Rosenblatt states that the classroom should have a feeling of security and the instructor functions to “help students to realize that the most important thing is what literature does for them and means to them” (64). Rosenblatt also points out that it shouldn't be the goal as a teacher to get your students to “feel what the teacher wants” but rather to have them think and feel freely as they learn to seek meaning from texts (67).

Patricia Diaz

3/24/2021 08:14:23 pm

There were a few key concepts that I could identify from Louise Rosenblatt’s The Literary Experience. The first one is it is expected that typically the books selected in a classroom can reflect the students’ past experiences or desire accomplishments to trigger a reaction. This reaction becomes fundamental because as Louise specified in the text, teachers tend to focus on the impact that books usually have on larger audiences, but they forget to consider the impact that it may have had on the students and how can that help them to comprehend better the text. Louise makes clear how teachers’ roles in the classroom are to create a safe environment where students are free to discuss how a text made them feel, be open about students’ responses and keep this communication in where students express more their feelings more consistently.

Similarly, I also could identify some key concepts in Frank Smith’s Reading, Writing, and Thinking. A factor that Smith navigated was the concept of comprehension. He emphasized how this happens when the readers ask questions about a particular reading. He also explored the idea of what separates a fluent reader from a beginner one. He mentioned how fluent readers do not get stuck in a specific word, have control over the text—do not let authors influence their thinking—are familiar with different types of texts, and apply the concept of expectations and intentions whenever they read. He also explored how the consequences of reading are positive since it helps with memorization, creates knowledge, and invokes curiosity and passion.

I found a few similarities in both texts. The first one is that readers can gather thoughts and feelings from a text. For this reason, as both stated, teachers need to allow students to freely state their feelings/ reactions to a text. The second one is that reading always has a purpose. You start reading because you have some form of intention to do something. The third one is that reading is always active not passive since there is a lot that is being done while doing it, like reacting, memorizing, and thinking.

John Cronin

3/25/2021 01:18:55 am

One of the major ideas that both writer's stress is the emotional aspect of comprehending literature. Both writers talk about how a reader's emotional response can be completely different than someone else reading the same text. Rosenblatt offers the insight of how literature, "may provide experiences that would not otherwise be either possible or wise to introduce into our own lives." When reading this my mind went to the show Dexter where the viewers were able to follow and view the life of a serial killer with his own sense of justice. Viewers of this show can view a killer's life through their eyes, allowing them to understand and experience what that life would be like. Rosenblatt goes on to talk about how literature can allow people to feel and express their repressed emotions by comprehending the movie or book that they are reading. This could further push readers to understand and build compassion towards people with mental illnesses if the book covers that subject. Frank Smith has a similar view as he says, "To read a novel is to participate in a life." This statement furthers the idea that readers tend to live vicariously through the characters within a book allowing them to feel these taboo or unwanted feelings.

Courtney Beale

3/25/2021 05:12:05 am

After reading these two pieces, I was able to synthesize a few really interesting points. To begin, Rosenblatt emphasizes the fact that individuals' experiences as readers all vary greatly. Reading is a very personal act, which means that the same text can mean something different to other people, but also to you as you grow as a person. As humans, we let personal experience and background shape our expectations and ultimately how we interpret the story. Rosenblatt elaborates on this and says that “The reader brings to the work personality traits, memories of past events, present needs and preoccupations, a particular mood of the moment, and a particular physical condition” (Rosenblatt 30). With the knowledge that every individual is different, we can begin to understand why some texts have extreme significance in a person's life. Rosenblatt takes this point a step further and says that “The same text will have a very different meaning and value to us at different times or under different circumstances” (Rosenblatt 35). This transaction between writer and reader is a little different for a person at different points in their life as they live through new experiences.

Frank Smith approaches this same concept but explains it in a different way. Smith breaks down the actual experience that we have when reading words on a page but also explains what happens after we read. He initially says that “Readers must bring meaning to texts; they must have a developing and constantly modifiable set of expectations about what they will find” (Smith 170). Smith spends a great deal of time talking about how the expectations of readers play a big role in how we perceive the piece. If we go into a reading with a closed mind, it's likely that we won't read closely and find meaning in the words. With positive intentions, we were able to take things away from the piece that is the most important to us. After the act of setting expectations, Smith explains that “we remember what we understand and what is significant to us” (Smith 179). Smith takes this idea of personal experience shaping your interpretation of the text a step further by explaining that the same process happens after you're done interacting with the text.

Angel Walsh

3/25/2021 05:27:55 am

One of the biggest things that I took from Louise Rosenblatt’s piece is that reading depends on a child’s life experiences. A child may not understand something if they have not personally experienced or knew about it before reading. Reading is about how one perceives something, every one’s interpretation is different and Rosenblatt says that is because of life experiences. Rosenblatt writes; “He, too, must draw on his past experience with life and language as the raw materials out of which to shape the new experience symbolized on the page” (Rosenblatt, 25). I personally believe that this is true. As a teacher if we assign a book to a student about a life experience that they have not went through or do not understand, their interpretation of the novel would be completely different than another students view. This differs a little from one of the key points in Frank Smith’s piece. Frank Smith focuses more on how the reading is an experience for children and can open new life experiences for them. Frank Smith writes; “Novels are usually read for experience, for involvement in a situation…To read a novel is to participate in life” (Smith, 168). I think that Smith believes that no matter what a child has gone through they will learn and grow as a person from reading. Which I believe in to a point. I think that Rosenblatt is a little more concise about students interpretation of reading due to life experiences. Many people pick up books based on what they like, some will due to experience new genres, thus experiencing life. I think both authors make solid points when it comes to reading. Reading is a way to not only share same life experiences with some one but to maybe learn and widen a student’s view on life.

Rachael Sweeney

3/25/2021 05:57:00 am

Louise Rosenblatt and Frank Smith make similar points. First of all, it is a little disappointing to see the similarities in their work and to see Smith seen and known as a psycholinguist and Rosenblatt seen as just an educator and teacher trainer just because she is a woman and was not seen as an important theorist in academia. But, c'est la vie

Going into this with gender in mind kind of made this a different experience for me. I could see that Rosenblatt had a more empathetic and personal approach to how she believes that students should feel involved to the texts on a personal level. Smith makes a similar point, agreeing that reading should be personal and will always include a search for purpose. Both believe that it should be a priority to have students be able to connect to texts, because that is a crucial step in truly understanding and reading literacy. Smith states that the only time we read without thinking is when we are trying to read something we are not connected to personally. I can relate to this because I definitely feel a difference in connection and how I retain information when I read something I consider boring and when I am reading something that I love.

The answer seems to be to make students interested in whatever text is presented to them. This seems a little difficult, because everyone has different interests. It is important that teachers get the students involved with the text.

Cedes

3/25/2021 06:07:36 am

Loiuse Rosenblatt said something in her book that really stuck with me: “The teacher of literature, then, seeks to help specific human beings discover the satisfaction of literature” (25). We seldom think of reading as something enjoying to do, and though I think a huge part of this starts at home, a great deal stems from the way we are taught about literature. Rosenblatt says, “The teacher’s task is to foster fruitful interactions—or, more precisely, transactions—between individual readers and individual literary texts” (26). I couldn’t agree more, but I think the way that teachers do this is by being exited themselves about the reading and coming up with more diverse assignments. Too often we have taken classes where teachers assign readings and then ask for a summary of what was read. They may ask questions in which they want us to gather textual evidence and write a paper, but is this the best and only way to engage and interact with the text? If, “Both reader and text are essential to the transactional process of making meaning” (27), hem why is so much of the focus on the text and not the students? When we ask for summaries of readings we’re literally only checking to see if students have read, we’re not gauging their interactions with the text. What are they learning? How do they feel about what they are learning? There are so many things that can happen when we ask our students to read, “Through literature we may enjoy the beauty or grandeur of nature and the exotic splendor of scenes in far distant lands. Furthermore, it may provide experiences that would not otherwise be possible or wise to introduce into our own lives” (36). I think it’s important that teachers stay aware of this and try to build assignments that further this exploration of the experiences we pick up in literary works.

Frank Smith started with saying that, “Readers always read something, they read for a purpose, and reading and its recollection involve feelings as well as knowledge and experience” (167). Thinking about it this way reminds me of how we as teachers need to start out asking ourselves what we want out students to get out the texts we assign to them. I also thought it was important that Smith highlighted comprehension. We often overlook this, especially when we merely ask for summaries, and it’s important that students understand what they’re reading. Comprehension is imperative because, “It depends on getting answers to the questions being asked. A particular meaning is the answer a reader gets to a particular question” (170). Students will gather their meaning from the teachers or the authors of text and as teachers, we need to be directing them to asking questions about the text. This directly translates to their understanding of what they’re reading.

Danielle Delaroca

3/25/2021 06:14:27 am

After reading both chapters 2/3 of Louise Rosenblatt’s work and chapters 10/11 of Frank Smith’s work it is clear that they are both primarily concerned with the reader’s experience in regard to literature and how and why the reader reads. Smith brought more scientific standpoints to the table where Rosenblatt was focussed on explaining what teachers observe and their perspectives, along with the students’ ideas, perspectives, and observations. The key concepts I noticed in Smith’s work is that there is a reason why people read. A quote that stuck out is ““To read a novel is to participate in life.” He backed up this idea by stating how we always read for a purpose. Except, reading is more than just a pleasant, interesting and informative experience.
It has consequences because it involves our feelings which could make reading desirable or undesirable depending on if the feelings the book or poem make you feel are negative or positive. He also said how “readers should have intentions of their own. When we read a book purely for its literary or entertainment merit we willingly submit our expectations of the author or poet.” This also in a sense goes hand in hand with Rosenblatt’s ideas in a way because this statement is about the individual reader’s opinions/intentions and Rosenblatt is very focussed on the uniqueness of the transactions between every reader and the texts. She comes from the more educational standpoint and notions how it is the “teacher’s task is to foster fruitful interactions/transactions between individual readers and individual literary texts.” She spends the text describing different teachers and students observations from different time periods and backgrounds to further her key point of the literary experience that there is no generic reader and the way we communicate is important.

Overall, both theorists bring up interesting ideas on the reading experience and i liked how it wasn’t cliché’s but genuinely insightful research/observations about readers.

Vanessa Semeraro

3/25/2021 06:25:05 am

Louise Rosenblatt and Frank Smith share similar concepts that pertain to certain reading and writing skills. A large concept had to do with understanding what they were reading and how they think along with the content being read. Personally speaking, when I read certain material, my brain shuts off and I do not truly think about what I am reading at times, but they challenge this idea when reading materials that can correspond to their own personal lives and triggers. Also with this, they both discuss how text is considered meaningless if they are not interested in the material, but what is uninisteresting to me could be extremely interesting to someone else and actually uncover many truths of their lives and emotions. These texts are about reading with a purpose is important and putting your emotions into every text and crticially think to uncover some deeper truth to it.

Rowan Kelley

3/25/2021 06:26:13 am

Louise Rosenblatt believes that readers transform ink spots on papers into meaningful symbols. She describes how beginning readers use past experience of life and language to find meaning in printed words, and through those words, individuals can reorganize past experiences to attain new understanding. According to Rosenblatt, literary works only gain significance from the minds and emotions of the readers response to linguistic stimuli. It depends upon an individual’s submerged association that will determine what the literary work communicates to them. Rosenblatt makes the point, “The infinite diversity of literature plus the complexity of human personality and background justify insistence on the special nature of the literary experience and on the need to prepare the student to engage in the highly personal process of evoking the literary work from the text” (31). Rosenblatt believes that students must “feel” the work to truly comprehend it, and it is the teacher’s task to foster transactions between individual readers and individual literary texts. The response to work will have roots in capacities and experiences present in the personality and mind of the teacher, and it is the responsibility of the teacher to encourage students to engage in imaginative writing so they may express themselves freely. Teachers must, according to Rosenblatt, facilitate understandings of literary work in the context of their own emotions and their own curiosity about life and literature. Varying from Rosenblatt, Frank Smith believes that reading cannot be separated from writing or thinking, and easily understood words have a multiplicity of meanings, and what usually gives words unambiguous interpretations is the particular context in which it is used. Similar to Rosenblatt, Smith implies that novels are read for the experience, “to read a novel is to participate in life” (168). Reading depends on the relevance of the reader’s specification of the text, and teachers must lead readers to ask questions they consider appropriate. Rosenblatt focuses on global versus focal predictions and begins with a book and a global prediction of content by just looking at the cover, etc. The leads to expectations one has for the first chapter only, then the second chapter, etc. Focal predictions begin in paragraphs, which is a source of prediction for the next paragraph. There are predictions within sentences, and within those sentences, there are predictions about words. To Smith, texts are static, and do not change structure from moment to moment, and believes “What we comprehend and what we are left with in memory as a consequence of reading depend on how our experience with the text modifies our specification” (177). Reading facilitates further learning, and for Smith, reading must be purposeful, selective, anticipatory, and based on comprehension. Similar to Rosenblatt, Smith finds that experience increases the ability to read different texts, but Smith believes that advantages of competent readers lies in familiarity with a range of different kinds of texts, not the skills that facilitate every kind of reading.

Rowan Kelley

3/25/2021 06:49:43 am

*Smith focuses on global and focal predictions, NOT Rosenblatt*

Andrew Mortarelli

3/25/2021 06:29:51 am

When reading Rosenblatt, it was interesting to learn his viewpoints on the importance of literature and what exactly is so important about it. Making the point that “the teacher’s task is to foster fruitful interactions/transactions between individual readers and literacy text”. The students need to become deeply involved with the text. These ideas correlate with Smith’s belief that “The only time we might attempt to read without thinking is when the text we are trying to read is meaningless to us”, implying his belief that one cannot read without thinking.
These two ideas connect with students not being able to become involved with the text without thinking about it. One of the things that both authors see eye to eye on is that reading has a purpose, and that it is possible to gain feelings from reading if you just put thought and effort into it.

Maria Pestilli

3/25/2021 06:30:23 am

I have prior knowledge about Rosenblatt because I got to read about her in Professor Torda’s 344 class. One of Rosenblatt’s main theories is the Reader Response Theory. This theory deals with the idea that a reader brings their own experiences with them when they read, this means that different people will interpret the same text in different ways. This ties into the idea of thinking that both Rosenblatt and Smith bring up in the articles. One of the biggest similarities is that of thinking, “Reading is thinking…The only time we might attempt to read without thinking is when the text we are trying to read is meaningless to us” (Smith 180). This is quite similar to Reader Response Theory. When you are reading your mind is constantly thinking and creating thoughts, even if you are not aware of this. Therefore, it is almost impossible to read a text without have thoughts about it. Having thoughts about a text is what leads to understanding the text and interpreting the text. The idea of having thoughts while reading makes me think of Rosenblatt’s reader response theory because different people have different thoughts. Someone who grew up in the city would have a different life perspective from the person who grew up in the country. It is clear that both writers believe in the idea that the reader themselves is just as important to the text as the author is to their text.

Djenifer Goncalves

3/25/2021 07:20:02 am

Rosenblatt suggests that we must allow our students to become familiar with the text rather than reading for just reading. You have to enjoy what you read. When we read for enjoyment, we understand why we’re reading it. The author suggests that we connect our own experiences to the text. Reading is an experience and a “Transaction” as Rosenblatt puts it. Every time we read we get an experience that we carry out for the rest of our lives. Interpretation is also key. Smith points out what we get from a text is also significant. Just like Rosenblatt, Smith believes that normalizing/connecting experience with the text is relevant. While he focuses more on the brain, he also points out that readers read for a purpose. They apply their emotions, knowledge, and experience to the text. He elaborates on predictions. He says, “Some predictions are overriding; they carry us across large expanses of time and spaces” (17). I didn’t quite understand what that meant, but I viewed predictions as assumptions. When we create predictions of a text or a novel, we suddenly get lost in time and space because we’re so focused and invested in a text that we don’t want to put it down. He mentions global predictions which are factors that influence the journey and focal predictions which concern us for a short period of time. Both Rosenblatt and Smith make great points when it comes to reading and the purpose of reading.

Rosenblatt & Smith: What do we do when we read and what does it tell us about the ELA classroom. Synchronous Class Discussion Board (Due by start of class on Thursday, 24 March 2021)

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Rosenblatt & Smith: What do we do when we read and what does it tell us about the ELA classroom. Synchronous Class Discussion Board (Due by start of class on Thursday, 24 March 2021)

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