Adapting the Australian Canon and Decolonizing the Tertiary Classroom: Settler Students Respond to Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (270) ◽  
pp. 253-263
Author(s):  
Demelza Hall ◽  
Kate Storey ◽  
Laura Benney ◽  
Marlee Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Reader Response ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Reading Group ◽  
Response Theory ◽  
Indigenous Australian ◽  
Reader Response Theory ◽  
Literary Adaptation ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
English Classroom

Abstract The ‘Drover’s Wife Reading Group’ was a collaborative teacher–student project piloted between 2018 and 2020 at Federation University Australia with the intention to create spaces for decolonization, particularly settler (un)learning, beyond the limits of the tertiary English classroom. Drawing upon aspects of reader–response theory, the project began as a small constructivist study in that it sought, initially, to gauge the different responses undergraduate settler students had to a work of Indigenous Australian literary adaptation. However, the transformative nature of the text being engaged with – Leah Purcell’s play, The Drover’s Wife (2016), a literary work which has been widely recognized for the critical literacy it promotes – coupled with the sophistication of the participants’ various responses to it, quickly saw the project shift to one of intense collaboration, with the students involved becoming partners in shaping the project’s outcomes.

The Bible and the Reader's Response

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Pike
Keyword(s):  
Reader Response ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Spiritual Development ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Response Theory ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Reader Response Theory ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Individual

Reader response theory, the broad range of literary perspectives which place emphasis upon the role of readers and their responses to texts, has contributed important insights to biblical hermeneutics and to pedagogy in literature education. Yet reader response theory does not appear, as yet, to have had as significant an influence as it might upon the way we teach individuals to read and respond to that most important of texts, the Bible. It is proposed in this article that Rosenblatt's transactional theory of the literary work offers valuable insights that can be applied to both the reading of the Bible and also how it can be taught in a range of contexts, in Christian and state schools, as well as in churches. Consequently, pedagogy informed by Rosenblatt's reader response theory may offer us a biblical use of the Bible as it can foster the spiritual development of readers by enabling them to engage with Scripture at a deeply personal level. It is suggested that Bible teaching must be responsive to the individual and to society but must, most of all, be responsive to the Holy Spirit.

scholarly journals LITERATURE CIRCLES AS AN IMPLEMENTATION OF READER-RESPONSE THEORY WHEN TEACHING EXTENSIVE READING IN ENGLISH AT UNIVERSITY

2018 ◽  
pp. 223-231
Author(s):  
I. N. Kosheleva
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Reader Response ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Literature Circles ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Response Theory ◽  
Extensive Reading ◽  
Reader Response Theory

Teaching extensive reading at university has a great potential for development of students’ linguistic, thinking and creative skills. By embracing the content of a literary work, students expand their vocabulary and increase their range of grammar constructions. Moreover, literary texts comprise a variety of social, ethical, and moral problems and are characterized by diverse conflicts. They are perceived and understood as a result of literary interpretation and are determined by readers’ life experience and attitudes, cultural and moral standards. Therefore, the reader-response theory becomes relevant, since it considers reading as transaction (interaction) between the reader and the text. It means that the meaning wasn’t put by the author once and for all but will be interpreted differently by different readers. Accordingly, there is no single interpretation of the literary work. The subject of this research is the problem of teaching extensive reading in English at university through reader-response theory. The purpose of the article is to introduce the premises of this theory making a case for its application and to describe the operation of literature circles as a local example of the scientific paradigm. The methodological framework of the research was comprised of the communicative approach to teaching English, task-based language learning and the studentcentered approach in collaborative learning. The article demonstrates that literature circles function in a group where each student performs his/her role and different layers of understanding of the literary text are uncovered through peer discussion. The results of the research can be of interest to both foreign language teachers and to the researchers dealing with applied methodology of teaching literature. The author proves that literature circles favorably affect both students’ motivation for extensive reading and English teaching enhancement at university. 

scholarly journals Teaching Short Stories through the Use of the Reader-Response Theory: Second-Year Students at Dr. Moulay Tahar University-Saida

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-92
Author(s):  
Sihem BOUBEKEUR
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Reader Response ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Response Theory ◽  
Reader Response Theory ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Second Year

The Reader-Response Theory considers the learner as an active participant in extracting meaning from a literary work depending on his/her prior experience. Teaching literature critically allows the reader to create a sense, and compare the previous experience with the written text. Second-year students cannot decode and scrutinize a short academic text, which unveiled that they are unaware of the different types of readings. The research question arises in this vein is: To what extent does the Reader-Response Theory contribute to the development of the EFL students’ skills? The piece of work aims at introducing and applying the Reader-Response Theory to teaching short stories to second-year university students. The current study was conducted on students taught by the teacher-researcher at Dr. Moulay Tahar University-Saida, Algeria. A questionnaire, observation, and the analysis of students’ written assignments employed in the present work for the overarching aim of gathering data in a timely period. Yet, the results revealed that after implementing this approach, EFL students become aware of how to undertake an academic written piece. It also reinforces their thinking skills, and boosts their creativity.

scholarly journals Teaching Short Stories through the Use of the Reader-Response Theory: Second-Year Students at Dr. Moulay Tahar University-Saida

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sihem BOUBEKEUR
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Reader Response ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Response Theory ◽  
Reader Response Theory ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Second Year

The Reader-Response Theory considers the learner as an active participant in extracting meaning from a literary work depending on his/her prior experience. Teaching literature critically allows the reader to create a sense, and compare the previous experience with the written text. Second-year students cannot decode and scrutinize a short academic text, which unveiled that they are unaware of the different types of readings. The research question arises in this vein is: To what extent does the Reader-Response Theory contribute to the development of the EFL students’ skills? The piece of work aims at introducing and applying the Reader-Response Theory to teaching short stories to second-year university students. The current study was conducted on students taught by the teacher-researcher at Dr. Moulay Tahar University-Saida, Algeria. A questionnaire, observation, and the analysis of students’ written assignments employed in the present work for the overarching aim of gathering data in a timely period. Yet, the results revealed that after implementing this approach, EFL students become aware of how to undertake an academic written piece. It also reinforces their thinking skills, and boosts their creativity.

scholarly journals Female Readers as Literary Critics: Reading Experiences of Kano Market Romance Fiction

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-45
Author(s):  
Haruna Alkasim Kiyawa
Keyword(s):  
Reader Response ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Response Theory ◽  
Reader Response Theory ◽  
Romance Novels ◽  
Romance Fiction ◽  
Romance Genre ◽  
Traditional Marriage

This paper aims to explore the female readers reading experiences, views and feelings of Hausa romance novels found in most of the northern part of Nigeria. This article also examines some criticism and accusations against the readership and content of the Hausa romance genre. The study applied the Transactional Reader-Response Theory of Rosenblatt’s (1978) as guide by selecting 7 female readers within the age ranges between 22-26 years from 2 book clubs to participate in the study. The findings revealed that all the readers individually were able to reveal their varied responses, beliefs, and experiences on the value of the romance novels which challenged the assertion made by the literary critics and traditional society that the books have no relevance in their life activities which supported their arguments and personal interpretive reading stance towards the Hausa romance genre. The finding yielded four themes were emerging: (a) promoting literacy development; (b) resistance to the traditional marriage system in society; (d) enlightening females on social inequality. These findings provided empirical support for the application of the Transactional Reader-Response Theory of Rosenblatt (1978) outside classroom contexts to understand the role of African romance novels towards female social transformation.  

Hermeneutics and Postmodernism: Can We Have a Radical Reader-Response Theory? Part II

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Noble
Keyword(s):  
Reader Response ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Response Theory ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Reader Response Theory

The flaws in Fish's hermeneutics that were diagnosed in Part I (it is now argued) are consequences of his underlying epistemology. This is a version of anti-foundationalism which claims that facts are the product of interpretation; but a careful study of how this issue is handled by N. R. Hanson and Thomas Kuhn shows that Fish's epistemology is fundamentally unsound. An alternative account of the fact-interpretation relationship is then proposed, and the outline of an objectivist, readerindependent hermeneutics are sketched. This is further developed by showing how a common argument against objectivism (based on the historical situatedness of reason and knowledge) may be refuted.

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