Based on the students, the text, and the purpose of different stages of reading, the teacher can select activities and strategies that will help students better understand the text and transact with it, and consequently develop aesthetic reading of the text. A number of different activities have been introduced to the reader response approach, and among them are literature circles, drama & role play, discussion and response journals.
Literature Circles
Literature circles are defined as small, peer-led temporary discussion groups who read and respond to the same piece of literature, and then come together on a regular program to share their interpretation and responses to what they have read. (Daniels, 2002; Strong, 2012). Literature circles are instrument that encourages students to respond to literature and to interact with it both efferently and aesthetically. When they draw their attention to extract information from the text, efferent reading occurs;
on the other hand, aesthetic reading emerges when students’ feeling, associations, and attitudes are aroused by a particular text.
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In literature circles, each student is assigned different roles with the Role Sheets before they read. These Role Sheets serve as tools for the post-reading discussions (Daniels, 2002). There are basically five roles for EFL literature circle groups. The first role is the Group Discussion Leader who acts as a facilitator in the group to keep the discussion flowing. The Discussion Leader starts the discussion with a few open-ended questions related to the story, and then proceeds to call on other group members to share their opinions with the group. It is recommended that the
Discussion Leader be an outgoing person who is good at managing the group. The second role is the Summarizer whose job is to present a brief summary of the story in the beginning of the discussion for one or two minutes so that every group member can remember the plot of the story. The Summarizer is advised to retell only the most important events in the story in his/her own words. Other students are encouraged to ask the Summarizer to repeat the summary a second time if that helps them get a better understanding of the plot. The next role, the Connector tries to find connections between the text and the real world in which he/she lives. The Connector may
associate the thoughts, feelings or actions in the story with those of friends, classmates or family members. The Connector’s role is rather challenging so it is recommended to be assigned to an outgoing student as well. The fourth role is the Word Master. The job of the Word Master is to choose some words or short phrases that he/she believes to be the most important ones in the story. He/she is not confined to giving the definition of words, but to present those words he/she considers
important in the story. The last role is the Passage Person and his job is to read the text intensively to look for well-written or key passages in the story. He/she can also choose passages that are confusing or difficult and present them for discussion in the group.
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When students are fulfilling these roles, in addition to getting a fuller
understanding of the text, they are developing their communicative competence and collaborative learning (Strong, 2012). The roles that students play may vary and can be rotated for each new reading cycle. This helps students exercise a different focus when reading a different text, and this in turn raise their awareness of reading for different reasons (Furr, 2004; Strong, 2012).
In addition to the aforementioned roles, Furr (2004) introduces ten features that successful EFL literature circles should contain. (1) Instructors should select reading materials appropriate for their student population. Teachers should choose graded reading materials that can enhance reading fluency in literature circles so that students can engage in “real-life” meaningful discussion about the text. That is, students should be provided with materials that they can read without frequent reference to a dictionary. (2) Small temporary groups are formed based on students’ choice or the teacher’s discretion. To manage the group dynamics, the teacher is recommended to include at least one outgoing student among the five or six members in each group. (3) Different groups are reading the same text. While L1 students are encouraged to select their own reading materials for literature circles, EFL students may often lack the historical and cultural backgrounds and linguistic knowledge to do so. Moreover, when students read the same story, the teacher can raise different cultural and historical questions related to the stories for further discussion after the literature circle activity. (4) After having finished reading the book, readers may prepare a group project and/or the teacher may provide additional information to “fill in some of the gaps” for students to have better understanding. For example, each group may make a poster concerning the major themes in the story and then explain the poster to other groups. After their demonstration, students will discover that different groups
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may have a very different climax for the same story. When students feel they have made meaningful discussions and are hooked by the story, they are often motivated to produce the group project. (5) Groups meet on a regular, predictable schedule to discuss their reading. EFL literature circles require a lot of student training time, so the teacher must be willing to devote several cycles (stories) with literature circles before positive results can be obtained. (6) Students use role sheets to guide both their reading and their discussion. The role sheets prompt each member of a group to read a story from a different perspective and to make preparation for the small group
discussion based on the reading. In other words, the role sheets break reading down into several smaller, manageable parts so that each group member focuses on one aspect. Then they are brought together, and through discussion, these different parts become whole. (7) Discussion topics come from the students. The role sheets provide a framework for students to generate topics for meaningful discussion which in turn will help them discover the themes and important points in the story. (8) Group meeting aims to generate open, natural conversations about books, so personal connections, digressions and open-ended questions are welcome. Since students are encouraged to share their opinions of the texts for literature circles, it is natural that not all of the discussion is “serious.” (9) The teacher serves as a facilitator, not a group member or instructor. The teacher needs to step back and allow students to take the responsibility of guiding the literature circle discussion. (10) A spirit of
playfulness and fun pervades the classroom. To create a playful and fun atmosphere, the key is to promote informal talks about great stories.
It is agreed that literatures circles create a student-centered, communicative, interactive, reflective and cooperative learning environment (Brown, 2002; Burns, 1998; Sanders-Brunner, 2004). To sum up, the roles and role sheets in literature
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circles enable students to collaborate to get deeper into the text. They also motivate students to read outside of class, to write copiously to be prepared for the group discussion, and to question each other to figure out the real meaning of the text.
Role Play & Drama
The Dictionary of Education defines role play as “an instructional technique involving a spontaneous portrayal (acting out) of a situation, condition, or
circumstances.” Dortothy Heathcote (1984) defines drama as “human beings confronted by situations which change them because of what they must face in
dealing with those challenges” (p. 48). In role play and drama, students need to act out or even read aloud certain content. When doing so, they enter into the story world, relate themselves to characters, make judgments, and personally connect their prior experience to the story (Wagner, 2002; Wilhelm, 1998). Elliot (1990) states that enacting scenes from a text enables students to experience events more directly as they have themselves “live-through” a situation similar to those in the text (p.
193-194). Moreover, if students are assigned a role from a text that is not described explicitly or a scene that has not been mentioned, their imaginations will be more liberated. This provides students with excellent opportunities for the discussion of characters as well as opportunities for imaginative and inspirational creation. Instead of having very formal drama, Elliot and many other researchers advocate the informal improvisational drama (Baxter, 1999; Elliot, 1990; Wagner, 2002; Wilhelm, 1998;
Wolf, Edmiston, & Enciso, 1997). With improvisational drama on text, students are given several minutes to think about the situation and plan in pairs or groups before they physically and emotionally dramatize it. If the play is an extension of the text,
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students have to explore the text to create meanings and scenes for the drama and visualize their imagination and creation. Because students have to work together to create a drama, they are engaged in collaborative learning as well. McMaster (1998) lists out the effects of implementing drama in literature. (1) It develops emergent literacy. When students participate in dramatization, they pay closer attention to the reading for they know they will be acting out the story. Moreover, they will also listen attentively as they pantomime or wait for their opportunity to act. (2) It develops the ability to decode knowledge. Dramatization leads to developing the skill of decoding symbolic representation as students must internalize what they have read before they portray who they are and where they are in space and time. This internalization creates a visual, aural, and kinesthetic memory of what they have read. (3) It develops fluency. In order to extract meaning from the story, they must move beyond
word-by-word decoding to achieve fluency in reading. In addition, they need to reread the same material with the purpose of selecting collaborative scenes for performance, roles for enactment, words for emphasis, as well as different interpretation of the text.
(4) It develops vocabulary knowledge. When new words are dramatized in a drama activity or extended improvisation, students have more concrete examples in multiple modalities to assist them in the understanding of the words. (5) It develops discourse knowledge. When students discuss the ideas that should be presented in the “play version” of the story and what should be left out, they are exploring the differences between these two discourse types, and what elements are required to make up a good drama. (6) It develops metacognitive knowledge. The act of portraying a character leads students to analyze one’s part by asking questions like “Am I convincing?” or
“If not, why, and how can I change?” To solve their questions, students reread, confer with peers, or look in other sources to evaluate their lines to make them convincing.
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This creates a situation for the development of higher level thinking skills and the overall comprehension of text.
Baxter (1999) points out that it is essential the “drama method” does not focus mainly on episodes or scenes from the story, but the generation of meaning from the text by students. In addition to formal drama, he also describes some drama activities that can be implemented in the language classroom. (1) Hot-Seating. This exercise highlights character motivation and encourages insights into the relationship between attitudes and events. In this activity, one student takes the role of any character whose motives are ambiguous or questionable and sits in the “hot-seat”. Other members of the group or the whole class bombard him/her with questions about issues of
motivation or feelings. (2) Variations on “Tableau” or “Frozen Image”. These activities highlight issues of characterization, character relationships, and plot
development. In these activities, students will use photos or pictures of characters and different moments in the story to discuss the significance of different important and less important characters, the awkward, intrusive and significant moments. (3) Role-breaking. This activity draws attention to the minor characters, who are usually marginalized within the text. The teacher or the students choose a scene where a minor character is involved but probably in the background to the main action. The students reenact the scene with the minor character “role-breaking” by intervening in the action in such a way that the plot is forced to take a different direction. (4)
Conscience Alley. This exercise not only highlights character motivation and
relationships, but also foregrounds issues of social and racial marginalization of minor characters in classic texts. One student takes the role of a leading character whose motivation is suspect or unclear. He or she then walks slowly between an alley formed by other characters who have prepared some words about social or racial issues to ask
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him/her. (5) Thought-tracking. This activity reveals publicly the private thoughts or reactions of participants in role at specific moments in the action. For example, characters in a tableau (mentioned above) might be asked to speak their inner thoughts at a particular moment. This may require students to draw upon real experience in order to make such thoughts or reactions.
Student-Led Discussion
Gambrell (1996) describes discussion as “essentially dialogic: it is not
completely controlled by a single participant; rather it occurs as a natural conversation in which individuals engage in a free and open exchange of ideas” (p.26). Discussion provides students with opportunities to participate in the comprehension of text, construction of meaning, and expansion of ideas (Ruddell & Ruddell, 1994). This is identical to Rosenblatt’s transactional view of reader response in that it reinforces the need for collaboration in which students draw on the prior knowledge, social, and cultural experiences to make connections to the new knowledge to create meaning. In the 1980s, attention has shifted from teacher-led discussion to peer-led discussion groups, in which students collaborate to construct meaning or work out different interpretations in order to obtain new understandings of text (Gambrell, 2004). In peer-led discussion, the text and the readers’ response are the central focus while the teacher serves as a facilitator who initiates opportunities in the classroom for
discussion, provides students with support and encouragement to engage in
problem-solving talk which leads to a more in-depth interpretation of the text (Almasi, 1995; Maloch, 2002). Peer-led discussion requires that the teacher relinquish some power within the classroom so that students are able to communicate collaboratively
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and successfully by raising opinions, challenging and probing ideas, making
connections, sharing knowledge, and constructing meanings (Almasi, O'Flahavan &
Arya; 2001; Kong & Fitch, 2002). To put it in another way, peer discussions provide a student-centered context in which students collaborate to negotiate, to understand, to judge and to create meanings. Bridge (1979) mentions that discussions require participants to see themselves as “a potential source of knowledge as well as a beneficiary of the insights of others.” This means that during discussion, students shape, reshape and alter their interpretations and opinions and those of others in the creation of meanings (Langer, 1992, 1995). Moreover, when students involve themselves in group discussion, they explore the text deeper and emotionally and intellectually enter into a dynamic interaction with it, which may contribute to further motivation and aesthetic appreciation of literary works (Kim, 2004). In fact, this type of interaction engages students to work within the Zone of Proximal Development as they exercise their background knowledge to work mutually to understand and solve the difficulties they encounter to achieve comprehension (Kim, 2004; Kong & Fitch, 2002; Vygotsky, 1978)
When implementing discussion in the classroom, Gambell (2004) suggests several important points for teachers to observe. (1) Learning is in the talk. When students have opportunities to share their ideas and give response to the ideas of others, they look deeper into the text to make his/her ideas meaningful. (2) Provide opportunities for students to interact with one another and to challenge the ideas of others to support their higher level thinking. When students make comments or challenge those of others, they engage themselves in higher level thinking skills. (3) Provide students with opportunities to discuss different text types. When students are given opportunities to read a variety of texts, they increase their comprehension
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ability and critical thinking ability. (4) Interesting and relevant text enhances discussion. When students are allowed to explore issues and ideas that they want to talk about during a discussion, their motivation and participation increase. Texts that are interesting and relevant enable students to take ownership of the discussion, which results in increased engagement. (5) Provide opportunities for students to ponder confusing aspects of the text or to challenge it. The teacher should create a classroom climate that values good reasoning rather than correct responses. When students identify and reveal conflicts between personal and textual ideas, they not only gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of text ideas, but also understand deeper of themselves.
As aforementioned, peer-led discussions facilitate students in the exploration and creation of meaning; however, the grouping methods and the role of the teacher can influence the outcome. Numerous researchers have suggested that heterogeneous discussion groups appear to generate more desirable outcomes than homogeneous ability groups (Almasi et al., 2001; Alvermann et al., 1996; Chen, 2011; Maloch, 2002). In heterogeneous discussion groups, while the more capable students can facilitate the less capable ones in comprehension, the less capable ones may also inspire their peers by generating questions for deeper and more thoughtful reflection (Chen, 2011). On the contrary, in homogeneous discussion groups, the less able groups resisted to engage in informal discussion despite the urging of the teacher (Wollman-Bonilla, 1989). As for the role of the teacher, he/she should provide enough effective scaffolding and guidances to encourage students (not rely on the teacher) to solve interaction problems (Almasi et al., 2001). On the other hand, he/she should remain on the periphery while observing students’ negotiation and construction of meanings. Only momentarily may he/she step in to model a particular social or
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interpretive strategy, pull pieces of the conversation together to construct a meaningful interpretation of the text.
Response Journals
According to Rosenblatt’s (1978) transactional theory and Iser’s (1978)
interaction theory of reading, the meaning of the text resides not in the words on the page, but in the reader; in other words, the reader transacts and interacts with the text to create a meaning, and each individual reader may create his/her own unique
interpretation of the text based on his/her personal experiences, emotions, feelings, etc.
When students write down what they think about what they’ve read, they are clarifying their thinking and reading critically and reflectively from an aesthetic stance (McIntosh, 2006; Swartz, 2002). Response journals provide students with a method to actively engage in critical and reflective thinking by questioning, adopting, personalizing and reflecting what they have read. Parsons (1994) states that “a
response journal is a notebook or folder in which students record, in a variety of
formats, their personal reactions to, questions about, and reflections on what they read, write, observe, listen to, discuss, do and think” (p. 12). He further demonstrates the importance of a response journal in the following statement:
formats, their personal reactions to, questions about, and reflections on what they read, write, observe, listen to, discuss, do and think” (p. 12). He further demonstrates the importance of a response journal in the following statement: