Literature for Democracy: Reading as a Social Act

Readers Becoming Teachers of Literature

“…Pradl (1996) made clear how disconcerting reflection on one's own praxis can be when we are trying to model more student-centered approaches: "Trying to grant a free existence to others in the space that we're also occupying causes much stress" (p. 6). Opening these spaces and inviting students to challenge assumptions, their own and others, ultimately means they will challenge ours.…”

“…Dias, 1992;Petrosky, 1992;Tighe, 1991;Wilson, 1990) as teachers, both preservice and experienced, encounter new approaches that shift the balance of power in the classroom. Pradl (1996) confessed that even though he advocated a truly democratic classroom where students were free to dissent and question, he had difficulty "giving up the old-style authority of the teacher"; he concluded, "This will never be easy" (p. 50).…”

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackboard: Nurturing Creativity and Developing Voice in the Preparation of English Teachers

“…"I realized from then on that I have to go past my first impressions and really listen to what's going on." Pradl (1996) confirms this stance when he says, "If, as a teacher, I wish to serve as a listener in order to draw out and explore each learner's evolving representations of the world, I will have to be patient and try to get straight just what each learner understands" (p. 71).…”

An Ethical Ideal? Louise Rosenblatt and Democracy—A Personalist Reconsideration

“…His essay for John Clifford's edited volume, The Experience of Reading: Louise Rosenblatt and Reader-Response Theory (1991), focuses explicitly on Rosenblatt's democratic impulse and was sent in draft form to Rosenblatt for comment (Pradl 1991), while his own text, Literature for Democracy (Pradl 1996), uses Rosenblatt's work as a theoretical basis for his own exploration of classroom dynamics. Part of the rationale behind Pradl's essay is to detach Rosenblatt from the label of reader-response; all the essays in Clifford's volume emphasize the differences between Rosenblatt's transactional approach and subjectivist (or more individualistic) approaches to literary studies developed by theorists such as David Bleich and Norman Holland.…”