Re-imaging Reader-Response in Middle and Secondary Schools: Early Adolescent Girls’ Critical and Communal Reader Responses to the Young Adult Novel Speak

Parent–Child Relationships in the Twilight Saga: Implications for Family Life Education

“…According to Reader Response Theory, readers are not passive recipients of information presented in novels but instead interact with the text to construct meaning (Franzak, 2006;Park, 2012). Using personal knowledge and insight gained from their own lives, readers ''experience'' the novel and formulate their own interpretation of it.…”

“…can confront and grapple with the social contradictions and complexities that comprise adolescents' lives' ' (p. 29). However, reading alone may not prompt such self-reflections (Park, 2012). For example, adolescents may only attend to aspects of the novel that affirm their current views.…”

“…To achieve a fuller understanding, a critical stance is necessary, one that moves adolescents from examining what the novel means to them to reflecting on what life experiences shape their response and why their perspective may differ from that of others (Boston & Baxley, 2007;Franzak, 2006;Park, 2012). Park (2012) proposed that such understandings are better achieved when undertaken in community with others.…”

“…Park (2012) proposed that such understandings are better achieved when undertaken in community with others. Dialogue with others who have read the novel typically reveal alternative, perhaps even conflicting, interpretations that can prompt adolescents to consider the bases for these differences and reexamine how they look at themselves and their worlds.…”

The Writer in the Reader

“…Consequently, this belief replaces the teacher's role of single authority of literary knowledge to one of literacy facilitator, creating room for increased student interpretation and collaboration (Karolides, 2000;Larson, 2009;Park, 2012).…”