Slaying Monsters: Students’ Aesthetic Transactions With Gothic Texts

Abstract

Through exploring Gothic tropes such as corruption, death, and destruction, students find meaning and hope. This article presents students' responses to a unit that prioritized aesthetic reading.

A Structured Literacy Approach to Support Striving Readers in Secondary Grades

“…The fourth and final reading offers students the deeper, discussion-level questions students typically enjoy most. They will connect with the text through aesthetic questions, which may be interpreted differently (Del Nero, 2017. Striving readers will find they are better able to verbalize their conclusions following the repeated choral readings (Cypert & Petro, 2019;Paige et al, 2017).…”

Embracing the Other in Gothic Texts: Cultivating Understanding in the Reading Classroom

“…Aesthetic transactions afford readers the opportunity to forge meaningful connections with characters and events (Howard, 2011;Rosenblatt, 1995;Strum & Michel, 2009). Readers may learn more about their own lives and experience a sense of comfort and confidence through participation in such moments of textual connectivity (Becnel & Moeller, 2015;Del Nero, 2017;Tatum, 2014;Wilhelm & Smith, 2014a). Such experiences align with the current emotional needs of students, as texts become a vehicle for readers to work through personal battles and difficulties (Becnel & Moeller, 2015;Verden, 2012).…”

“…Readers also aesthetically transact through vicarious participation in textual circumstances that contrast to their lives (Del Nero, 2017;Howard, 2011;Lewis, 2000;Rosenblatt, 1995). These aesthetic transactions involve learning through imaginative participation (Dickson & Costigan, 2011;Eisner, 2002;Greene, 2001;Rosenblatt, 1994;Vasudevan, 2010).…”

“…The Gothic genre is prevalent across adolescents' leisure reading practices (Del Nero, 2017;Jackson, Coats, & McGillis, 2008;Punter, 2016). This is evident in the popularity of Gothic texts such as the Harry Potter and Twilight series.…”

“…Gothic is a fictional genre categorized by horror, mystery, and often the supernatural. The stories' protagonists are frequently marginalized due to unique physical or mental characteristics (Del Nero, 2017). Relatedly, at the heart of all reading is the chance to better understand the human experience.…”