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Writing Applications (7th - 8th Grades)
Language Arts Lesson 5
Instruction 5-2
Fictional and Autobiographical Narratives | Responses to Literature | Research Reports | Persuasive Compositions | Career Development and Technical Documents | Summary |
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| RESPONSES TO LITERATURE CA GR6 WOELC 1.2 CA GR7 W 2.2 & 2.3 CA GR8 W 2.2 |
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The best way to learn to write is to read. No lecture or words on a blackboard can teach you half as much about writing as reading a good book. But it's also important to learn how to respond to what you read. In Lesson 3, we talked about the elements of literature (plot, character, theme and setting) and how you might be asked to write about each in an oral or written book report. Now we're going to talk about other kinds and levels of response to literature. Reading for Information vs. Reading for Emotion/Enjoyment On an individual level, there are two main ways to respond to what you read. These are called the efferent stance and the aesthetic stance. Those are strange words but they mean something simple. The efferent stance means "getting information from what you read." This means reading something and taking thoughts, ideas, conclusions and even instructions away from it. In other words, responding intellectually. The aesthetic stance is different. It means responding to what you read on the basis of words, mood and feelings. In other words, responding emotionally and enjoying what you read. Authors can write from either of these two perspectives - to communicate information or to communicate emotion. So you might assume that expository prose is always written from the efferent stance while narrative prose (literature) is always written from the aesthetic stance. But that isn't true -- most things you read fall somewhere between these two extremes. And the really great writers always manage to communicate both information and emotion at the same time. In fact, that's what makes them great writers. Levels of Response There are also several levels of response to what you read. For young students and beginning readers, there is no right or wrong way to respond to literature. Each reader responds based on his or her own experience. Each interprets literature in his or her own way. This is called the Reader Response Theory. Similar to this is the Interpretive Community approach. In this approach, a number of readers (a "community") work in groups to respond to a book or story. Again, there are no right or wrong interpretations. But since all the members of the group see how the others respond, they are exposed to a wide diversity of views. Book clubs (like Oprah's Book Club) usually work this way.
As you get into the academic world, response to literature gets more structured and "scholarly." This is called Formal Analysis and requires scrutiny of the elements of fiction, knowledge of the appropriate structure for expository work, appreciation of the writer's craft and examination of the author's style. At the very highest levels of the scholarly ladder you find Critical
Synthesis. In this approach, a work of Don't let what you've just read turn you off reading. You may need to know this stuff for tests and the SAT's, but you don't need to know it to read and enjoy literature! Video Instruction
For additional information on the different ways we respond to literature, click on any of the following Student, Teacher and Parent web sites: Links for Students, Parents and Teachers Now let's do Practice Exercise 5-2 (top).
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literature is analyzed from a
very specific theory or point of view (feminist, historical, moral, Marxist,
etc.). Scholars get their PhD's by doing this. And some of their
interpretations can be pretty interesting. Imagine "A Feminist Perspective
on Moby Dick," for example -- a book with no women in it. Or an analysis of
"Little Red Riding Hood" from the moral point of view.