No Proper Way
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 by htweiler
Permalink for this paragraph 0 What I took from chapter four of Texts and Contexts is that that in regard to reader response criticism there is no one correct way to read a text. Every text is open to a wide number of responses from the reader. A reader’s personal experiences and particular points of view are always going to play a key role in the reader’s interpretation. In reader response criticism it is the reader who inserts life into the work through his active interpretation. The reader plays an active role in re-creatingthe work through his own understanding. I appreciate the agency which is given to the reader in reader response criticism. Allowing the reader to bring his own psychology and viewpoint into the works adds another layer of richness to the work.
But doesn’t the idea that there is no correct way to read a text sometimes scare you? I do agree with you that it adds another layer of richness to the work but when looking at it from the view of a teacher it scares me. Since I am working to teach English in High School I often think about how I would teach things out of my English classes. This criticism seems good for college students but possibly out of control for high school students. I am just picturing grading papers from this criticism and having students try to tell me that they can’t be “wrong” because it is what they think. I know that to do reader-response criticism correctly you need reasons/evidence but dosen’t it seem like this criticism is meant for upper levels of English?
I think there is a difference between saying there is no “wrong” way to read a text (which I think is important to state because it frees the reader up to any and every interpretation) and saying there is a “more accurate” or “reasonable” way to read a text. I actually think it is better to get students acclimated to the idea of “no right/wrong” answers in High School because then it does not limit them to thinking they must look at literature in only 1 lens, which is usually the lens they are taught, and do not generate for themselves.However, I do understand your concern. Being a teacher, this could get tricky. But I still think it’s possible to grade papers and pass judgement on a more convincing view (not necessarily obvious, but argued well) than on the grounds that one interpretation is “right” so the other must be somehow “wrong.”