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Envisionment
Building
The
Center for English Learning and Achievement (CELA) has
made these two great resources available for teachers.
Authored by Dr. Judith Langer and Elizabeth Close, both
documents contain concise explanations of envisionment
and concrete suggestions for creating a classroom where
students have rich interactions with
literature.
You will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat
Reader to read these articles. You can download it for free from Adobe.
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A
Response-Based Approach to Reading Literature
Judith
A. Langer
National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement (CELA)
University at Albany
State
University of New York
1400 Washington Avenue,
Albany, NY 12222
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 | Report Series 6.7
1994
Language Arts, v71 n3, March 1994.
Copyright 1994 by the National Council of Teachers of English
Reprinted with permission.
Also published in
Language Arts, Vol. 71, March 1994.
National
Research Center on English Learning &
Achievement
University at Albany, School of Education,
B-9
1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222
http://cela.albany.edu/
518-442-5026
The
Center on English Learning & Achievement (CELA) is a
national research and development center located at the
University at Albany, State University of New York, in
collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The
Center, established in 1987, initially focused on the teaching
and learning of literature. In March 1996, the Center expanded
its focus to include the teaching and learning of English,
both as a subject in its own right and as it is learned in
other content areas. CELA's work is sponsored by the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department
of Education, as part of the National Institute on Student
Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment.
"A
Response-Based Approach to Reading Literature" is based on
research conducted at the National Research Center on
Literature Teaching and Learning, supported under the Research
and Development Centers Program (Grant number R117G10015).
Distribution is supported in part under award number
R305A960005 as administered by OERI. However, the contents do
not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the
Department of Education, OERI, or the Institute on Student
Achievement. All Center reports are peer reviewed before
publication.
Published 1997
http://cela.albany.edu/response/index.html
In
this Research Report, I will discuss my work on response-based
instruction, the strategies teachers call upon to orchestrate
such classroom experiences, and ways in which it supports the
development of students' thinking. This work is part of a
larger program of research into the teaching and learning of
literature I began some years ago. During the past few years,
an increasing number of researchers and theorists have been
focusing on related issues relevant to language arts readers
about the processes involved in understanding literature from
a reader-based perspective (e.g., Benton, 1992, Corcoran,
1992, Eeds & Wells, 1989, Encisco, 1992, Rosenblatt,
1993), as well as ways to support students' learning in the
elementary and middle grades (e.g., Andrasik 1990, Cianciolo
& Quirk 1992; Close 1990, 1992; Goodman & Wilde 1992;
Many & Wiseman 1992; McMahon 1992; Nystrand, Gamoran,
& Heck 1993; Zancanella 1992, Zarillo & Cox 1992).
Still others have been focusing on literature-based and whole
language instruction at the primary level (e.g., Jipson &
Paley 1992; Mills, O'Keefe, & Stephens 1992; Morrow 1992;
Roser in press; Uhry & Shephard 1993; Villaume &
Worden 1993; Walmsley & Adams 1993; Yatvin
1992).
On the heels of the reform we have all witnessed
in writing education has followed a widespread rethinking of
literature in the English language arts, initiated as often as
not by teachers who have wanted to bring their literature
instructional practices in line with their student-focused
approaches to writing. During this time, I have become
increasingly aware that as teachers experiment with the many
related types of response-centered approaches (including whole
language and literature-based instruction), many are uncertain
about the place of instruction in these paradigms and their
role in it. On the one hand they are attracted to the notions
underlying a pedagogy of student thoughtfulness because they
think it provides students with ownership for their own
learning, motivates and engages them in making sense, and
provides a context for them to try out, negotiate, and refine
their ideas in interaction with others. On the other hand,
they are uncertain how to carry through such
lessons.
Often I am asked, "Does anything go, and if
not, how do I know what to do? Once I get an initial response,
what do I do with it?" I consider these concerns valid, even
predictable. The old teaching routines almost all of us
learned in graduate coursework and saw modeled in curriculum
guides, instructional materials, and assessment instruments
don't apply when response-based instruction is the goal. Yet
the field has not yet provided adequate guidelines or
strategies to allow teachers to build "new bones,"
internalized routines and options to take the place of plot
summaries and leading questions guiding students toward
predetermined interpretations — new bones that can guide their
moment-to-moment decision-making as they plan for and interact
with their students.
For the past few years, through my
work at the National Research Center on Literature Teaching
and Learning (funded by the U.S. Department of Education,
Office of Educational Research and Improvement), I have been
working toward a reader-based theory for the teaching of
literature — one that can help us understand what it means to
make sense of literature from a reader's point of view, and
what that means for refocusing our instructional goals and
practices (see Langer, 1990a, b; 1991, 1992a, b; 1993; Roberts
& Langer 1991). One part of this work helps explain the
process of literary understanding while the other addresses
ways in which such understanding can be most effectively
taught. I will discuss each in turn.
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