McDonald 2004 Critical Reading 10-11 year olds.pdf - Oncourse

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24 Moving from reader response to critical reading 141T Sonya, I want to ask – do you have grandparents who are like that? Is that your experience? [S nods assent].Yeh. They are actually, they are not all like that, it is unfortunate that you have had that experience. (Lesson 15) In this talk the students reflected on how their own experience of the elderly aligns itself with what the novel offered. The students’ talk blurred lived experience and textual experience and implied a recognition that multiple positions were available for elderly women. The students were able to consider the ways of being taken up by their own female relatives and to recognise the shifting roles that this may entail. Thus Sonya’s resistance revealed the dynamic quality of knowledge in constructing the potential for alternative subject positions. Here, in effect, the student moved towards a critical reading, which questioned the reader and subject positions offered in the teacher’s metatextual talk. What is apparent in these exchanges is that by making an alternative discourse available for debate the teacher positioned the students to examine their experiences in the light of that alternative. Conclusion This article has presented an analysis of aspects of four different lessons that utilised features of narrative and feminist qualities of the study text to move students towards critical reading. The lesson analysis elaborated on how an analytical/critical reading contrasted with a response reading developed through students’ stories. Reading positions alternative to those established in non-critical talk emerged as the students began to observe the construction of characterisation and aspects of different gender discourses. The power of the novel to ‘pull’ a reader into alignment with its characters and ideology is important to note. Deliberately developing this alignment also appears to be essential for students’ motivation and interest. What is also apparent from the transcripts is the contribution that deliberation on points-of-view, the conflation of personal understandings with narrative analysis, and involvement in ‘debates’ makes to readers’ enjoyment and enthusiasm. The potential to utilise a response reading position in order to develop a critical reading position with literary texts is implied. The selection of the novel is crucial to supporting moves towards critical reading. The features of the novel’s construction offered the teacher a resource to introduce her readers to the possibility of alternative ways of being. The students’ interpretative responses to a gender discourse were deliberately positioned within a focus question ‘frame’, which both structured a comparison of characteristics and constructed a move towards a recognition of a particular gendered position. Thus the focus question could be seen to mark a point on a response-critical continuum, where it invited responses to character analysis and also highlighted alternative ways of being for females. Lastly, it is interesting to observe that the authorised classroom talk promoted a reading position which complied with the novel’s ideology. Nevertheless, debates emerged when one student engaged in a critique of the discourse position presented in the novel and in the metatextual talk. Thus the literary text offered the possibility of an inspection of certain ways of being and thinking, where lived experience could be examined and tested in the light of vicarious fictional experience. Furthermore, perhaps for the participants, and certainly for such analysis as this, the student challenge revealed the process by which critical reading may be attained. References AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH (1986) Progressive Achievement Test in Reading. Hawthorne: ACER. BAKER, C. (1991a) Reading the texts of reading lessons. Australian Journal of Reading, 14.1, pp. 5–20. BAKER, C. (1991b) ‘Literacy Practices and Social Relations in Classroom Reading Events’ in Baker, C. and Luke, A. (eds) Towards a Critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. BAKER, C. (1992) Description and analysis in classroom talk and interaction. Journal of Classroom Interaction, 27.2, pp. 9–14. BAKER, C. (1997) ‘Literacy Practices and Social Order’ in Muspratt, S., Luke, A. and Freebody, P. (eds) Constructing Critical Literacies. Sydney: Allen & Unwin pp. 243–272. BAKER, C. and FREEBODY, P. (1989a) ‘Talk Around Text: Constructions of Textual and Teacher Authority in Classroom Discourse’ in de Castell, S., Luke, A. and Luke, C. (eds) Language, Authority and Criticism: Readings on the School Textbook. London: The Falmer Press, pp. 263–283. BAKER, C. and FREEBODY, P. (1989b) Children’s First School Books. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. BAYNHAM, M. (1995) Literacy Practices Investigating Literacy in Social Contexts. London: Longman. BRADFORD, C. (ed.) (1996) Writing the Australian Child. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press in association with Deakin University: Centre for Research in Cultural Communication. CANDLIN, C. (1992) ‘General Editor’s Preface’ in Stephens, J. (ed.) Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction. London and New York: Longman, pp. vii–ix. FISH, S. (1979) Interpreting the ‘Variorum’. Critical Inquiry, 2, pp. 478– 485. FREEBODY, P. (1991) ‘Inventing Cultural-capitalist Distinctions in the Assessment of HSC Papers: Coping with Inflation in an Era of ‘‘Literacy Crisis’’’ in Christie, F. (ed.) Literacy in Social Processes. Papers from the Inaugural Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Conference, Deakin University, January 1990. Darwin: Centre for Studies of Language in Education, Northern Territory University, pp. 96–108. FRENCH, F. (1986) Snow White in New York. Oxford: Oxford University Press. GEE, J. (1996) Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses, (2nd edn). London: The Falmer Press. GLEESON, L. (1987) I am Susannah. North Ryde: Angus & Robertson. ISER, W. (1978) The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. KEMPE, A. (1993) No single meaning: empowering students to construct socially critical readings of the text. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 16.4, pp. 307–322. LUKE, A. and FREEBODY, P. (1997) ‘Shaping the Social Practices of Reading’ in Muspratt, S., Luke, A. and Freebody, P. (eds) r UKLA 2003
Literacy April 2004 25 Constructing Critical Literacies Teaching and Learning Textual Practice. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, pp. 185–225. LUKE, A., DE CASTELL, S. and LUKE, C. (1983) Beyond criticism: the authority of the school text. Curriculum Inquiry, 13, pp. 111–127. LUKE, C. and LUKE, A. (1989) ‘Beyond Criticism: the Authority of the School Textbook’ in de Castell, S., Luke, A. and Luke, C. (eds) Language, Authority and Criticism Readings on the School Textbook. London: The Falmer Press, pp. 245–260. SCIESZKA, J. (1989) The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. New York: Viking. STEPHENS, J. (1992) Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction. London and New York: Longman. WINSER, B. (1993) ‘‘‘Fun with Dick and Jane’’: a Systemic-functional Approach to Reading, in Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (eds) Genre Approaches to Literacy: Theories and Practices. Papers from the 1991 LERN Conference, University of Technology, Sydney: Common Ground, pp. 109–130. CONTACT THE AUTHOR: Lorraine McDonald, School of Education, ACU National, Locked Bag 2002, Strathfield, NSW 2135 AUSTRALIA. e-mail: L.mcdonald@mary.acu.edu.au r UKLA 2003
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