Linking Reading and Writing through Reader-Response Theory

(Hirvella, Chapter 3)

Preliminary Discussion Questions (subject to minor changes)

1. To understand this reader-response theory better, based on your experience describe scenarios in which the author or text is the main focus of reading. Do you agree that negotiation of meaning and transactional elements are missing when we try to guess what an author intends to say or when we try to extract meaning purely from a text? Give real-life examples of how reader-response theory includes processes and elements different from those found in the author or text-oriented reading.

2. Hirvella places his reader-response theory within the realm of social constructivism, that reading is a socially constructed practice among readers, text, and author on the one hand, and between readers and the communities to which they belong on the other. Through the lens of reader-response theory, explain how learners’ background knowledge or reading skill gained in their L1 contexts is taken into account when learning to read and write in L2. Discuss how their L1 background knowledge and practices are really valued by the theory if, at the end of the day, their literacy development is still dictated by, dependent upon, or must conform to particular L2 conventions and discourses (p.54). Will there be any room for accepting the already established forms of L1 literacy practices as unique conventions in and of themselves?

3. L1 composition studies have already begun discussions on ideologies and injustices and as part of their commitment to developing post-process and post-modernist pedagogies, they have made radical changes to L1 writing instruction. Based on the assumption that reading parallels writing in many ways, discuss ways in which the L2 reading concerns voiced by the reader-response theory can also be expanded or modified to parallel the concerns developing in L1 context such as viewing reading as a practice fraught with ideologies and hidden agendas, more than simply cognitive-like activities (e.g., gap-filling, problem-solving, hypothesis testing, etc).