Thoughts on "A Response Based Approach to Reading Literature"

Reading this article along with the previous two has made me realize a concept that each author is trying to voice through the writing: the classroom is not made up of a bunch of empty slates being fed information from a teacher; but rather, the classroom is a collection of minds that learn, share and think about each other's ideas. The response based approach in this article is another representation of this idea because it does not focus on the text itself. Instead, this approach focuses on the student's interpretation of the text, and because there are multiple students, the potential for multiple interpretations is raised. This creates a discussion that is defined in "Discussion as a Way of Teaching." This discussion will then be used to "Encourage students to develop their own well-formed interpretations and gain vision from others'. There is more than one way to interpret any piece of literature" (7). This gives the opportunity to compare each interpretation, which leads to further clarification and evidence gathering to complete the discussion. The teacher is not so much the leader; but rather, the facilitator of such a discussion. Ultimately the greater goal of such a classroom would be the students supporting their own interpretation with evidence, and comparing their ideas with the ideas of others. With each discussion brings multiple interpretations with further support and this increases the overall understanding of the literature.