Appleman Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of Appleman's book finally delves a little deeper into her ideas about literary theory instruction in the classroom, particularly that of Reader Response theory. Before reading this chapter my personal opinions about RR were quite positive. As I read the chapter I came to a sort of acceptance of the idea that I only liked RR because that is what I had primarily been taught throughout my high school English classes, but that doesn't totally negate my personal opinion that RR is an overall positive experience (in most cases) for both the students and the teacher. One of my most trusted beliefs is that the student needs to KNOW, without a doubt, that their personal opinions and ideas matter to the classroom environment and that they are always significant to our discussions. I know that in my own personal experience, the classes in which I felt the my opinion actually mattered were the classes that I liked the best, and as a direct result of that, the classes that I gained the most from. I found it interesting to read about the potential negative effects of using RR in the classroom because I had never really thought that it could have a negative impact. Despite my previous notion, I do agree now that RR could put some students in an awkward position (by being afraid to share, or sharing too much as Appleman mentions), and could even put the teacher in a precarious position by giving the students too much "power." I'm not sure that "too much 'power'" is the best way to describe this idea, but what I mean is that the students now have the ability to say, "well, if my response and interpretation are uniquely mine, then what could you (the teacher) possibly tell me about it?" These would obviously be difficult situations but I feel like the classroom has the potential to drive itself to those unusual places every once in a while no matter what or how you teach. Finally, I especially enjoyed the activity with the ambiguous poem that had students read and individually interpret its meaning. I think it is important to get the students thinking about how many perspectives could possibly be taken from any and all pieces of literary text. As this chapter points out, students often know what their doing while they interpret a text (like applying their personal experiences) but too few times do they know why they're doing that and even fewer times are they told other ways to do that. We need to keep them better informed and do a better job of letting them "see behind the curtain."