High-stakes testing and accountability have infiltrated the education system in the United States; the top priority for all teachers must be student progress on standardized tests. This has resulted in the predominance of reading for test-taking, (efferent reading), in the English, language arts, and reading classrooms. Authentic uses of print activities, like aesthetic reading, that encourage students to engage individually with a text, have been pushed aside. During a 3-week time period, regular level, English 3/American literature students in a Title I magnet high school, participated in this quasi-experimental study (N = 62). It measured the effects of an intervention of reading American literature texts aesthetically and writing aesthetically-evoked reader responses on students’ self-efficacy beliefs regarding their comprehension of American literature. One trained teacher and the researcher participated in the study: student participants were pre- and post- tested using the Confidence in Reading American Literature Survey which examined their self-efficacy beliefs regarding their comprehension of American literature. Several statistical analyses were performed. The results of the linear regression analyses partially supported a positive relationship between aesthetically-evoked reader responses and students’ self-efficacy beliefs regarding their comprehension of American literature. Additionally, the results of the 2 (sex) x 2 (treatment) ANCOVAs conducted to test group differences in self-efficacy beliefs regarding the comprehension of American literature between treatment and control groups indicated a main effect for treatment (but not sex; nor was there a significant sex x treatment interaction), suggesting the treatment was partially effective in increasing students’ self-efficacy beliefs. Seven of the twelve ANCOVAs indicated a statistically significant increase in the treatment group’s adjusted group mean self-efficacy belief scores as a result of being exposed to the intervention. In six of these seven analyses, increases in self-efficacy beliefs occurred in tasks that required three or more higher-order levels of thinking/learning. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical, empirical and practical significance. Future research is recommended to extend the intervention beyond the narrow confines of a Title I magnet school to settings where the intervention could be tested longitudinally, e. g., honors and gifted students, elementary and middle schools.

La narrativa de Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) no goza del lugar que merece en la ficción argentina y latinoamericana como obra de la principal cuentista del siglo XX. Hace relativamente poco que su obra comenzó a despertar el interés de la crítica, atención que se evidencia en la cantidad de artículos y disertaciones recientes. Mediante una disección de la narrativa ocampeana a partir de las grandes coordenadas que la intersectan se pueden caracterizar los aspectos peculiares y distintivos de su estilo. Desarrollada tras la consolidación del psicoanálisis y su influencia en la estética surrealista, la narrativa de Ocampo incorpora algunos de esos elementos. El género fantástico también se articula aunque mediante una selección de rasgos configurados a su modo. Si bien Ocampo rechaza la etiqueta de feminista, ciertos aspectos de su estilo sólo pueden explicarse a partir de la visión particular de una mujer escritora y su representación de la identidad y las relaciones. La lectura pormenorizada de varios cuentos recogidos en “Cuentos completos” I y II (1999), once volúmenes publicados durante su vida, pertenecientes a distintos períodos de su producción permiten realizar un análisis diacrónico que ofrece una caracterización redonda de su estilo y evolución. El análisis sincrónico de estos textos incorpora datos históricos acerca del contexto de producción; a la vez que otras obras literarias del período ofrecen un punto de comparación para identificar influencias y contribuciones. Este análisis, realizado desde el marco teórico de la crítica literaria, da cuenta de la presencia de constituyentes narrativos (narrador, ironía, ambigüedad) que configuran espacios de indeterminación, noción postulada por las teorías de la recepción. Éstos explican las peculiares características de la obra ocampeana: su habilidad para inquietar, intrigar, sorprender y, en suma, desestabilizar al lector y sus expectativas. Es más, sirven para explicar la idiosincrática representación de la realidad que emana de su obra, su interés en lo fantástico y la articulación de lo anti-convencional, como mecanismo subversivo para escapar del orden social dominante, lo cual revela sensibilidades protofeministas. La narrativa de Silvina Ocampo se resiste al reduccionismo y construye una visión peculiar y multifacética de la artista y su obra.

This thesis presents young British readers? engagement with manga regarding literary, aesthetic, social, and cultural dimensions. The study explores young readers? points of views of their reading preference ? manga. I investigated how children interpreted manga, with respect to the artistic techniques, the embedded ideologies, and the cultural elements therein. I also looked into children?s participation in manga fandom and its social meanings. This allowed me to explore what attracted British readers to this exotic text. This study involved 16 participants from two schools, aged between 10 and 15, with genders represented equally. The participants were grouped by gender in each school. Each group of students received three group interviews based on three manga that they were required to read in advance. Individual interviews with each student followed the group interviews, and all the students were asked to keep reading reflections. The findings show that the attraction of participants to manga includes at least five dimensions. First, manga is a visually rich text, which not only had great power in rendering vicarious experiences to the students, but also allowed the struggling students to grasp the meanings of the text better. Second, both the verbal and the visual storytelling were characterised as fragmentary, which inspired the students? imagination to join the creation of the story. Third, manga provided a temporary shelter where the participants could forget a stressful and frustrating reality. In addition, they felt that they gained renewed hope, refreshed energy, and insights to face potential challenges and difficulties in their lives. Fourth, the elements of Japaneseness and otherness made manga reading a rich experience of an exotic culture. Fifth, manga afforded collective pleasures in fan communities where the students could express their passion and gained a sense of identity.

This essay’s aim is to investigate how Rowling uses her novel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to criticize racism in her magical world and ours. A secondary aim concerns how Rowling’s critical stance creates ways to resist racism for readers in the EFL classroom. Therefore, a comparison from a Critical Race Theory (CRT) perspective is made with focus on certain sequence comparisons between the novel and the film. Teachers need to highlight problems like racism in classrooms and fantasy novels and movies are exceptional tools to raise awareness and teach critical thinking to students.

This essay is a discussion about how English teachers in the Swedish school system can use Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to encourage awareness and reflection in students regarding issues of class division and its impact on society. The essay provides examples of how the contemporary Swedish society and the society depicted in Pride and Prejudice share both similarities and differences in issues regarding class division. The reader response perspective has been applied to show how teachers may use the novel to emphasize students’ reflections and responses. This, in the hope of creating rewarding discussions in the classroom that are based on the curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school’s content of democratic values and human rights. This essay will show that Pride and Prejudice is a suitable choice of literature to use as basis for generating awareness and reflection regarding the issues of the impact of class divisions on society in the EFL classroom.

This essay applies theories from gender studies and reader response to Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X (2018). The essay discusses diversity in meaning making by investigating differences in creating envisionments. The aim is to unmask the differences in reading to improve and direct teaching practices in EFL classrooms. Moreover, an additional aim is to discuss whether envisionment can be seen as a gendered concept, or if the different readings are equally possible to reach Langer’s five stances. The Poet X centres on a female first-person narrator where the critique towards church, society and normative behaviour is prominent. The potential differences can be seen in understanding the characters in the novel, relating to previous experience and differing understandings of social structures. The pedagogical implementation aims at designing a learning situation where these differing understandings of text can be shared through metacognitive reflection and open-ended methods of pedagogy. The shared understanding of The Poet X in EFL settings can develop the students’ ability to find agency in interpretating texts.

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Without consciousness we become victim instead of actors- even if it is only a question of acting victims. And in the make belief of our lives, the audience is self (Fugard in Frank 2004: 53). The primary concern of this study is the comparison of video interpretations of Athol Fugard with their adaptations as visual texts. It has been argued that 'the playwright's creative labour ends with the completion of the script' (Kidnie 2009: 15).Therefore, amongst other issues this dissertation will explore the politics of production at play during adaptation from printed version to screenplays. My assumption is that a comparison between the printed texts and video versions will add to the understanding of the effectiveness of Fugard's dramatic techniques and comprehension of literary texts; images are easy to decipher by inexperienced interpreters if guided. For the purpose of my presentation I adapt the reader response theoretical position of Stanley Fish based on a comparison that will be explored in terms of my own response to both the written text and visual texts, and in line with other responsed to the play. / English Studies / M.A.

Every reader will respond to and think in a different way about a book. They will have different interpretations of the book. It is not possible to say with scientific certainty in what way a reader will interpret a book. To address this issue, this study focuses on the reader response theory as explained by Iser and Jauss. However, the reader response theory is at present supported by research from the cognitive theory to narratology. This study attempts to understand how a reader reasons with regards to a certain text. A further aim is to understand why a specific reader will think about and interpret the text in the way he or she does. In this study the books 30 Nagte in Amsterdam (30 Nights in Amsterdam) by Etienne van Heerden and Swartskaap (Black Sheep) by Odette Schoeman is used to test the hypothesis. Qualitative research methods were used and the data was processed in different stages as is displayed in the addendum DVD. Cognitive theory wants to explain how the reader will respond to the book as a whole, characters, events and the places and spaces represented in the novel. In this study, it was found that a reader's response will always be influenced by his/her background. Readers use their background either to make sense of the book and the story it tells or to make sense of what has happened in their own lives in order to accept and understand it. On account of the results reached in the study it can be argued that readers should be taken into account when books are reviewed and discussed, because they are the ones that have to do the actual reading. Because of this finding, this study puts forward the suggestion that a review model is developed so that readers can make informed decisions as to which book will be best suited to them. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012