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Reader Response Theory
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DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0107
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Reader Response Theory

Susan Browne, Xiufang Chen, Faten Baroudi, Esra Sevinc
LAST MODIFIED: 21 APRIL 2021

DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780190221911-0107
Introduction
This annotated bibliography presents influential work in the area of reader response theory. While providing an overview of major research
in the area of reader response, the annotated bibliography also provides current research representing various categories of reader
response. The citations are organized by their dominant characteristics although there may be some overlap across categories.
General Overview
Reader response theory identifies the significant role of the reader in constructing textual meaning. In acknowledging the reader’s essential
role, reader response diverges from early text-based views found in New Criticism, or brain-based psychological perspectives related to
reading. Literacy scholars such as David Bleich, Norman Holland, Stanley Fish, and Wolfgang Iser are instrumental in crafting what has
come to be known as reader response. The theory maintains that textual meaning occurs within the reader in response to text and
recognizes that each reader is situated in a particular manner that includes factors such as ability, culture, gender, and overall experiences.
However, according to Tomkins’s 1980 edited volume Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-structuralism, reader response
is not a representation of a uniform position, but is rather a term associated with theorists whose work addresses the reader, the reading
process, and textual response. Although Tompkins omits the work of Louise Rosenblatt, it is Rosenblatt’s work that has come to have a
vast influence in the field of reader response. Prior to the work of the New Critics, Louise Rosenblatt wrote the now-seminal text Literature
as Exploration, first published in 1938, which was distinct in emphasizing both the reader and the text. In later editions of the text,
Rosenblatt draws on the work of John Dewey and shifts from the use of the word “interaction” to describe reading as a “transaction,” thus
giving life to the transactional theory of reading. The references in this section, including Applebee 1992, Beach 1993, Barton 2002, and
Harkin 2005, provide an overview of reader response theory.
Applebee, A. “The Background for Reform.” In Literature Instruction: A Focus on Student Response. Edited by J. Langer, 1–18.
Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1992.
This book chapter reviews a series of studies of the elementary and secondary school curriculum, providing a rich portrait of literature
instruction and suggesting a series of issues that needed to be addressed in the teaching of literature. It set the background for reform.
Barton, J. “Thinking about Reader-Response Criticism.” The Expository Times 113.5 (2002): 147–151.
An article that outlines reader response criticism through the lens of biblical scholarly inquiry.
Beach, R. A Teacher’s Introduction to Reader-Response Theories. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993.
This book offers an in-depth review of reader response theory for teachers to build foundational knowledge to aptly use in their classrooms.
Topics discussed include textual theories of response, experiential theories of response, psychological theories of response, social theories
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of response, cultural theories of response, and applying theory into practice, eliciting response. Key reviews of reader response criticism
and glossary terms are also explored throughout the text.
Harkin, P. “The Reception of Reader-Response Theory.” College Composition and Communication 56.3 (2005): 410–425.
This essay provides a historical explanation for the place of reader response theory in English studies. The author takes a genealogical
look at how reader response theory has been celebrated or rejected in English departments and what this suggests about conflicted
relations between composition studies and literary studies and between research and pedagogy during the past two or three decades in the
United States.
Foundational/Seminal Texts
This section focuses on important foundational publications devoted to reader response beginning with Richards 1929. This work examined
students’ responding to emotion and meaning in poems and passages of prose to achieve what the author describes as an organized
response. The 1970s were important to producing a body of work that broadened and deepened understandings around reader response
by taking the reader into account, as shown in Fish 1970, Iser 1972, Iser 1978, and Holland 1975. Significant contributions continued in the
1980s with Fish 1980, Gibson 1980, and Eco 1981 and later with Holland 1990.
Eco, U. The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. London: Hutchinson, 1981.
A seminal text devoted to essays published between 1959 and 1971. Chapters present topics on the dialectic between “open” and “closed”
texts, various sorts of texts, and aesthetic manipulation of language. Together the chapters address the role of the reader in interpreting
texts.
Fish, S. “Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics.” New Literary History 2.1 (1970): 123–162.
In this article, Fish suggests that there is no direct relationship between the meaning of a sentence (paragraph, novel, poem) and what its
words mean. The information an utterance gives, its message, is an element of its meaning but is not its meaning. It is the experience of an
utterance that is its meaning.
Fish, S. Is There a Text in This Class: The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
In the book, Fish examines the relationship between reader and text and argues against the notion of text alone as the basic and
unchanging aspect of literary experiences. He argues for the reader’s interpretation, unchecked subjectivity, and interpretive communities in
the production of meaning.
Gibson, W. “Authors, Speakers, Readers, and Mock Readers, 1950.” In Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-
structuralism. Edited by J. P. Tompkins. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.
In this chapter, Gibson introduces the concept of mock reader in contrast to a real reader. He argues that the mock reader is a role the real
reader is invited to play throughout a reading. This chapter moves the focus away from the text onto the reader while offering new
approaches to textual analysis.
Holland, N. N. “Unity Identity Text Self.” PMLA 90.5 (1975): 813–822.

Holland summarizes the process of “defense,” “expectation,” “fantasy,” and “transformation.” A reader applies certain defenses to the
evoked fantasy elements: denial, repression, or intellectualization. Responding to texts encourages readers to break through defenses to
project their subconscious fantasies onto the text and, by transforming them on a conscious level, to understand their meaning.
Holland, N. N. Holland’s Guide to Psychoanalytic Psychology and Literature-and-Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press,
1990.
This book explains how to use psychology, particularly psychoanalytic psychology, in order to answer questions about literature and the
arts.
Iser, W. “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach.” New Literary History 3.2 (1972): 279–299.
In this seminal article, Iser discusses the idea that a literary work must take into account the actual text and equally the actions involved in
responding to the text. A literary work can be viewed as artistic, involving the author, and aesthetic, involving the reader. The text takes on
life when it is realized, and this realization is dependent upon the disposition of the reader.
Iser, W. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1974.
In this book, Iser discusses that among an author’s readers, the ideal one is implied by “the text.”
Iser, W. The Act of Reading. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
In this seminal text, Iser examines the reading process and how it is basic to the development of a theory of aesthetic response.
Richards, I. A. Practical Criticism. New York: Harcourt, 1929.

Richards’s study reflected text-centered assumptions about the role of the text, contending that the personal situation of the reader affects
reading.
Cultural and Social Perspectives
Social theorists focus on the influence of the social context on the reader-text transaction; for example, individual reading and group
discussion could encourage different responses. Cultural theorists explore how readers’ cultural roles, attitudes, and values, as well as the
larger cultural, historical context, shape responses. Cultural and social perspective demonstrates that a reader’s social context and cultural
backgrounds impact responses to texts, as demonstrated in Atkinson and Mitchell 2010, Brooks and Browne 2012, Browne and Brooks
2007, Fish 1980, Galda and Beach 2001, McNair 2013, Moller 2007, and Sipe 1999.
Atkinson, B., and R. Mitchell. “‘Why didn’t they get it?’ ‘Did they have to get it?’: What Reader-Response Theory Has to Offer
Narrative Research and Pedagogy.” International Journal of Education & the Arts 11.7 (2010).
A qualitative study that uses narrative inquiry to explore the intersections of culturally responsive pedagogy and reader response theory.
Brooks, W., and S. Browne. “Towards a Culturally Situated Reader Response Theory.” Children’s Literature in Education 43.1
(2012): 74–85.
This article interprets the influences of culture to create a new theory with data examples that illustrate effective theoretical applications.
Poignant themes and findings include analysis of the reader from different positions such as ethnic group position, community position,
family position, and peers’ position. This theory focuses on understanding reader response theory through lenses provided by the positions
one occupies in the world at that particular moment in time in the reader’s life.
Browne, S., and W. Brooks. “Reading and Responding to Culturally Relevant Historical Fiction in a Community-Based Literary
Club.” In Embracing, Evaluating and Examining African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Edited by W. Brooks
and J. McNair, 97–110. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007.
The chapter focuses on a qualitative study that examined preadolescents’ responses to culturally conscious historical fiction—African
American literature—in a community-based literary club.
Fish, S. Is There a Text in This Class: The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
In this book, Fish examines the relationship between reader and text and argues against the notion of text alone as the basic and
unchanging aspect of literary experiences. He argues for the reader’s interpretation, unchecked subjectivity, and interpretive communities in
the production of meaning.
Galda, L., and R. Beach. “Response to Literature as a Cultural Activity.” Reading Research Quarterly 36.1 (2001): 64–73.
The authors examine the evolution of the reader response theory and review the literature that covers its implementation in the classroom.
Teachers help students to create opportunities to read and respond to the text by relating the word to their experiences and their critique of
the world of reader response activities.
McNair, J. C. “I Never Knew There Were So Many Books about Us: Parents and Children Reading and Responding to African
American Children’s Literature Together.” Children’s Literature in Education 44 (2013): 191–207.
The study examines how the social practices of African American families with children in early grade grades has changed as a result of
participating in a family literacy program utilizing African American children’s literature. Open-ended qualitative pre-and post-interviews
were used; parents who increased the amount of time reading aloud to their children developed an appreciation toward African American
children’s literature outside the classroom.
Moller, K. “Reading Our Richly Diverse World: Conceptualizing a Response Development Zone.” In Embracing, Evaluating and
Examining African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Edited by W. Brooks and J. McNair, 151–186. Lanham, MD:
Scarecrow Press, 2007.
Making a strong connection between research and teaching, the author suggests the Response Development Zone (RDZ) as a
collaborative construct meant to develop students’ response to literature through engaging them in discussions about issues of social
justice.
Sipe, L. R. “Children’s Response to Literature: Author, Text, Reader, Context.” Theory into Practice 38.3 (1999): 120–129.
The author examines various perspectives of children’s literary responses. He offers some inquiries and concepts that shape a
comprehensive understanding of different responses. These responses are the product of various sociocultural contexts. He also refers to
some literary texts that can yield interactive discussion in the literature.
Multicultural Perspectives
Multicultural perspectives address reader response to multicultural texts about the experiences of underrepresented groups in society,
which often explore diversity and equity issues. Many scholars have done work in this area, as seen in Boyd 2002; Brooks 2006; Cai 2002;
Kim 2016; McCullough 2013; Martínez-Roldán 2003; Sciurba 2014; Sims 1983; Spears-Bunton 1990; and Thein, et al. 2011.
Boyd, F. B. “Conditions, Concessions, and the Many Tender Mercies of Learning through Multicultural Literature.” Literacy
Research and Instruction 42.1 (2002): 58–92.
This journal article presents a qualitative research, stemming from a larger study, that investigates four ninth‐grade students’ responses to
multicultural literature. It examined how these students constructed their own texts and meanings when they were required to read,
interpret, and critique unfamiliar text written about underrepresented people.
Brooks, W. “Reading Representations of Themselves: Urban Youth Use Culture and African American Textual Features to
Develop Literary Understandings.” Reading Research Quarterly 41.3 (2006): 372–392.
This article presents a qualitative study that explored how middle school students read and responded to culturally conscious African
American children’s books. The study offers two findings: (1) recurring cultural themes, African American linguistic patterns, and ethnic
group practices are identifiable African American textual features; and (2) participants actively use cultural knowledge, experiences, and
African American textual features to develop literary understandings.
Cai, M. Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults: Reflections on Critical Issues. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
This book proposed a multidimensional model for the study of reader response to multicultural literature, including cognitive-developmental,
affective-attitudinal, and social-communal dimensions.
Kim, S. J. “Opening Up Spaces for Early Critical Literacy: Korean Kindergarteners Exploring Diversity through Multicultural
Picture Books.” Australian Journal of Language & Literacy 39.2 (2016).
This journal article reports a qualitative case study exploring the creation of “alternative texts” by twelve five-year-old children, after they
read multicultural picture books in a kindergarten classroom in South Korea. Findings indicated that writing alternative texts followed by
reading multicultural books enabled children to pose questions, share opinions, and develop critical perspectives on issues related to
racial/cultural diversity and equality.
Martínez-Roldán, C. M. “Building Worlds and Identities: A Case Study of the Role of Narratives in Bilingual Literature
Discussions.” Research in the Teaching of English 37.4 (2003): 491–526.
This journal article, a qualitative case study, investigates how a seven-year-old Mexican-born girl used oral narratives to participate in small
group literature discussions in a bilingual second-grade classroom in the United States over a year. Grounded in sociocultural and critical
perspectives and applying narrative and transactional theories, it indicates the ways in which the representational and interactional roles of
narratives came together to support the participants’ construction of identity.
McCullough, R. G. “The Relationship between Reader Response and Prior Knowledge on African American Students’ Reading
Comprehension Performance Using Multicultural Literature.” Reading Psychology 34.5 (2013): 397–435.
The article focuses on reading strategies that render students engaged and motivated readers. The quantitative study investigated eighth-
grade African American students to show the importance of cultural background and prior knowledge for students’ comprehension. Results
reveal that prior knowledge is the highest indicator of students’ reading comprehension and responses to the text.
Sciurba, K. “Texts as Mirrors, Texts as Windows: Black Adolescent Boys and the Complexities of Textual Relevance.” Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy 58.4 (2014): 308–316.
This journal article examines the ways in which two adolescent Black boys at an urban single‐sex school find relevance in what they read,
rather than making presumptions about how texts serve as mirrors to them. It discusses culturally relevant and “boy” literature and stresses
the importance of offering readers occasions to see themselves in texts.
Sims, R. “Strong Black Girls: A Ten Year Old Responds to Fiction about Afro-Americans.” Journal of Research and Development
in Education 16.3 (1983): 21–28.
This paper reports on an interview with a ten-year-old Black girl, in which she discusses her responses to books about strong, active Afro-
American girls. The difficulty of obtaining such books is pointed out, as is the need for studies of the impact of culturally valid books for
young readers.
Spears-Bunton, L. A. “Welcome to My House: African American and European American Students’ Responses to Virginia
Hamilton’s House of Dies Drear.” The Journal of Negro Education 59.4 (1990): 566–576.
This journal article addresses the relationship between reader response and culture. It describes how a teacher and her students, poor and
working-class African American and European American high school students in two neighborhoods, navigated their way through a series
of African American literary texts.
Thein, A. H., M. Guise, and D. L. Sloan. “Problematizing Literature Circles as Forums for Discussion of Multicultural and Political
Texts.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 55.1 (2011): 15–24.
In this study, tenth‐grade students discussed Dorothy Allison’s novel Bastard out of Carolina. Key moments are discussed that point to the
limits of literature circles as they are typically implemented for engaging students with multicultural and political texts at a critical depth.
Experiential Theories of Response
Experiential theorists are primarily interested in describing readers’ processes of engagement and involvement in composing their own
“envisionments” as illustrated by Ekstam 2018, Langer 1989, Langer 1990a, and Langer 1990b. Central to experiential theories of response
are Rosenblatt 1968 and Rosenblatt 1978. These theorists focus on the nature of readers’ engagement or experiences with texts, for
example, identifying with characters, visualizing images, relating personal experiences to the text, or constructing the world of the text, as
demonstrated in Benton 1993, Benton 1995, Bogdan 1986, and Bogdan 1990.
Benton, M. “Reader Response Criticism in Children’s Literature.” Occasional Papers (1993): 15.
The author refers to the reader’s response to criticism and its implementations. It becomes rudimentary to observe the way the readers
respond to literature, how they develop their reading responses, the development of literacy, and their reading practice differences. The
article can be dealt with from multicultural, feminist, or cultural studies perspectives, and texts are analyzed from a broad context.
Benton, M. “The Discipline of Literary Response: Approaches to Poetry with L2 Students.” Educational Review 47.3 (1995): 333–
342.
The article discusses the use of reader response theory for L2 students through activities that make first-year university students engage in
poetry reading. The reading process makes students integrate into the text and develop their response. The author also suggests a set of
principles for teaching literature that makes students engaged in critical reading.
Bogdan, D. “Virtual and Actual Forms of Literary Response.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 20.2 (1986): 51–57.
This article aims to capture the relationship between literary knowledge and experience by outlining several ideas such as reading being
dialectic and developing engagement with the text to maximize the experience as a reader.
Bogdan, D. “The Re-educated Imagination and the Power of Literary Engagement.” The Journal of Educational Thought
(JET)/Revue de la Pensée Éducative 24.3A (1990): 83–109.
The author draws on personal reader response experience to rethink the possibilities of texts that are part of an imperfect world.
Considering the classical distinctions about the nature of response, as well as taking into account trends in contemporary events that must
set the context of current readings, the author moves toward a new theory of response that broadens the basis of that experience with texts
and art.
Ekstam, J. “Metacognition and Reader Response: The Use of Reading Logs in the Envisionment-Building Classroom.” Acta
Didactica Norge 12.2 (2018): 27.
This qualitative research examines reading logs in a teacher preparation program in connection with teaching literature and reader
response theory. Student reading logs were analyzed from Langer’s “envisionment” perspective, with findings indicating that pre-service
teachers’ use of reading logs has the potential to foster self-critical readers who can encourage the same among future students.
Langer, J. A. “The Process of Understanding Literature.” Report Series 2.1. Albany, NY: National Research Center on Literature
Teaching and Learning, 1989.
This qualitative study examined how middle and high school students create meanings when reading literary and nonliterary texts. Results
indicated that the process of reading these texts is one involving four stances the reader takes: (1) being out and stepping into an
envisionment; (2) being in and moving through an envisionment; (3) stepping back and rethinking what one knows; and (4) stepping out
and objectifying the experience.
Langer, J. “The Process of Understanding: Reading for Literary and Informative Purposes.” Research in the Teaching of English
24.3 (1990a): 229–260.
This qualitative study was primarily concerned with the literary meaning-making experience, the four recursive stances readers take in
relation to the text: being out and stepping into an envisionment, being in and moving through an envisionment, stepping back and
rethinking what one knows, and stepping out and objectifying the experience.
Langer, J. “Understanding Literature.” Language Arts 67.8 (1990b): 812–816.

In this study, the author captures four important stances in the process of interpretation when it comes to text: being out and stepping in,
being in and moving through, being in and stepping out, and finally stepping out and objectifying the experience.
Rosenblatt, L. Literature as Exploration. New York: Noble and Noble, 1968.

This book sheds light on the significance of reader participation and responding to literature. The first chapter deals with the challenges that
teachers face in teaching literacy. The second chapter goes deeper into how students’ backgrounds relate to their responses to literature.
The third chapter captures the tie that links literature to social constructs.
Rosenblatt, L. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
This book is suited for a wide range of academic fields—literary criticism, reading theory, aesthetics, composition, rhetoric, speech
communication, and education. It addresses the pragmatism of Dewey, James, and Peirce and issues in the social sciences as the basis
for a view of language and reading that recognizes the potentialities for alternative interpretations and at the same time provides a rationale
for the responsible reading of texts.
Feminist Perspectives
Reader response focuses on the experiences that form interpretations, but ignores gender. Feminist perspectives make the reader
understand the work of literature from a non-male point of view, a view that is very much different and much more complex than the
“universal” male (Schweickart 1986). Many researchers have addressed this perspective in their studies or papers, such as Bogdan 1988,
Benton 1993, Blomdahl 2014, Dallacqua 2019, and Vandergrift 1993.
Benton, M. “Reader Response Criticism in Children’s Literature.” Occasional Papers 15 (1993).

The author refers to the reader’s response to criticism and its implementations. It becomes rudimentary to observe the way the readers
respond to literature, how they develop their reading responses, the development of literacy, and differences in their reading practices. The
article can be dealt with from multicultural, feminist, or cultural studies perspectives, and texts are analyzed from a broad context.
Blomdahl, A. “Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and the Feminist Reader?: Feminist Reader Response Theory in Orlando: A Biography.”
Masters thesis, Linnaeus University, 2014.
This thesis interprets reader response theory through the lens of feminist thought using narrative review as a guide.
Bogdan, D. “A Case Study of the Selection/Censorship Problem and the Educational Value of Literature.” Journal of Education
170.2 (1988): 39–57.
This study is a case study of a graduate class in women’s literature and feminist criticism, in which student rebellion against one of the
works to be studied appeared to be an instance of censorship. The paper raises questions about the relationship between censorship and
the selection of literature texts, the literary versus the stock response, and humanist assumptions underlying the educational value of
literature.
Dallacqua, A. K. “Wondering about Rapunzel: Reading and Responding to Feminist Fairy Tales with Seventh Graders.” Children’s
Literature in Education 50.3 (2019): 261–277.
Drawing on feminist theory, this qualitative study interprets student responses to textual tensions related to gender in efforts to create
opportunities for students to develop critical thinking skills in the context of a “wonder tale.” Students acknowledged that reading through a
different lens specific to gender heightened their consciousness to gender inequalities and biases as presented by gender within fairytales
and made connections to their own worlds, among other discoveries.
Schweickart. “Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading.” In Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and
Contexts. Edited by E. A. Flynn and P. Schweickart, 31–62. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.
Patrocinio Schweickart’s essay calls for a more multifaceted process of interpretation that revolves around how a female reads and writes
and how female reading and writing differs from the “universal” male reading and writing.
Vandergrift, K. “A Feminist Research Agenda in Youth Literature.” Wilson Library Bulletin 68.2 (1993): 22–27.
This article presents a feminist research agenda in literature for youth. The highlights include the nature of literary theory; traditional studies
of youth literature; feminist criticism and archetypal approaches, genre criticism, and reader response criticism; and a selected list of
feminist scholarship and literary criticism applicable to youth literature.
Gender Theory
The conception of gender is about identity and how this identity is performed. Gender is considered fluid, rather than fixed (Brendler 2014).
Reader response researchers or theorists have not only addressed female or male viewpoints, as in Cherland 1992; Evans, et al. 1998;
Kim 2016; Park 2012; and Rice 2002, but also attended to the LGBTQ+ population in recent years, as shown in Blackburn and Clark 2011
and Parsons 2016. This section includes conceptual papers and studies addressing the broad and complex gender theory in relation to
reader response.
Blackburn, M. V., and C. T. Clark. “Analyzing Talk in a Long-Term Literature Discussion Group: Ways of Operating within LGBT-
Inclusive and Queer Discourses.” Reading Research Quarterly 46.3 (2011): 222–248.
The study examined transcripts from literature discussions of adolescents and adults, including the authors, using twenty-four texts over
three years in an LGBTQ youth center. Study findings point to complex, reciprocal process among texts, talk, and context in which no
discourse is monolithically liberatory or oppressive. However, complementary and competing discourses around diverse texts and in
complex contexts provide opportunities for conflicts and potential for change.
Brendler, B. “Diversity in Literary Response: Revisiting Gender Expectations.” Journal of Education for Library and Information
Science 5.3 (2014): 223–240.
The study reexamines theories on gender and literacy from research conducted between 1974 and 2002. It explores gender assumptions
and expectations of language arts teachers in a graduate-level adolescent literature course and the ways participants identified with or
resisted gender expectations in book discussions. The theoretical framework was a social constructionist lens, including reader response
and gender theories.
Cherland, M. R. “Gendered Readings: Cultural Restraints upon Response to Literature.” New Advocate 5.3 (1992): 187–198.
This journal article reports a qualitative study. Based on analysis of sixth-grade children’s literature response group conversations, Cherland
finds two distinctive gendered styles of talk about literature. The predominant female mode of response is the “discourse of feeling,” and the
predominant male mode of response is the “discourse of action.”
Evans, K. S., P. L. Anders, and D. E. Alvermann. “Literature Discussion Groups: An Examination of Gender Roles.” Reading
Research & Instruction 37 (1998): 107–122.
The article highlights the experiences of three females who were members of a peer-led literature discussion group and examined the
notions of empowerment, student voice, and student silence. The experiences of these three girls revealed that gendered talk in literature
discussions often reinforces sexist stereotypes, and that a group’s notion of power may influence whose voices are allowed to be heard
and whose voices are silenced.
Kim, S. J. “‘Pink is a Girl’s Color’: A Case Study of Bilingual Kindergarteners’ Discussions about Gender Roles.” Critical Inquiry
in Language Studies 13.4 (2016): 237–260.
This study examined young bilingual students’ discussions of picture books with gender themes in a Spanish/English bilingual classroom.
Study findings suggest that discussions about gender roles using two languages support bilingual kindergarten children in thinking critically
about gender roles and have the potential to avoid gender stereotypes.
Park, J. Y. “Re-imaging Reader-Response in Middle and Secondary Schools: Early Adolescent Girls’ Critical and Communal
Reader Responses to the Young Adult Novel Speak.” Children’s Literature in Education 43 (2012): 191–212.
The article reveals the rudimentary role of reader response pedagogy in English class and shows teachers’, students’, and researchers’
perceptions about the application of this theory in the classroom. The researcher also refers to the satisfactions and progress that such a
theory provokes in the classroom.
Parsons, L. T. “Learning from Preservice Teachers’ Responses to Trans-Themed Young Adult Literature: Improving Personal
Practice in Teacher Education.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 37.6 (2016): 933–947.
Using self-study, the author examines preservice teachers’ responses to trans-themed young adult literature in literature for an adolescent-
level course. The study revealed that practice could be improved by (1) guiding students to employ specific critical theories and analysis
and (2) including multiple texts about the transgender experience.
Rice, P. S. “Creating Spaces for Boys and Girls to Expand Their Definitions of Masculinity and Femininity through Children’s
Literature.” Journal of Children’s Literature 28.2 (Fall 2002): 33–42.
This study revealed that transmediation was effective for creating spaces for third graders to expand their definitions of masculinity and
femininity. Transmediation allowed participants to move beyond traditional response to nontraditional gender roles portrayed in the books
as they moved through different communication systems, including open-ended response prompts, small- and whole-class discussions,
open-mind portrait and sketch-to-stretch of the theme, and creative dramatization. Implications of the results for teaching are discussed.
New Literacies and Multimodal Literacies
New literacies refer to new forms of literacy made possible by digital technology developments. Multimodal literacies integrate multiple
modes of communication and expression that can enhance or transform the meaning of the work beyond words, illustration, or decoration.
Lee 2013 explored how e-journal was used for response, while Chou 2015 and Larson 2009 used e-books to engage students in reading
and responding to texts. Thomas and Stornaiuolo 2016 examined new trends in reader response for a digital age using social media. Many
researchers have investigated how to integrate multiple modes to engage students in reader response, such as art and text as depicted in
Barone and Barone 2017 and Schoonover 2020, language and drama in Elliot 1990 and Enriquez and Wager 2018, and words and some
other nonliterary experience as shown in Harding 1982.
Barone, D., and R. Barone. “Rethinking Reader Response with Fifth Graders’ Semiotic Interpretations.” The Reading Teacher 71.1
(2017): 23–31.
A qualitative study that uses arts-based methods to interpret reader response in fifth graders from various cultural and economic
backgrounds.
Chou, I. “Engaging EFL Students in E-Books Using Reader-Response Theory.” Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal
15.2 (2015): 167–181.
This qualitative study uses reader response theory in an undergraduate English literature class with EFL students to meaningfully engage
comprehension using e-books. Key findings include an improvement of critical thinking as students inquired about authors and the creation
of e-books, literature appreciation, higher aesthetic appreciation as students connected themselves with the characters, and improvement
in meaning making through student expressions of emotion in reports.
Elliot, R. “Encouraging Reader-Response to Literature in ESL Situations.” ELT Journal 44.3 (1990): 191–198.
The article examines reader response in a TESL undergraduate language development course that integrates language and drama to
engage with content.
Enriquez, G., and A. Wager. “The Reader, the Text, the Performance: Opening Spaces for the Performing Arts as Reader
Response.” Voices From the Middle 26.1 (2018): 21–25.
Drawing on Beach and Rosenblatt, the article shares examples of ways the performing arts provide students with opportunities to engage
in reader response.
Harding, D. Experience into Words. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
First paperback edition. This book captures the relation between the writer’s words and some other nonliterary experience.
Larson, L. C. “e-Reading and e-Responding: New Tools for the Next Generation of Readers.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy 53 (2009): 255–258.
The article looks at integrating e-books into a traditional classroom literacy program as an effective move toward new literacies instruction.
New technologies provide additional ways of reading and interacting with electronic texts; thereby, e-books offer new opportunities and
possibilities for interpretation of and engagement with texts.
Lee, H. C. “The Reading Response E-Journal: An Alternative Way to Engage Low-Achieving EFL Students.” Language Teaching
Research 17.1 (2013): 111–131.
This article discusses the rationale for the use of a reading response e-journal in language learning. Low-achieving students’ journal entries
and their perceptions of using electronic materials were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative research methods; this research found
that students were engaged in reading and writing activities.
Schoonover, N. “Intersecting Compositional and Transactional Theory: How Art Can Help Define Reader Response.” Journal of
Aesthetic Education 54.1 (2020): 90–100.
This paper aims to provide teachers and scholars with an overview of how artistic representation can help explain the dynamic process of
reader response, believing that our understanding of literature is shaped through image and form, thus the need to pull from compositional
theory to explain the mental processes of transactional theory.
Thomas, E. E., and A. Stornaiuolo. “Restorying the Self: Bending toward Textual Justice.” Harvard Educational Review 86.3
(2016): 313–338.
The essay draws on Rosenblatt’s transactional theory and explores new trends in reader response for a digital age, particularly the
phenomenon of bending texts using social media. The authors describe bending as a form of restorying and reshaping narratives to
represent diverse perspectives and experiences that are often missing or silenced in mainstream texts, media, and popular discourse.
Phenomenology Theory
Phenomenological response theorists, represented by Poulet 1969, Ingarden 1973 and Jauss and Godzich 1982, focus on how the text
shapes meaning. They address the relationship between the consciousness of the reader and the perceived text and describe the ways
readers comprehend texts by losing themselves to the writer’s or speaker’s own ways of perceiving reality, as presented in Al-Haba 2013
and Howard 2012.
Al-Haba, M. A. M. “Reader Response Theory in the Phenomenology of Reading with the Text and the Reader as Its Focal Point.”
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science 8.6 (2013): 83–86.
A conceptual paper explores reader response theory in the phenomenology of reading and how, according to this theory, a text is open to
meanings and is capable of producing different responses. This theory revolves around the text and the reader and argues that the
relationship between them is ontological in its nature. It focuses exceptionally on the text, the reader’s access to the text, and the nature of
that access.
Howard, P. “How Literature Works: Poetry and the Phenomenology of Reader Response.” Hermeneutic Phenomenology in
Education 4.1 (2012): 52–67.
This study uses hermeneutic phenomenology to examine the transactive space of literary engagement to understand how the transaction is
lived and felt. The author argues that phenomenology can provide understandings of the lived, embodied experience in the transactive
space created between reader and text and a fresh and meaningful account of how literature works.
Ingarden, R. The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art. Translated by R. A. Crowley and K. R. Olson. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
Ingarden argues that the reader assumes a more active role in order to “concretize” the text, though their activities are continually
constrained by a text functioning independent of their activity.
Jauss, H. R., and W. Godzich. Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics. Vol. 3. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1982.
Drawing on the phenomenological method and hermeneutics, the book concentrates on primary and secondary receptions of literary texts.
Poulet, G. “Phenomenology of Reading.” New Literary History 1 (1969): 53–68.

Poulet’s phenomenological theories of response suggest that readers “bracket out” their preconceptions and assumptions in reading as
they are passively dependent on the work, which is “intended” by an author for the reader to absorb and surrender to the writer’s or
speaker’s consciousness.
Postmodern Perspectives
The postmodern theorist is interested in the reader’s independence from conformity to dictated textual conventions. These books tend not
to follow a traditional story grammar, allowing the nonlinear forms of these texts to offer more power to the reader. Serafini 2005 and
Swaggerty 2009 examine students’ responses to postmodern picture books. Martinez and Newcomer 2011, Pantaleo 2008, and Pantaleo
2010 address the relationship between response and textual understanding.
Martinez, R., and S. Newcomer. “‘Reading between the Pictures’: Immigrant Students’ Interpretations of The Arrival.” Language
Arts 88.3 (2011): 188–197.
In this study, the first author was invited to join an international project investigating immigrant children’s responses to visual images in
contemporary picture books. This study added the perspectives of immigrant children in the United States by examining responses to
wordless postmodern picture books. Findings revealed that immigrant students’ access to the pictures gave them the opportunity to make
meaning without struggling with the words they were still learning.
Pantaleo, S. Exploring Student Response to Contemporary Picturebooks. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.
In this examination of the pedagogical value of literature in the classroom, the author investigates response to postmodernism texts.
Pantaleo, S. “Developing Narrative Competence through Reading and Writing Metafictive Texts.” Literacy Research and
Instruction 49.3 (2010): 264–281.
The classroom-based research examined how postmodern picture books developed the narrative competence of elementary students.
Students wrote responses to the literature, discussed the picture books with peers, received explicit instruction about metafictive devices,
and created their own print multimodal texts. The written and visual texts of two children show how they were able to identify, understand,
and create narratives that were complex and metafictive in nature.
Serafini, S. “Voices in the Park, Voices in the Classroom: Readers Responding to Postmodern Picture Books.” Literacy Research
and Instruction 44.3 (2005): 47–64.
This study explores readers’ responses to the postmodern picture book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Based on discussion
transcripts and response journal entries, the study reveals how readers navigate the nonlinear aspects of the text, the interplay between
written text and illustrations, and how readers construct symbolic connections to their own world and experiences.
Swaggerty, E. “‘That Just Really Knocks Me Out’: Fourth Grade Students Navigate Postmodern Picture Books.” Journal of
Language and Literacy Education 5.1 (2009): 9–31.
This study examined and interpreted the ways a small group of successful fourth-grade students navigated five postmodern picture books
and revealed the complexity of their interplay with the texts.
Psychological Processes, Participant and Spectator Stances
Psychological theorists focus on readers’ cognitive or subconscious processes and how those processes vary according to both unique
individual personality and developmental level, as described in Alcorn and Bracher 1985, Beach 2000, Britton 1970, Britton 1984, Britton
1989, Holland 1974, Holland 1975, Holland 1990, Harker 1992, and Richardson 1997.
Alcorn, M., and M. Bracher. “Literature, Psychoanalysis, and the Re-Formation of the Self: A New Direction for Reader-Response
Theory.” PMLA 100.3 (1985): 342–354.
This journal article investigates Holland and the traditional psychoanalytic views of literature. It conceptually explores the redefinition of self
through the relational analysis of cognitive formation created through the transference process and the structuring of self by means of
reading in the forms of aspiration, desire, and behavior.
Beach, R. “Critical Issues: Reading and Responding to Literature at the Level of Activity.” Journal of Literacy Research 32.2
(2000): 237–251.
The report refers to the components of the “activity systems” that students use in their responses to literature. It also includes teachers’
participation in various activity systems like book clubs, classrooms, and chat rooms. The author sheds light on readers’ focus on the
characters in the text and how to react to the story. The participation in the activity system is applicable to high school students and also
graduate students in writing methods courses.
Britton, J. Language and Learning. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1970.

Britton’s classic study contains his most fully developed statement about the relationship between children’s active language use and their
learning. Britton showed how individuals use words to make both practical and moral sense of the world. He also helped to introduce, and
make accessible, important psychological thinkers in the area of language, identity, and society, from the American George Kelly to the
Russian Lev Vygotsky.
Britton, J. N. “Viewpoints: The Distinction between Participant and Spectator Role Language in Research and Practice.” Research
in the Teaching of English 18.3 (1984): 320–331.
This article pays special attention to the theoretical underpinnings of the notion of spectator role, and to the implications of the
spectator/participant distinction for research and practice.
Britton, J. “The Spectator as Theorist: A Reply.” English Education 21.1 (1989): 53–60.
This article replies to Joseph Harris’s critique of James Britton’s conception of “spectator role.”
Harker, W. “Reader Response and Cognition: Is There a Mind in This Class?” Journal of Aesthetic Education 26.3 (1992): 27–39.
The article examines reader response theory in terms of empirically derived models of the reading process proposed by cognitive
psychologists in order to determine the degree to which reader response theory is supported by these models.
Holland, N. N. Poems in Persons: An Introduction to the Psychoanalysis of Literature. New York: Norton, 1974.
This book links response to literature to the basic psychological patterns that lie at the root of personality.
Holland, N. N. “Unity Identity Text Self.” PMLA 90.5 (1975): 813–822.

This article examines the receptivity of literature and the potential for one work to admit many readers. The author offers the analogy of
“unity is to text” as “identify is to self.” Unity refers to the ways text features connect to a central theme and identity describes a person’s
sameness in multiple behaviors as variations on one identity theme.
Holland, N. N. Holland’s Guide to Psychoanalytic Psychology and Literature-and-Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press,
1990.
This book explains how to use psychology, particularly psychoanalytic psychology, to answer questions about literature and the arts.
Richardson, B. “The Other Reader’s Response: On Multiple, Divided, and Oppositional Audiences.” Criticism 39.1 (1997): 31–53.
The author presents reader response criticism over time and sheds light on the three perspectives that emerge from this evolution: the
prescriptive, the subjective, and the medial stance. This criticism also brings up the limitations of each perspective and sees ways of
accommodating the reader response theory with the social and the aesthetic approach to address the voices of various implied readers.
Subjective Reader Response Theory
Subjective reader response theorists, led by David Bleich, believe that readers’ responses are the text, both in the sense that there is no
literary text beyond the meanings created by readers’ interpretations and in the sense that the text the reader analyzes is not the literary
work but the written responses of readers, as illustrated in Bleich 1978, Bleich 1980, Bleich 1986, and McCormick 1985.
Bleich, D. Subjective Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.

In this book, Bleich proposes that the study of English be consciously reoriented from a knowledge-finding to a knowledge-making
enterprise. His theoretical model with subjective responses drawn from his own classroom experiences, suggesting ways in which the study
of language and literature can become more fully integrated with each person’s responsibility for what he or she knows.
Bleich, D. “The Identity of Pedagogy and Research in the Study of Response to Literature.” College English 42.4 (1980): 350–366.
This article talks about the change in perspective when conducting research, which involves identifying response research with literary
pedagogy. It takes a look at four different levels: how good a story is, what principles explain the story, what the story shows about the
author’s literary intentions, and the extent to which the story is illuminated.
Bleich, D. “Intersubjective Reading.” New Literary History 17.3 (1986): 401–421.

In this article, Bleich examines the different stances from various authors on how the reader connects to text as well as what the role of
language is.
McCormick, K. “Theory in the Reader: Bleich, Holland, and Beyond.” College English 47.8 (1985): 36–50.
The author focuses on reader response theory and Bleich’s subjective criticism. For Bleich, the use of reader response theory is to discover
and analyze subjective factors that have an impact on reader reaction to texts.
Transactional Theory
Transactional theory, presented by Rosenblatt 1968, Rosenblatt 1978, Rosenblatt 1982, Rosenblatt 1985, Rosenblatt 1986, and Rosenblatt
2004, examines the reciprocal nature of reading and how meaning is neither in the text or in the reader. The mutual interchange between
reader and text is a transaction that contributes to a unique poem. Rosenblatt’s describes reading as occurring on an efferent and aesthetic
continuum that offers insight on the nature of response. Allen 1988, Connell 1996, Church 1997, and Faust 2000 are works that further
examine Rosenblatt’s transactional theory and contributions to reader response.
Allen, C. “Louise Rosenblatt and Theories of Reader-Response.” Reader 20 (1988): 32.

This journal article reviews the key work in reader response by Louise Rosenblatt such as transactional theory of reading, the criticisms,
and the foundational background for dismissal of recognition.
Church, G. W. “The Significance of Louise Rosenblatt on the Field of Teaching Literature.” Inquiry 11.1 (1997): 71–77.
This article outlines important contributions to reader response theory and its effects on the field of education. It includes studies
conducted, prominent authors and theorists in reader response, glossary terms, narrative reviews and interviews of and about Rosenblatt,
and a timeline of theory usage from 1978 and beyond.
Connell, J. “Assessing the Influence of Dewey’s Epistemology on Rosenblatt’s Reader Response Theory.” Educational Theory
46.4 (1996): 395–413.
This article is a conceptual paper that draws from Dewey’s perspective of transaction and serves to highlight the relationship of knower and
known, actively emphasizing the role of the reader as a key contributor to the development of Rosenblatt’s theory on reader response and
the transactional connectedness of the reader and the text.
Faust, F. “Reconstructing Familiar Metaphors: John Dewey and Louise Rosenblatt on Literary Art as Experience.” Research in
the Teaching of English 35.1 (2000): 9–34.
A conceptual essay, based on Dewey and Rosenblatt as coauthors of the transactional theory of the literary experience, problematizes the
word “experience” as used by researchers and teachers wanting to reform literature instruction in schools and colleges. Theories of reader
response have been limited by an unexamined assumption that literary experience ultimately must be understood in dualistic terms as an
interaction involving reader subject and textual object.
Rosenblatt, L. Literature as Exploration. New York: Noble and Noble, 1968.

This seminal text was first published in 1938. The book provides the foundation for Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reader response
and has been influential in literary theory and literacy education for six decades.
Rosenblatt, L. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
This book is suited for a wide range of academic fields—literary criticism, reading theory, aesthetics, composition, rhetoric, speech
communication, and education. It addresses the pragmatism of Dewey, James, and Peirce and issues in the social sciences as the basis
for a view of language and reading that recognizes the potentialities for alternative interpretations and at the same time provides a rationale
for the responsible reading of texts.
Rosenblatt, L. M. “The Literary Transaction: Evocation and Response.” Theory into Practice 21.4 (1982): 268–277.
This article analyzes how to better understand reader response theory. What happens when the reader meets text through various stages:
first, understanding the reading process as well as the reader’s stance; next, the literary transaction where the child learns to make a
connection with the reading process; and finally, maintaining aesthetic capacity to meet the environment and growth of the individual. The
article concludes by looking at implications for teaching.
Rosenblatt, L. “Viewpoints: Transaction versus Interaction: A Terminological Rescue Operation.” Research in the Teaching of
English 19 (1985): 96–107.
This article differentiates the usages of transaction and interaction as reflections of differing paradigms. The transactional theory of reading
is dissociated from information processing and interactive processing. The implications for research of various concepts basic to the total
transactional theory of reading are discussed.
Rosenblatt, L. “The Aesthetic Transaction.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 20.4 (1986): 122–128.
This article focuses on the relationship between the reader and text. It expresses the idea that reading is a transactional process that goes
on between a particular reader and a particular text at a particular time, and under particular circumstances. Rosenblatt highlights the
efferent and aesthetic reader as well as the student being able to use many contexts for interpretation and study.
Rosenblatt, L. “The Transactional Theory of Reading and Writing.” In Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. Edited by R.
Ruddell and N. Unrau, 1363–1398. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2004.
This chapter dives deeper into the transactional model of reading, writing, and teaching. It looks at language as a dynamic system of
meaning which emphasizes communication between authors and their readers within text, which includes the way the individual reads and
writes. Last, it captures methods teachers can use to further enhance their classrooms and promote an environment that helps adapt
students to create a relationship with the text.
Application of the Transactional Theory
This section provides research on the application of the transactional theory across a range of contexts. Davis 1992 explores the broad
pedagogical potential of Rosenblatt in evoking responses from readers. Sipe 1999 is a review of research on children’s responses to
literature. Further examples of application are provided in the context of in-service teachers (Atkinson 2012) and pre-service teachers
(Alazzi 2007). Galda 1982, Cox and Many 1992, and Becker 1999 each report on qualitative transactional/reader response investigations in
fifth-grade classrooms.
Alazzi, Khaled. “Teacher Candidates’ Emerging Perceptions of Reader Response Theory.” Essays in Education 22 (2007), Article
5.
This qualitative study examined teacher candidates’ knowledge and perceptions of Rosenblatt’s reader response theories during
experiences in university and elementary classrooms. Themes describe teacher candidates who 1) are at differing stages of understanding,
2) find that responding to literature is not “normal” to the elementary students they taught, 3) view reader response experiences as being
joyful opportunities for students, and 4) make strong connections between reader response and critical thinking.
Atkinson, B. “Target Practice: Reader Response Theory and Teachers’ Interpretations of Students’ SAT 10 Scores in Data-Based
Professional Development.” Journal of Teacher Education 63.3 (2012): 201–213.
This journal article is a qualitative study using transactional theory to examine teachers’ responses to their students’ SAT 10 scores with the
goal of investigating the assumption that data-based teaching practice is more “objective” and less susceptible to divergent teacher
interpretation. The findings reveal how moral and discursive texts imbricated in accountability discourses mediate the ways in which
teachers read and respond to their students’ SAT 10 scores.
Becker, R. R. “Reader Response: Students Develop Text Understanding.” Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language
Arts 40.2 (1999).
A qualitative case study that examines the perspectives of fifth-grade children and their responses to narrative texts using three different
activities to assess understanding. Through the premise of determining efferent or aesthetic reading stances, researchers applied elements
of Rosenblatt’s framework on reader response theory to discover that an aesthetic stance influenced the initial positive response and
meaning making for literacy skills.
Cox, C., and J. E. Many. “Stance towards a Literary Work: Applying the Transactional Theory to Children’s Responses.” Reading
Psychology: An International Quarterly 13.1 (1992): 37–72.
This qualitative study explores two elements of transactional theory within the context of the fifth-grade classroom using various literary
texts. Efferent and aesthetic interpretations were analyzed in connection with personal student comprehension. Outcomes include
differences in stance from book to film, reader response based on aesthetic depictions rather than text, and increased meaning making
through connection to personal lived experiences as correlated with the aesthetic references in literary works presented.
Davis, J. “Reconsidering Readers: Louise Rosenblatt and Reader-Response Pedagogy.” Research and Teaching in
Developmental Education 8.2 (1992): 71–81.
This qualitative article is a practical guide to using reader response through analysis using such theories as reading in democracy, efferent-
aesthetic continuum, conversational response, theory as pedagogy, and rereading and revising using reader response journals.
Galda, L. “Teaching from Children’s Responses.” Language Arts 59.2 (1982): 137–142.
The author examines the interaction between the reader and the text. The qualitative study focuses on the reading responses of three fifth-
grade students to fiction. Interviews and small-group and adult-guided discussions were analyzed, and it was found that teachers need to
determine the students’ differences in their literary development and encourage them to understand the author’s role better and also
respond better to the literary work.
Sipe, L. R. “Children’s Response to Literature: Author, Text, Reader, Context.” Theory into Practice 38.3 (1999): 120–129.
A review of research on children’s response to literature, focusing on the four areas of author, text, reader, and context. The book examines
children’s questions about author, author authority, and author stances; visual text and textual mirrors and windows; the reader’s stance of
resistance, individual response styles, literature as life informing, and the range of reader response; and the influence on response of
gender, diversity of cultural background, and popular culture.
Critical Theories
These perspectives involve a critical orientation toward reading and responding to text and toward practice. Sloan 2002 provides an
overview of critical theory that outlines reader response theory in elementary education. Rabinowitz 1986, Lewis 2000, McDonald 2004,
Chang and Tung 2009, Moller 2012 and Pasaribu and Iswandari 2019 emphasize critical readings of text. Gardner 2017, McIntyre 2019,
and McLaughlin and DeVoogd 2004 use reader response to develop critical literacy.
Chang, T., and C. Tung. “Developing Critical Thinking through Literature Reading.” Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 19
(2009): 287–313.
A quantitative study that examines the efficacy of developing critical thinking skills through reading literature and different forms of
assessment for a class of twelve non-English-native Taiwanese university students. Notable outcomes include improved performance
based on results from pre- and post-testing, the absence of a significant correlation between prior English proficiency and new critical skills
obtained, and the development of greater assertiveness in students’ critical thinking applications.
Davis, T. F., and K. Womack. Formalist Criticism and Reader-Response Theory. London: Macmillan International Higher
Education, 2002.
This book discusses the movements and modulations of critical thinking from the first emergence of literary theory. Examining how the
transitional nature of theoretical and critical thinking is still in operation, the authors argue that critical thought is in a state of transition.
Gardner, R. P. “Unforgivable Blackness: Visual Rhetoric, Reader Response, and Critical Racial Literacy.” Children’s Literature in
Education 48.2 (2017): 119–133.
In the essay, African American readers resist a picture book using colorist logic and social indexing of phenotypic traits. It examines
negative social messages about blackness within the larger society and how the absence of diverse representations in children’s literature
contributes to such interpretations. The author suggests explicitly teaching African American children about counter-visuality and the ways
in which “art works” to shape and transform understandings about complex experiences like racism.
Lewis, C. “Critical Issues: Limits of Identification: The Personal, Pleasurable, and Critical in Reader Response.” Journal of
Literacy Research 32.2 (2000): 253–266.
The author warns about the misguidance of using personal response and identification in the reader response classroom when the world of
literature disrupts the reader’s world. She conducts a qualitative approach that calls to rethink about the real meaning of aesthetic reading,
which should include more than the social and political aspects to be a more critical reader.
McLaughlin, M., and G. DeVoogd. Critical literacy as comprehension: Expanding reader response. Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy 48.1 (2004): 52–62.
In this article, the authors provide a rationale for assisting students with reading from a critical stance. They begin by examining
Rosenblatt’s notion of reading stances and go on to describe the role of environment and teaching in facilitating the promise of critical
literacy.
McDonald, L. “Moving from Reader Response to Critical Reading: Developing 10–11‐Year‐Olds’ Ability as Analytical Readers of
Literary Texts.” Literacy 38.1 (2004): 17–25.
This qualitative study contrasts “non‐critical” and “critical” classroom talk through a close examination of transcript excerpts. The article
suggests a response‐analytical continuum which may support young readers in moving toward critical reading practices.
McIntyre, C. J. “The Reader, the Text, the Interpretation: Using Reader Response to Develop Critical Literacy Skills.” In Critical
Literacy Initiatives for Civic Engagement. Edited by A. M. Cartwright and E. K. Reeves, 29–46. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2019.
The book chapter focuses on the importance of the critical reader to have literacy skills necessary for making the transactions with the text.
Gaining such competencies allow students to assess the literacy input.
Moller, K. J. “Developing Understandings of Social Justice: Critical Thinking in Action in a Literature Discussion Group.” Journal
of Children’s Literature 38.2 (2012): 23–36.
This study demonstrates the power of multicultural literature with social justice themes to encourage reflection on worldviews through a
critical emancipatory approach to literature discussions.
Pasaribu, T. A., and Y. A. Iswandari. “A Reader Response Approach in Collaborative Reading Projects to Foster Critical Thinking
Skills.” LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching 22.2 (2019): 231–245.
The article makes the link between reading and critical thinking skills through implementing reader response in the critical reading and
writing class. Data were collected from students’ questionnaires, reflections, and focus group discussions. Findings reveal that students
were able to understand the meaning and analyze the texts and also evaluate their understanding by creating posters in their projects.
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Rabinowitz, P. J. “Shifting Stands, Shifting Standards: Reading, Interpretation, and Literary Judgment.” Arethusa 19.2 (1986):
115–134.
The paper focuses on critical theorists taking the reader into account and presents the emergence of alternative views of textuality that
examine how text interacts with various contexts.
Sloan, G. “Reader Response in Perspective.” Journal of Children’s Literature 28.1 (2002): 22–31.
This article looks at an overview of critical theory that outlines the evolution of reader response theory in elementary education. This
overview covers literary studies, New Critics, reading and reading theories, reader response variations, and the implementation of reader
response in literacy programs.
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Reader Response Theory

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Holland, N. N. “Unity Identity Text Self.” PMLA 90.5 (1975): 813–822.

Richards, I. A. Practical Criticism. New York: Harcourt, 1929.

Cultural and Social Perspectives

Experiential Theories of Response

Langer, J. “Understanding Literature.” Language Arts 67.8 (1990b): 812–816.

Rosenblatt, L. Literature as Exploration. New York: Noble and Noble, 1968.

Benton, M. “Reader Response Criticism in Children’s Literature.” Occasional Papers 15 (1993).

New Literacies and Multimodal Literacies

Poulet, G. “Phenomenology of Reading.” New Literary History 1 (1969): 53–68.

Psychological Processes, Participant and Spectator Stances

Britton, J. Language and Learning. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1970.

Holland, N. N. “Unity Identity Text Self.” PMLA 90.5 (1975): 813–822.

Subjective Reader Response Theory

Bleich, D. Subjective Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.

Bleich, D. “Intersubjective Reading.” New Literary History 17.3 (1986): 401–421.

Allen, C. “Louise Rosenblatt and Theories of Reader-Response.” Reader 20 (1988): 32.

Rosenblatt, L. Literature as Exploration. New York: Noble and Noble, 1968.

Application of the Transactional Theory

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