My central argument is that reading is a social act. Such a view acknowledges a natural tension between individual and group as we go about the difficult work of developing democratic relationships. Initially, a person must be able to assert with confidence his or her own individuality, but such assertions necessarily encounter the perspectives (and desires) of others. Consequently, our responses to the world and its texts inevitably embroil us in social controversy. Living with others democratically involves endless conflicts and contradictions as we try to resist hierarchical arrangements. Yet because we welcome the complications of alternative realities--value pluralism--we commit ourselves to dialogue and negotiation as a means of including voices not our own.
In our classes, as we talk with students about the poems we read together, we share an important opportunity to learn about and practice democracy. The literary text, because of its characteristic openness and indeterminacy, invites each reader to enter a "transaction" that in turn yields his or her unique response. But our response is satisfying to us only when we celebrate it and compare it with other responses. By placing our readings in the context of other readings, we come to participate in a democratic enterprise of negotiated meaning. Being in democratic relationship with other readers, we begin to appreciate how the individuality of our responses and interpretations can be extended and strengthened as we engage with differing points of view. Literature classrooms might be caldrons of democracy depending on how we as teachers enable students to connect with their own readings and with the readings of others.
This process begins with considering what I see as the key paradox of our profession--our authority as teachers of literature. For me, questions about a teacher's role and status relate to larger issues of authority we constantly struggle with in our democracy. Autonomy and personal freedom are not always commensurate with the needs of community, and our teaching authority often prevents us from recognizing the ways we hold back students from gaining their own independence. To focus these queries, I explore my reading of a short story--one that has resonated for me around the issue of authority throughout my years of teaching. This allows me to suggest that an individual's response to a text exists most vitally in conversation with the responses of others. With this in mind, I argue that as teachers our democratic responsibility is to approach poems and stories in a manner that invites students into the conversation rather than dominating and condemning their less-experienced readings.
Integral to negotiating our meanings with students is the power of the empathic attention we give them through listening. I see listening as the social process central to democratic experience. If we are to encourage students to begin with their own literary responses, then as teachers we must be prepared to hear them. We are not just listening until we hear the "right" answer! Because listening validates student perceptions, it shifts the patterns of social control in the classroom. It raises the question--who gets to talk, whose words are valuable enough to be heard? By attending to students, we legitimize a democracy of voices. As teachers, however, we also need to be listened to. This keeps us connected to our own stories and how they relate to our reading responses--a fundamental prerequisite if our listening presence in the classroom is to elicit and take seriously the stories and responses of the students.
More than thirty years before the rise of "reader-response" theory, Louise Rosenblatt pioneered the idea of literature as an experiential transaction among self, text and other readers. In doing so, she helped establish the social bearings for our democratic conversations with and about poems. By emphasizing the important dynamic of each reader's response, Rosenblatt shows us how emotion and reason form an essential partnership when we read works of literature. As we begin to appreciate the full scope of Rosenblatt's social agenda, we see how it challenges all authoritarian approaches to literature teaching.
Finally, I focus on the role of conversation in social reading. In particular, I emphasize that each reader has a unique reading history that must be taken into account as we encourage sharing and negotiation. Also I offer two extended examples of a procedure--"written conversation"--that intensifies the process of social reading by slowing it down so we may better listen to each other.
In large part, writing the many drafts of this book has provided me with an important opportunity to reflect on my own teaching. I have come to see that our relationships with others (how we organize ourselves socially) intimately influences our reading of literature, both our theories and our practices. It is easy to spout progressive, democratic ideas; much harder to enact them in concrete situations. By telling some of the stories of my own teaching and learning, of my own encounters with students, I've learned to appreciate how easy it is for me to be trapped by hierarchical habits of teaching literature. Such reflection has proved liberating, and thus I hope the personal side of this book will encourage other teachers of literature to consider the stories of their own practices in relation to the goals and theories they find themselves espousing. Together, in wider circles of reflection and conversation, let us convene democratic classrooms where students come to know the power and pleasure of their individual and social readings.
The composing of this book benefited in unmentionable ways from dialogue with colleagues and students: John Mayher, Marilyn Sobelman, Harold Vine, John Rouse, Louise Rosenblatt, Barbara Danish, Nancy Lester, Joy Boyum, Mitchell Leaska, Margot Ely, Peter Stillman, Jimmy Britton, Nancy Martin, Jenifer Smith, Mike Simmons, Mike Hayhoe, Patrick Dias, Myra Barrs, Tony Haynes, Darlene Forrest, Julia Kasdorf, Jane Douglas, Mary K. Healy, Rosemary Howard, Marion Mumford, Jeff Finlay, Andy Weitz, Alfie Guy, Heather Masri, George Bain, Gigi Jasper, and the group of young women in Stradbroke who helped launch the "written conversations." Each of you in your own manner encourages me to see the text as an invitation for democratic conversation. And finally, to Mary Ann, who is always there with patience and love.