Teacher Candidates ’ Emerging Perceptions of Reader Response Theory

What are the possibilities when teacher candidates participate in focused instruction in reader response theory and connected opportunities to experience response to literature, then design and implement response experiences with their elementary students? Consideration of this question led to this study that describes teacher candidates ’ knowledge about reader response theory and their perceptions of the value and usefulness of reader response theory throughout a semester of focused experiences in university and elementary classrooms. Through qualitative analysis, four distinct, but related themes emerged. These 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. When students in my literacy methods courses ask me how I define literature, I respond by saying that I describe it by what it isn’t. Borrowing from Rosenblatt’s The Reader, The Text, The Poem (1978), I say, “If someone can tell you about a book and it’s just as good as reading it, it’s not literature. ” But what does it matter if the material students are reading in elementary schools i