PUB TYPE Speeches/Conference Papers (150) Reports

A study determined whether using reader response logs in an introductory college literature class would prove to be an effective method of helping students learn to apply the critical methodology important to increasing understanding of literature. Subjects, 33 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory literature course, wrote response logs to short stories, drama, and poetry. Analysis was limited to the sections of the response logs dealing with short stories because of the'bulk of material. The majority of the responses to the short stories could be placed in seven major categories: affective responses, summaries, queries, associative responses, reflective responses, interpretive responses, and inferential responses. Results indicated that entries tended to fall into one of three groupings: (1) entries from four students that, from beginning to end, reflected a high level of understandin