Making Meaning: A Teacher’s Journey

This thesis shows how one teacher gained an increased understanding of the way she learns, discovered a theoretical support base for her learning style and found validation for her way of making meaning. Melding this new awareness with what was for her a new theoretical approach to teaching reading, reader-response theory, and then adapting the theory for the ESL classroom, she sought to offer her students opportunities similar to those she’d had to use reading to bring about new understandings of self and increased confidence in one’s ability to make meaning for oneself. The first chapter is an introduction to the author’s insights into how she makes meaning and her first encounter with reader-response theory. She also describes her reading classes previous to her SIT training and her goals for her classes after her experiences at SIT. Chapter Two describes the key concepts and methods of reader-response theory, and the third chapter discusses how this teacher has used reader response with her students. Chapter Four concludes this thesis with the author’s assessment of how well she integrated reader-response theory into her reading course. Student feedback on the course is also included in this chapter