A search for meaning: secondary ESL students and reader response

This study, A Search for Meaning: Secondary ESL Students and Reader Response, involved a year long examination of two secondary ESL classrooms which had as their foundation a literature-based, response-centered curriculum. The research was concerned with what we can learn when we examine the use of a reader response approach within a secondary ESL classroom. In order to investigate this question a case study methodology was used. The study involved two groups of Asian secondary ESL students who were enrolled in pull-out ESL classes in a suburban, senior secondary school. These students were designated through district wide testing as being Level Three ( beginning/ intermediate) and Level Four (intermediate to advanced). As part of the year-long curriculum both groups of students were involved in a variety of activities which supported personal meaning. The same belief system influenced the curriculum for both groups of students; however, a variety of factors influenced the degree of involvement and personal meaning making that the two groups of students exhibited. Both classes achieved gains in terms of the complexity and commitment to personal response and meaning-making. However, the Level Three students made greater gains in their written responses. Both groups were still at the emergent stages of making meaningful oral responses to poetry or prose. In conclusion, this research indicates that secondary ESL students can benefit from a literature-based, response-centered program in terms of their written responses, given that key elements are in place. Some of these elements are: a sense of community, the use of instructional frameworks such as Readers' and Writers' workshops, implementation of dialogue and response journals, thematic units, and the on-going use of literature in the classroom.Education, Faculty ofLanguage and Literacy Education (LLED), Department ofGraduat