Journeying: Children Responding to Literature

The study of children's responses to literature is a relatively young area of research and pedagogy. Historically, response-to literature research has been done with high school and college age young adults, and the anchor for these studies has been Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reader-response. Over the last ten to fifteen years many significant literature response studies have also been done with younger children (pre school through middle school). Not only is the literature shared with children in elementary and middle school classrooms as valuable as the literature they would encounter in high school and college, but it is the foundation upon which all subsequent literary experiences are built.

In Journeying, major and current research on children's responses to literature is gathered in one book. Journeying offers a collection of research work based on Louis Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reader-response. The findings and recommendations in these studies are important contributions to the understanding of how children create meaning from stories for themselves, how they acquire literacy skills to express that meaning, and what role educators play in these processes.

The book is broken into four levels - early, middle, and late childhood, as well as across childhood - to allow educators to see how response changes as children grow older and how teachers can best facilitate its growth. Chapters include explorations on:

• response modes
• teachers' influences on children's' responses
• contexts for children's' responses
• various children's literature genres
• developmental characteristics
• and children's cultural responses.

Practicing educators from early, elementary and middle schools will encounter many successful ideas on how to use literature in the classroom in addition to the vital research and educational practices presented.