1.1 Towards a Participatory Model of Reading
A traditional model of reading emphasizes an approach that establishes interpretations of the work. In this model, students rely on the teacher to clarify the meaning of the text and arrive at an understanding of authorial intent. Traditionally, reading has involved certain expectations of the reading context:
A participatory model of reading emphasizes a personal approach to reading in collaboration with expert perspectives on the text. In a participatory model of reading, the borders between reader and writer, consumer and producer blur. Fan fiction writers use existing media texts—including novels like the Harry Potter series—as springboards for creative explorations. They write short stories or novels that extend beyond the narrative; or they re-focus the story around secondary characters. Bloggers absorb and respond to ideas in circulation around them, claiming for themselves the right to participate actively in the central conversations of their culture. Young people who join online forums engage in close reading practices and apply them to unconventional texts, such as popular music or cult television shows. They sometimes engage in prolonged and impassioned debate about what such works mean and how they convey their meanings. Young people are recording their impressions, including their reflections on what they read, through Live Journals and social network profiles. They are turning the act of reading into a process of cultural participation.
A participatory model of reading encourages students to identify their own motives for engaging with a text, and to use those motives in collaboration with others to build knowledge about the work collectively. This may be one of the core insights we take from Ricardo Pitts-Wiley's Moby-Dick: Then and Now Project. Nothing motivates readers more than the prospect of becoming authors or performers of their own new texts.
- It is linear. Books have a design you can best appreciate by reading in a given order. You start at the beginning of the text and read to the end.
- It is continuous. Books have unity and a cumulative effect you would lose by reading the text serendipitously.
- It is complete. You must read all the text to understand its message.
- It is deep. Your first reading gives you surface understanding. You must read and re-read, looking for significant patterns of language and theme before you understand the text and its message.
A participatory model of reading encourages students to identify their own motives for engaging with a text, and to use those motives in collaboration with others to build knowledge about the work collectively. This may be one of the core insights we take from Ricardo Pitts-Wiley's Moby-Dick: Then and Now Project. Nothing motivates readers more than the prospect of becoming authors or performers of their own new texts.
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