Bringing Life to Literature and Literature to Life: Social Constructs and Contexts of Four Adolescent Readers

This study examined social influences on the reading process- es of four adolescent readers, as well as the relationship between fac- tors of social-cognition and these readers' responses to short stories. Four case study participants, all seniors in high school, were chosen from a group of 56 students in a suburban school. Data sources in- cluded: transcripts of 24 interviews with the students and their teach- ers, "think-aloud" protocols of their responses to four short stories, measures of interpersonal congitive complexity, and Reading Interest questionnaires. Results underscore the need for more varied and sys- tematic assessments of reading competence, as well as an understand- ing of the interplay of competence, pragmatics, and volition in the likelihood that readers will bring social-cognitive processes to bear on reading. Recent scholarly work in the social and social-cognitive aspects of literary response has demonstrated the importance of a knowledge of social and literary conventions (Beach, 1983; Black, Galambos & Read, 1984; Pur- ves, 1986), as well as a repertoire of interpersonal constructs (Hynds, 1985) for understanding stories and story characters. However, little is known about how social-cognitive processes function in readers' response processes, or what motivates readers to bring such competencies to liter- ary texts. In light of these limitations, this study explored two questions: 1) How do young adult readers appear to use their understandings of people in interpreting and responding to literature? 2) What social influ- ences in the home and school relate to readers' attitudes toward reading, and the likelihood that they will bring a full range of social-cognitive com- petencies to bear on literary texts? In addressing these issues, this study explored social-cognitive aspects of the literary response processes and reading backgrounds of four Acknowledgements: This project was funded by a grant from the Syracuse University Senate Research Committee. My sincere appreciation is also due to Richard Beach, Alan Purves, and the two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable assistance in drafting the manuscript. Fi- nally, I want to thank Karen Johnson and Claudia Gentile for help in data collection and coding, as well as the marvelous students, teachers, and administrators who made this study possible.