Area of Exploration (AoE):

Readers, Writers, & Texts

Literature, like all other art, is something created by an artist out of his or her
experience and world view, and it conveys something—ideas, values, beliefs, and/or
emotions—to the person who engages with the work of art. Literature gives the
reader a window into the mind and heart of the author.

An additional important feature of literature is that, in writing a literary work, the

author shapes reality to a purpose. Instead of giving us the story or the facts for their
own sake, authors of literature use the story or the facts to make a larger point; he or
she takes an idea or a simple story and elevates it. In doing so, literary texts
communicate richer truths about what it is like to be human and what being human
means. One primary feature of literature, then, is that literature elevates experiences
to the universal.

INQUIRY QUESTIONS:

1. Why and how do we study literature?

2. How are we affected by literary texts in various ways?

3. In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed, and interpreted?

4. How does language use vary amongst literary forms and genres?

5. How does the structure or style of a literary text affect meaning?

6. How do literary texts offer insights and challenges?

Why we study literature:

Apart from the fact that literature can entertain us, touch us, make us think, and
provide new insights, literature is primarily an art form, meant to provide an
aesthetic experience to the viewer. In most contexts, “aesthetic” means “beautiful,”
but for this course it will imply a sense of beauty that derives from our experiencing
a powerful emotional response to the work of art. When we say that literature
appeals to our sense of the aesthetic, therefore, we are talking about the fact that art
is that which specifically aims to touch us in ways beyond the purely rational.

Even further, art exists primarily from the desire to share our perceptual
experiences with each other, to find out how the world seems to be to other people,
and to determine whether what we experience is like what other experience or how
it might be different.

How we study literature:

Readers rely on their prior knowledge and world experience when trying to
comprehend a text. It is this organized knowledge that is accessed during reading
that is referred to as schema (plural: schemata). Readers make use of their schema
when they can relate what they already know about a topic to the facts and ideas
appearing in a text. The richer the schema is for a given topic, the better a reader
will understand the topic.

However, the writer writes the text with an idea in mind of a person who will read
it. That person is the “implied reader.” Likewise, the reader reads the text and gets
an idea of what kind of person wrote it. That person is the “implied writer.”

The “implied writer” is a person who knows all the words in the text, who cares
about all of the ideas, who has the kind of imagination needed to create the text, who
knows the history, literature, religion, and culture needed to create the metaphors,
symbols, images, and so on. The “implied reader” of the text is someone who can
perfectly understand all that the author intended, who knows all the words, history,
literature, religion, and culture implied by the text. He or she is someone who can
understand all the nuances that the author intended. However, both the “implied
writer” and “implied reader” are idealistic and nearly impossible to reconcile
together; yet, it is your goal as the reader to become as near as possible to the “implied
reader” for every text we encounter.

Implied
Real Writer Implied Writer The Text Reader Real Reader
   

Challenges to being the “implied reader”:

1. Appropriate background knowledge (schema) for the reader to be able to

understand the work;
2. Enough of a shared worldview between the reader and the write to be able to
effectively communicate ideas.

*The knowledge required for a reader to be able to interpret a literary work effectively
includes, first and foremost, knowledge of language—vocabulary! We must be able to
comprehend the vocabulary of any work before we can begin to interpret the
underlying nuances and meanings.

Practice Activity:
 Symbols and Nuances: Read and analyze “The Gift,” by Li Young-Lee

Varying language use amongst literary forms and genres:

1. Poetry:

There are two main functions of language use in poetry: 1) the primary function is
artistic, that elevates thinking through compressed and complex language that
usually always has more than one meaning, such as through symbols and
metaphors; 2) the secondary function is the poetry allows the reader to understand
the author, whether that be through tone, or through the conspicuous voices either
of the narrator or characters. Unique elements of this genre to analyze include: lyrical
poetry vs. narrative poetry, figurative language, meter, rhyme scheme, poetic
structure, tone, allusions, symbols, etc.

Practice Activities:
 Artistic Function: Read and analyze “Bread,” by Kamau Brathwaite
 Characterization of Speaker: Read and analyze “My Last Duchess,” by Robert
Browning

2. Prose Fiction:

Unlike poetry, prose fiction is not required to capture immense meaning through
dense compression, for the genre has plenty of space and time for the author to tell a
story with all the details desired, though this form of communication is still indirect
between the mediated narrator and the reader. Different aspects to analyze in this
genre include: epigraph, titles, setting, plot, conflict, characterization, mood, tone,
language, motifs, symbolism, foreshadowing, frame story, etc.

3. Prose Non-Fiction:

However similar to prose fiction, non-fiction texts primarily rely on realistic

language when retelling an actual event. Because these pieces of literature must
necessarily be realistic, non-fiction writers cannot use language to create non-
realistic or fantastical setting or situations; yet, they can use language to help
readers understand characters, and they use language to incorporate artistic
elements into the work. We will be studying the non-fiction essays of Joan Didion next
semester to examine how she utilizes rhetoric for specific purposes.

4. Graphic Novels:

Graphic novels or non-fiction works use language in conjunction with images to

convey meaning. Often the images convey more than the words do directly, and the
words are primary used as support or guidance to interpret the images. We will be
studying the graphic novel, “Persepolis,” next semester to analyze different elements of
this genre, including: layout, frames, panels, graphic weight, shading and color,
dialogue, etc.

5. Dramas:

Vastly different than the other four forms of literature, plays rely primarily on
dialogue in order to convey meaning. While language in drama can do all of the
things that language accomplishes in the other literary forms, it also means that an
author must rely mainly on dialogue to develop and reveal characterization, as well
as drive the plot. Specific elements of dramas that we will be analyzing through “A
Doll’s House” this semester include: the standard play arc, conflicts, orthography,
stage setting, act plot structure, characterization, symbols, tone, etc.

How meaning is constructed, negotiated, expressed, and interpreted in

literature:
The four elements of construction, negotiation, expression, and interpretation are
the different forms of intentional communication between an author and a reader.

“Constructed” and “expressed” refer to the author’s role in transferring a meaning to

the reader. The author constructs the text in a deliberate and conscious process, as
well as actively expresses their ideas through all of the literary techniques that have
been previously discussed: use of a particular narrator, choice of setting, ordering of
plot, structure of text, syntax, images, symbols, tones, figurative language, etc. Going
hand-in-hand, the term “interpreted” refers to the reader’s role in the transaction
between the author and the reader, with the obligation of interpreting the author’s
intentions by working at understanding what the author has done in order to
construct meaning.

However, the final term, “negotiated,” suggests that two parties work together,
going back and forth, to come to an agreement about something. We can think of
this similar to the job of creating a bridge between a reader and writer of any work
as a negotiation in the sense that the author lays down his or her version of the
story and its implications, and then the reader engages with that version in an effort
to understand it. What makes the process similar to a negotiation is that we can be
certain that the author’s intention will never be fully realized exactly as he or she
thought in his or her head. Such an outcome is actually impossible—for no reader
has the same exact worldview, knowledge, or life experiences as the author. Authors
and readers, therefore, always differ in what they know and how they will
experience the world. The meaning, then, that any given reader will construct from a
literary work is going to be different to some degree from what the author meant to
express (think back to “implied reader” vs. “real reader”).

Practice Activity:
 Negotiating Interpretation: Read and analyze “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel
 Constructing Meaning: Read and analyze “Poem,” by Elizabeth Bishop

Conclusion:

Have you ever read a piece of literature when younger and then re-read it a few
years later to surprisingly find new insights, personal connections, and themes? This
is because literary texts are crafted so richly that no single reading can reveal all
there is to know about them. If you re-read a text, you will discover more than you
did the first time. If you re-read it after a significant amount of time has passed, you
will probably know significantly more about the world, and you may very well
understand life and humanity in a new light. If you discuss that piece of literature
with others who read it out of their perspectives from their own life experiences,
you will learn about new ideas that you may have missed yourself. Because it is the
nature of literature to be resilient, it allows for an ever-expanding vision to arise out
of our approach to it. This makes it a true art form, and that is what makes it a joy to
study.

Final Activity:
 Readers, Writers, & Texts: Read and analyze “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate
Chopin
Possible Links to TOK:

Links to TOK in this area revolve around the question of what kind of knowledge can
be constructed from a text, how that knowledge is constructed and the extent to which
the meaning of a text can be considered fixed:

1. What do we learn about through the study of a literary text? How is this different
from what we learn through the study of a non-literary text?
2. In what ways is the kind of knowledge we gain from the study of language and
literature different from the kind we gain through the study of other disciplines?
3. Can the study of language and of literature be considered scientific?
4. How much of the knowledge we construct through reading a text is determined
by authorial intention, by the reader’s cultural assumptions and by the purpose
valued for a text in a community of readers?
5. Are some interpretations of a text better than others? How are multiple
interpretations best negotiated?
6. In what ways do interpretive strategies vary when reading a literary work and
when reading a non- literary text? 

Our Final Activity:

Civilization as we know it has been destroyed and only a select remaining people
have the ability to escape in a life raft. However, due to limited space and weight,
you are only allowed to bring ONE piece of literature with you to help reestablish
humanity and the literary arts.

Therefore, choose one book that you believe is indispensable to human civilization
and understanding, and write a concise one page argument that defines its literary,
humanistic, moral, philosophical, religious, etc. contributions that make it worth
saving amongst all other pieces of literature. Also, be mindful of the 7 Course
Concepts and the Global Issues that we have previously discussed. Bring BOTH the
novel and your argument with you to class tomorrow and prepare to debate!

The goal for this activity is to reflect on the different aspects of Readers, Writers, and
Texts from this Area of Exploration and to determine what makes a piece of
literature a truly valuable and aesthetic art form worth studying and cherishing.