Teaching Literature at KS 1 - 2

The Role of the Text

Authors create different types of literary text. Barthes (1970) distinguishes between 'lisible' or 'readerly' texts where the reader is relatively passive; and 'scriptible' or writerly' texts where the reader is active in creating meaning. Meek (1988) has shown teachers how to recognise these 'gaps' in texts. Young readers create their own meanings by filling the gaps. For instance, one young boy after reading Eric Carle's Draw Me A Star with his teacher was prompted to ask existential questions about what happens before birth and after death. Carle's text has no explicit mention of these issues but the artist in the story is depicted as a young baby who gradually grows into an old man before travelling across the night sky with the star he has drawn. Many adults reading this book have missed this detail but the child's comments showed that he was responding to the text not only at the literal level but as a metaphor. A popular view is that illustration limits the interpretation and imagination but readerly gaps are also evident in visual texts such as film and illustrated works. For example, in illustrating Adele Geras' retelling of Bluebeard, Louise Brierley selects the moment that the Bride is about to enter the forbidden room, rather than depicting the full horror of the bloody chamber. This restraint on the part of the illustrator, enhances dramatic tension and leaves the reader to imagine what intrigue lies beyond the door. Iser (1978) calls this 'building bridges' and suggests that whenever the reader fills a gap, 'communication begins' (p169). This communication and active engagement with the text is required to 'make sense', and is particularly important as, besides bringing one's own experience to the signs and codes created by the author, the nature of literature makes particular demands. Culler, for example, claims that literature's system of codes is 'violated' by metaphor, and this demands that we work at the text. Barthes' 'writerly' texts use literary language and conventions that demand a deep engagement if we are to 'make sense' of text (Culler 1981 p39). Louise Rosenblatt (1978) also argues that the quality of the text is vital in the development of mature response. She states that children need opportunities for efferent (outward looking) responses which prompt the reader to seek more information and aesthetic responses which draw on their unique lived experience or engagement with the text.

Engagement with texts which require active, participatory behaviour in reading not only develops children's reading skills, but also challenges their thinking and reflection on the content, themes and issues in the text. Texts with gaps may lead to more than one interpretation, and invite discourse to explore possible responses. In such debate, we engage in exploration not just of the structure and meaning, but of the issues, themes, values and emotions communicated by the author. Books such Eric Carle's Draw Me a Star, Louis Sachar's Holes, Mary Hoffman's Stravaganza, Carl Hiaasen's Hoot, Malorie Blackman's Pig Heart Boy, Kate Thompson's Missing Link trilogy William Nicholson's The Wind on Fire trilogy and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy offer in their content sources for philosophical and moral debate and discussion.