Transactional Theory and the Teaching of Literature : Lee Galda
National Reading Research Center
grant at the University of Georgia (Galda, Stahl, &
Pellegrini, 1992–1995)
Britton’s (1970) Language and Learning and Rosenblatt’s (1978, 1995) The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work and
Literature as Exploration
Three Children Reading Stories:Response to Literature in Preadolescents” ” (Galda, 1980)
describe the nature of a reader’s activity
when engaged with language in various forms for various
purposes.
As a work of art, it offers a special kind of experience. It
is a mode of living. The poem, the play, the story, is thus
an extension, an amplification,of life itself. The reader’s
primary purpose is to add this kind of experience to the
other kinds of desirable experiences that life may offer.
(Rosenblatt, 1995, p. 264)
Reading a literary work of art, is to “enter into the experiences of other people” (Britton, 1970, p. 154)
Language of the text is understood through individual experiences and knowledge
documented the different ways that three 10-yearold girls approached two novels written for children:
Constance Greene’s (1976), Beat the Turtle Drum and
Katherine Paterson’s (1977), Bridge to Terabithia.
to see how these readers’ experiences, beliefs, and preferences influenced the meaning they created, how their selective attention and stances affected their evocation and how their understandings of how a story works influenced their
reading of these two novels.
Lee Galda is convinced that young children engaged in a complex dance of meaning construction as they read.
documenting how Betty Shockley used children’s literature to motivate and sustain her students as they learned to read, write, speak, and listen in a classroom setting.
A research funded by the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, and the University of Georgia.
students were interviewed about their
reading habits, preferences, and attitudes.
Tied to Piaget’s stage theory: as the older readers were more analytical in their responses and more likely to offer generalizations than were the younger readers who tended to speak in terms of carefully defined categories.
She had hundreds of picture books, to which her students always had access. None were left behinds because there were so many books available to them
The opportunity to read from both aesthetic and efferent stances was important to these young readers.
Looking Through the Faraway End:
Creating a Literature-Based Reading Curriculum WithSecond Graders (Galda et al., 2000)
document how understanding of text grows through discussions with others
discover effective ways for Lisa to develop the students’ skills
primary tool - daily support, questions, and clear
instruction during discussions
progress:
-students taking up Lisa’s example and making connections to other books and to their own lives
-students explicitly connected ideas developed in earlier
conversations to later discussions,
-weaving books and talk from across the year into an ongoing literary discussion.
Literature and the Child (e.g., Galda, Sipe, Liang, & Cullinan, 2013)
explain transactional theory and cite research
note the effects of particular books, particular assignments,and especially the way I conducted discussions as I was teaching children’s literature to adults.
Final Class: Culturally Diverse Literature for Children and Adolescents
brought different experiences, preferences, knowledge, and values to the books that we were reading together, and that these differences played out in our discussions
learned to understand how their personal preferences shaped their initial responses, had learned the difference between accuracy and authenticity, had developed a healthy
doubt about their assumptions, and had learned the
power of open discussions with other readers.
Conclussion
Good teaching with literature seems to me to be an
attempt to balance multiple] goals across the days and
weeks and months of classroom life, allowing readers
the [opportunity] to experience e the dangerous power
that reading can provide, to develop lliterate voices, to
want to read and read more, to spontaneously share and
refine their personal responses through self-reflection
and social dialogue, and to see the world through the
eyes of others. (Galda, 1998, p. 9)