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- Title
Imagination in story response: Relationships between imagery, affect, and structural importance.
- Authors
Sadoski, Mark; Goetz, Ernest T.; Kangiser, Suzanne
- Abstract
Current debates in literary criticism and reading theory focus on the relative importance of the fixed language of a text and the reader's disposition as factors influencing commonality and variation in reader response. The authors used both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the convergence and divergence of several aspects of reader response to selected short stories read in a classroom setting. Thirty-nine college students read three short stories with similar plot structures and rated each story by paragraph according to one of three criteria: the degree of mental imagery evoked, the degree of emotion evoked, or the degree of importance to the story as a whole. Paragraphs that received high ratings on all three scales were identified, and students were subsequently asked to explain the reasons for their high ratings (on the respective scale) for these paragraphs, using a free-response reporting format. Significant convergence was found in both the quantitative ratings and the qualitative reports, but interesting divergence was also found, particularly in the imagery reports. The relationships found between imagery, affect, and importance are related to current literary theories and to theories of basic psychological processes in reading.
- Subjects
READING comprehension; CRITICISM; READING; LANGUAGE arts; READING ability testing; SHORT story (Literary form); SENTENCES (Grammar); LITERACY; READING standards
- Publication
Reading Research Quarterly, 1988, Vol 23, Issue 3, p320
- ISSN
0034-0553
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/748045