Speaking to the reading responses / journal entries, I know exactly what you mean. Of course, I find them 100% helpful, and since I first did them way back in 2007 for Dr. Moses at Fresno City College, I’ve made a habit of keeping a reading journal (whether for credit or not). The trouble is that we all know we’re going to end up having to write term papers–sometimes more than one–so the crafty student will use all the resources at their disposal to their advantage for those papers: for me, this usually amounts to reading specifically for things that I feel will work with my arguments, journaling about those, and perhaps overlooking other important moments that may not be directly related to my theses. With Middlemarch, for example, I was reading specifically for issues that related to communication and taking special note of those instances while, perhaps, not paying quite as much attention to other aspects.

Here’s what I really like:

It gives students a way to begin to recognize, maybe appreciate, themselves as distinct interpreters (which they are) and yet also challenge themselves to expand those distinct boxes in which they individually think.

Damn straight. I’m reminded of a great College Humor video…

If you can dance, you can cast spells. If you can rap, you can cast spells!

That’s right. Reader response theory is for everyone, and everyone is a valid interpreter.

This is a broad hermeneutical problem as much as it is specifically a pedagogical one. We can pretend, as we improve our skills as readers, that we rise above any interpretive position given which something like recognizing a simple literary device or a genre would somehow compromise our capacity to engage a text. But I think to a large extent we actually never rise above such positions. I think we’re always preconditioned as readers and our interpretations are always compromised by our particular goals in reading, even if those goals aren’t imposed on us.

I’m thinking of the reading responses we wrote for Dr. Jenkins throughout Victorian Literature. Maybe you had a different experience with them (I’d be interested to know); I certainly noticed patterns that ran through my own, patterns which exposed tendencies of mine as a reader: to pick out particular themes not because they were always “the most important” in the works but because they were apparently important themes to me and as such generally constrained my interpretations by directing them; to “receive” texts broadly in particular ways, such as by relating them even if unconsciously to other works I’d encountered (even if those other works weren’t, say, historically relevant) and even to other areas of my life; etc.

I think it’s important to develop an awareness of the extent to which reading involves meaning making and doesn’t—can’t—consist cleanly of meaning “recognition.” And I think at least one great way of doing that is assigning reading responses and then specifically encouraging post-discussion reflection on those reading responses. It gives students a way to begin to recognize, maybe appreciate, themselves as distinct interpreters (which they are) and yet also challenge themselves to expand those distinct boxes in which they individually think. Allow the students personal journeys to complement the collective education they get from the course, so that it’s not just about introducing them to new data and new tools but also about bringing them into consciousness of the experience of reading.