LITERARY MEANING THROUGH ENVISIONMENT BUILDING
LITERARY MEANING THROUGH ENVISIONMENT BUILDING

Summary/Abstract: Starting from the premise that reading is a social act rather than an individual act, the article pursuits some reader-response theories that provide a foundation for a literature-based instruction. J.Langer’s term of envisionment –text worlds in mind- also informed my approach to literature. The article is a plea to the importance of engaging students actively with the literary text and their entering the text-worlds by responding individually and then sharing them in a collaborative social work that will result in developing their critical skills and further on in developing qualitatively different options. We build environments all the time when we make sense of ourselves, of others, and of the world. Envisionment building, in which one constructs and negotiates meanings through conversations with others and ‘meaning-making’, are desired instructional goals and we want to make these things happen in our academic classrooms. Understanding helps us grow personally, socially and intellectually. How we read is more important than what we read. By teaching students how to read gives them the power to think creatively as well as critically.

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