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Literary exts n the Classroom 357

Some progress n bridging he perceived gapbetween learning to use the forms of the lan-guage for ommunication and learning to readliterary texts for esthetic pleasure has been

made. For example, Schulz suggests methodsfor nticipating evels of readability nd reduc-ing students' frustration;6 i Pietro advocatesusing the story ine to create a scenario for om-municative interaction among students;7Reader'sTheatermakes students experience dif-ferent arrative points of view by having themcut up the text nto scripts which they hen role-read in front of the class;8 Birckbichler andMuyskens offer echniques to engage studentspersonally n the nterpretation nd evaluationof texts.9 None of these

suggestions, however,helps the learner overcome the greatest diffi-culty, namely that of interpreting nd under-standing the symbolic nature of a literary extand its cultural, social, and historical dimen-sions. 10

READING COMPREHENSION AND DISCOURSE THEORY

Current research n reading comprehension,artificial ntelligence, nd discourse analysis isconsistent with present iterary heory n thatit

pointsto the interactional

processesat work

in reading and understanding iterary exts. n-formation-processing or schema theories ofreading stress he fact that readers make senseout of a text by constructing chemata or uni-verses of discourse based on their knowledgeof the world and the totality of their experi-ence.11 In Carrell's words: According toschema theory, eaders activate an appropriateschema against which they try o give a text aconsistent interpretation. To the extent thatthey are successful, we may say that they havecomprehended the text. 12 Readers fit he ele-ments of the text nto their xisting chema andreadjust this schema to unfolding new informa-tion. Each new element provided by the textis assessed as to its ability to contribute o thereader's emerging schema.

These observations are consonant withtheories of artificial ntelligence that describehow knowledge structures are acquired andstored n memory n the form f frames, cripts,or knowledge packets. 13Goldstein and Papertin particular rticulate model of comprehen-sion in which the process is not one of iterallyunderstanding the text, but one in which thetext triggers ich, highly tructured nowledge

packets that upplement he iteral ontent, ro-vide explanations for the remainder of thestory, and place the story n a context of re-lated knowledge. Understanding s seen s essen-

tially process f voking nd then ebuggingxistingknowledge ackets my emphasis, p. 96).This view of reading as an active construc-

tion process parallels present views of discourseas being not merely the passage of thoughtfrom one sentence to another according to acertain order, 14 but the use of sentences incombination for the performance f social ac-tions. 15 Reading is the oint construction f asocial reality between the reader and the text.Just as, in spoken discourse, each participant

developshis own scheme which he

adjustsaccording to what his interlocutor ays, thereader of a text does not simply react to themessage or intention of the text, but his re-sponses are readjustments to his own com-municative intents. t is true that the authoranticipates reader's responses by writing heminto the discourse, but the reader playshis owngame as he reads. 16

This subtle interplay of intentionalities asbeen stressed by literary heory. Paul Ricoeur,for

example,differentiates etween

explaininga text and understanding t.17 Explanation ismore directed toward the analytic structure fthe text, understanding s more directed owardthe intentional unity of discourse p. 74). Theteacher can explain and teach the rhetoricalstructure, he form nd content f the text, butan understanding f the values, intentions, ndbeliefs embedded in the text can only beachieved through pen discussion and negotia-tion of meanings. According to Ricoeur, inter-pretation is a dialectic dynamic process bywhich the reader surpasses both explanationand understanding nd appropriates he textfor himself.

Foreign language learners, as non-intendedreaders, have the difficult ask of understand-ing intentions and beliefs that are not neces-sarily part of their epresentation f the world. 8Given the fact that the authors cast .readers into a made-up role and call on themto play the role assigned, foreign anguagereaders have to find out which role the author

wants them to assume and be taught how toassume it. 19But at the same time they must beshown how to preserve their freedom to floutthe writer's intentions and make their own

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358 Claire Kramsch

meaning out of the text. Such is the privilegeof the foreign culture reader.20

INTERTEXTUALITY AND GROUP READING

One aspect often verlooked n pedagogic re-flections n the teaching of iterary exts s thatreading in classrooms occurs within a groupsituation. The teacher s traditionally acedwiththe difficult ask of integrating he training nreading skills, centered on the individual stu-dent, into a communicative classroom, whichis markedly group-centered. Moreover, be-cause of his/her amiliarity ith the author, thetext, the period, the genre, the teacher is per-ceived

bystudents as

havinga normative

authority n matters of iterary nterpretation.This perception s a further bstacle to a group-centered ommunicative pproach. Besides, theacademic study of literature has often accus-tomed teachers to deal with iterary exts n anormative manner. The respect for he text sa work of art to be appreciated in accordancewith n established sthetic anon and put backinto the historic and cultural conditions of itscreation, discourages the reconstruction f thetext necessary for its appropriation by thereaders.

In what Breen and Candlin call a process-oriented classroom, it is as important o sen-sitize the students othe process of iterary rea-tion as it s to initiate them n the constructionof interactive poken discourse.21 As studentsstruggle to establish paths of communicationbetween one another n spoken discourse, theyrealize the choices made by the interlocutorsat every moment. In a similar manner, recon-structing he process by which the author hascreated the text and reflecting n their ownschema building can sensitize them to theoptions that were rejected, and the elementsthat were left unsaid. They are better able toappreciate and evaluate the choices that weremade.

In 1984 I described how to sensitize tudentsto the negotiation of meanings in spoken dis-course.22Now I should ike to turn o the nego-tiation of the meaning of a literary text in agroup situation. Here the challenge s two-fold.

On the one hand, a dialogue must be con-structed between the text and its readers. It isprecisely hisdialogue which Northrop rye hasin mind when he writes: The reader s a whole

of which the text s a part; the text s a wholeof which the reader is a part these contradic-tory movements keep passing into one anotherand back again. The Logos at the center, which

is inside the reader and not hidden behind thetext, continually hanges place with the Logosat the circumference hat encloses both. 23 Onthe other hand, a reception must be createdamong the readers. This multiple intertex-tuality may be represented chematically seeFigure 1).

TEACHING THE LITERARY NARRATIVE

The following will suggest an interactional

methodologyordiscussion of

iteraryarrative

in the third or fourth emester of college in-struction. t proposes to ustify heoretically ndto systematize within a discourse frameworkseveral pedagogical devices used intuitively ysuccessful eachers. have chosen the short nar-rative, because one of its important spects isthat t recounts characters' plans. Understand-ing narrative, ike understanding poken nter-action, requires taking nto account what Bruceand Newman call interacting plans. 24 Onecharacter's plans and goals interact with oroften counteract another's. Moreover, eachcharacter s acting n a reality hat ncludes per-ceptions of another ndividual's ntentions ndthis person's anticipations f one's own actions.According to Bruce and Newman: The beliefsand intentions f one character are embeddedin the beliefs and intentions f the other. Wecan add that, n a classroom discussion, the be-liefs and intentions of all characters are em-

FIGURE 1

student

student student

student -4 text - student

student studentstudent student

student


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bedded in the beliefs nd intentions f each stu-dent as well as those of the author.

The example used here is the Grimms' iter-ary version of the tale of Hiinsel and Gretel

transcribed n 1812 by Wilhelm Grimm withannotations in Jakob's hand.25 The transitionfrom he oral tale to the iterary enre s a goodintroduction oliterary orms t the ntermedi-ate level. Also, the story llustrates learly theinteracting plans of various characters as theyconflict with one another. The parents attemptto deceive the children nto thinking hat theyare going on a wood-fetching xpedition whenin fact they plan to abandon them. HMinsel e-sponds to his conception of his parents' actions

by makingthem believe he is

cooperatingwhen

in fact he is not. Deception and differing e-liefs, frequent motivating orce, llow for mul-tiple nterpretations y the class. As for he evelof difficulty, airy-tales, nlike modern shortstories, ast foreign anguage readers nto a rolethat s known to them despite some cultural dif-ferences. t is therefore asier for them to de-velop the appropriate schemata than, say, forthem to do so when reading Brecht's Kalender-geschichten, here the alienation effect r dis-tance intended between the text and its readermay require American students to assume arole to which they are not accustomed.

The following methodological suggestions,although arranged sequentially below, are notmeant to be implemented in a strict inearorder; it is neither possible nor even desirableto apply all the steps suggested here to onegiven narrative. The discussion of the story nclass usually takes one class period, with se-lected nstructional echniques. Pre-reading c-tivities will have been conducted both in classand at home as a preparation for class discus-sion. In this multidimensional framework, mymethodology will follow he Breen and Candlinmodel of three aptitudes in the construction fdiscourse: expression, nterpretation, nd nego-tiation of meanings.26

EXPRESSING AND INTERPRETING MEANINGS

The activities mentioned here are meant tobuild a common universe of discourse betweenthe reader and the text, both on the explicitlexical and syntactic evels and on the implicitreferential evel. They can be done partially nclass as a pre-reading activity, partially as an

accompaniment to the individual reading as-signment at home.

Building a Common BackgroundKnowledge:Defining Topic, Genre, Period, ntended eader.

Before ssigning hereading for homework, iveor ten minutes should be taken to give the stu-dents some understanding of what the story sabout, what the nature of the text s, and whenit was written. n this case, students need tobe weaned from heir Walt Disney representa-tion of Hiinsel and Gretel and be given the gen-eral cultural and historical background to theGrimms' fairy-tale.

Collecting ecessary ocabulary.tudents houldnot expect or be expected to understand everyword of a

literaryext on first

eading.A

pre-liminary ctivity y the group can recreate theconditions under which the individual readerselects exical items to build appropriate sche-mata. Students are given two minutes to re-read silently he first aragraph of the story.Then the teacher asks: Which words do weneed to tell the story? Which words can youremember from the story? Underline thewords or clusters of words you understood,ignore the others. The point s to gather timelimit: four

minutes)the resources of the

groupby brainstorming s many suggestions s pos-sible from he students. The teacher or a fellowstudent cts as a recorder nd merely writes nthe board in their orrect orm he exical itemsprovided by the students. These may be, in thiscase: derHolzhacker; rm; eingroj3er ald;fiihren;seine Frau; kein Brot mehr; zwei Kinder. Theteacher may add items, e.g., erniihren, hat thestudents might not have understood, but thatthey might want to use later.

Assembling he acts. It is important to reas-sure the students of what they know and toshow them how to make educated guessesabout the rest. The group is therefore sked toinfer the meaning of the paragraph from thevocabulary on the board. ( Let us link up theseislands of understanding. How could we tell thebeginning of the story with these words? ) Theresult might ook as shown in Figure 2. Thegloss might be: Der Holzhacker nd seineFrauwaren ehr rm. Weil s kein Brotmehr ab, konntensie ihre wei Kindernichtmehr rniihren. afiihrtensie sie in einen rojfenWald; or Es war einmal inarmer olzhacker nd eine rau. Eines Tageshattensie kein rot mehr. ie konntenhre wei Kinder ichtmehr mrniihren.iefiihrten iealso nden roflen ald.


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360 ClaireKramsch

FIGURE 2

der Holzhacker arm ein groer Wald

fiUhren seine Frau kein zwei KinderBrotmehr

ernahren

These students' exts re written n the boardand are given as much attention s the iterarytext tself. This

procedure integratestudents

into the interpretive process and providesparallel texts to be used later for comparativepurposes. It is therefore dvisable not to beselective t this point but to write own all inputfrom the student.

Brainstorming onceptual ssociations. arrellhas shown how important t s to take as a pointof departure the perceptions and assumptionsof the student reader.27 Discussion of a literarytext will fail to meet the interest nd the com-

prehensionneeds of the students f t is

totallyirrelevant to what they ave in mind. Brain-storming ssociations as a group activity ela-tivizes the perspective f the ndividual studentand opens up alternatives generated by theother students.

For example, the teacher might tate: Hereare three oncepts hat re important orunder-standing the story. What do you think f whenyou hear each of these words? Sample re-sponses might be:

Miirchen: ineGeschichte,ie nicht ahr stmanbrauchtie nicht u glaubenfir Kinderauch iir rwachseneWunder

im Wald: pazierenehen, andernBergeVermontCamping, ach, ischenGefahren?

zu Hause:....

These responses are contrasted with those ofthe teacher if s/he s a native speaker) or withthose of native speakers, in order to verbalizethe difference etween the perceptions f a for-

eign language reader and those of the nativereader intended by the author.28 The associa-tions generated above may lead, for xample,into a short reflection n the different ruthvalue attributed o

fairyales and on the con-

notations of the word Wald for Germanspeakers. Such a cross-cultural omparison isessential if the discussion is not to remain onthe purely subjective evel of the students' x-perience.

Predicting opicDevelopment.tudents shouldbe encouraged not only to make and testhypotheses bout their reading but to comparethem with those of the other readers. A dis-course-oriented methodology an activate this

processin small

groups.For

example:What

do the following lements of the story ead usto expect? Briiderchen nd Schwesterchentheoriginal itle) ; there was no more bread ; takethem into the deep forest. This elicitation ofthe students' merging chemata wards off rossmisunderstandings nd offers contrastive on-text within which the rest of the story will beread. It can also serve o illustrate owa literarytext purposely meets or deceives the expecta-tions of the reader.

SchemaBuilding. n order to help studentsbuild their own schemata, the teacher mustavoid the traditional situation where studentspreparing a reading assignment are given istsof vocabulary, with occasional grammaticalglosses or cultural footnotes, but no advanceclues as to the tone of the text ironical, satiri-cal, programmatic, metaphorical, descriptive),its intended effect n the reader, its thematichighlights, its stylistic features --all crucialaspects which re then expected to emerge froma class discussion led by the teacher.

Such a traditional approach only confirmsthe students' belief that their major block tounderstanding is a lack of vocabulary andgrammar nd solidifies heir dependence on theteacher. Since we know that understanding aliterary text is a top-down as well as abottom-up rocess, why do we insist n giving

the readers only lexical and grammaticalclues?29As one student xpressed t poignantly:I understood the text when I read it ast night

at home, but I can't answer any of your ques-

tions.The following lternative pproach will aidin directing tudents' reading and will channelthe way they build schemata to make sense of


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the words on the page. It is useless to ask themto identify ey words, for example, when theydo not know the main thrust f the text. There-fore, the clue-gathering activities suggested

below, designed for ndividual or small groupwork, consistently nclude an interpretive irec-tion as well as a limited and well-defined ask,illustrated with a sample question and answerpair if need be.30

Discoveringey Wordsndicative f GivenMean-ing. Example: Find two expressions used bythe stepmother hat contain a reproach againstthe children. Possible answers: ihr b6sen inder;steht uf, ihr Faulenzer;da habt hr etwas ir denMittag, aber efit's cht orher uf, weiter riegt hr

nichts;Narr

to Hiinsel).Discovering arallels nd Contrasts n Meaning.Example: The two homes: the father'shouse - the gingerbread house. Find two simi-larities nd differences. ossible answers: bothhouses have a mother figure nd the prospectof death is present n both, but there s starva-tion in one, overabundance in the other; oneis at the edge of the woods, the other s in thewoods; a father ives in the first ouse but notin the second.

Finding llustrations f GivenMotif.

Example1: There is a white thread running through-out the story. Can you find t? Give four ex-amples. Possible answers: the white pebbles,the white cat on the roof, the white dove thatleads the children o the gingerbread house, thewhite duck that leads them back home. Ex-ample 2: How do we recognize that this is afairy ale? Give three examples, e.g., it beginswith Es war einmal.

Discovering egularities n Content, ound orForm. Example: Find three or four elementswhich repeat themselves in a contrastivemanner, for nstance Kieselsteinet the begin-ning, Edelsteinet the end. Possible answers: toeat/to e eaten; to kill/to e killed, Hiinsel eadsthe way in the beginning/Gretel eads the wayin the end. These factual elements can now bediscussed and interpreted by the group.NEGOTIATING MEANINGS

Whereas in the preceding activities, back-ground and schema building could be done

either in small groups or individually, thereflection hat follows hould be conducted ex-clusively s a whole group activity n class. Be-cause the activity s in part culture-specific nd

explores not only the values and beliefs ex-pressed in the text but also those of the stu-dents, it touches a potentially xplosive area.Given the privilege of the readers to interpret

the text n a way that is meaningful to them,differences n values should not be corrected utonly pointed out and discussed.31

ExploringWorlds fDiscourse.Negotiating themeaning of a literary ext means exploring thepossible worlds of discourse in which the nar-rative is inserted. The goal is to use the mul-tiple perspective and life experiences of thereaders to reach an understanding f the multi-faceted world of the narrative.

Brainstormingntentions nd Beliefs. here canbe no classroom

dialogueon the level of

sty-listic, exical, or grammatical facts, nly on thelevel of the students' construction f them foran interpretation f the text. Since values andbeliefs cannot be made explicit by direct ques-tioning, the teacher's responsibility s to finddiscourse context within which the readers'schemata can be discussed in a non-threaten-ing manner. This discussion can be initiated,for xample, by brainstorming esponses to anopen-ended question, chosen for ts multiplicityof possible answers, generally f the what r whytype. Here, for example, anticipating twopotential interpretations of the Hainsel andGretel tale, one moralistic, ne archetypal, heteacher might sk: Why does the woman wantto lead the children into the forest?

The purpose of the brainstorming s to workfor quantity. Students should be allowed (timelimit: four minutes) to say whatever comes tomind. The teacher hould not select, omment,or udge in any way but merely record the stu-dents' suggestions on the blackboard. Factualinaccuracies are recorded together with theother responses; they will be dealt with ater.Linguistic rrors re repaired without ommentby the teacher, who just writes down the cor-rect form of the utterance.

Responses to these questions might be: 1)thechildren were bad; 2) there s no more money;3) she is a bad mother; 4) she wants to get ridof her children; 5) so that they have enough toeat; 6) she wants to deceive them; 7) she hasto deceive them; 8) her husband wants her todo it; 9) the children will die, if they stay athome; 10) she hopes that they will find some-thing to eat in the woods; 11) another house;12) the children hould take care of themselves.


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362 ClaireKramsch

Such a reception dialogue, constructed co-operatively by the group, forms parallel textfor ater discussion n class. It recreates hetopi-cal development f a group conversation: opics

are first ntroduced by several conversationalpartners 1-3); they re then expanded (4 and6 interpret ); previous topics are returned to(6 goes back to the topic introduced n 3); sub-topics are redirected 7); an interlocutor om-pletes another's sentence 5), offers nterpreta-tion (8) or correction 9 corrects 8). Differentinterlocutors ollaborate on topic construction(10, 11, 12 collaborate on topics 7 and 9). Stu-dents' utterances piggyback on each other s innatural symmetric onversation.

Putting heData in Order. After ascertainingthat there are no errors of fact Can you seeany factual rrors? Possibly tem 8? Let us goback to the text.. . ), the class attempts toorder the data listed on the board ( Are two rea-sons similar or in contrast with one another? ).Two possible orderings can emerge: 1) items1, 9, and 12 lay emphasis on the children, theothers focus on the mother and her husband.The superordinate question here is who is re-sponsible for leading the children into thewoods;

2)items 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 characterize

a bad mother, wanting to punish helpless chil-dren. Items 10-12 point to a wise mother,anxious to make the children ndependent inthe face of adversity. tems 2 and 9 are factualobservations. The focus here is on the mother'sintentions.

While both orderings represent valid inter-pretations, he second one might be able to ex-plain more events than the first n the courseof the story. n my experience, undergraduatestudents have quite moralistic views on fairytales and it is a challenge to offer hem arche-typal schemata of nterpretation. he compari-son of the original tale with the Grimms' ver-sion can help clarify he two different ramesof reference see below).

The following hree ctivities re well-knowntechniques for he clarification f values likelyto facilitate oth interpretation f the text andstudent-student dialogue.32

Ranking nd Voting. tudents re usually eagerto discover how their peers understand he text.Asking them to rank the items on the boardprovides the opportunity to take a personalstand, ustify t, and compare it with that of theothers. For example: Rank the motives isted

above according to priority ; r What wouldyou have done if you had been the mother?

Exploring lternatives nd Consequences.rob-ing for tudents' nferences s one of the meth-

odological recommendations of researchers nreading comprehension.33 With literary extsthat reflect oth cultural and esthetic values,such a probing helps uncover the author'schoices. Example: What are Hiinsel's alterna-tives at the beginning of the story? Thesechoices are in fact often dictated by the genreitself; or xample, in the fairy ale the hero hasto go in search of what he is missing.

Interpretive ole-Playing. o clarify points onwhich there has been some disagreement the

role of the father n the story item 8), simul-taneous role-plays an provide another paralleltext for onstrastive nterpretation. Groups ofthree tudents two partners nd one observer)role-play the controversial situation within atime limit of one minute. Example: Dialoguebetween husband and wife on the evening ofthe first day where there is no more bread ;Dialogue between Gretel at the beginning of

the story and her alter ego at the end. Thesituation should not be explained in greaterdetail and the

role-playshould be

improvised.The observer's uty s to report o the class howthe two actors have interpreted he situation(e.g., how much they feel the husband was re-sponsible for the decision of leading the chil-dren into the woods). The context of this role-play provides yet another perspective on theGrimm text.

Exploring iscourse orms.Besides consideringvarious worlds of discourse, students shouldexplore the various forms f discourse availablewithin he genre tself, nd the different enrespossible.

Structural arallels. tudents are given the fol-lowing schematic representation f the typicalfairy tale sequence: initial equilibrium --rup-ture search by the hero - temporary eestab-lishment f the equilibrium appearance of thevillain or character who counteracts the plansof the hero. 34They are then asked to completeit (see Figure 3). Figure 4 shows an alternateform of Figure 3.

Within an archetypal interpretation f thetale, students can be encouraged to search forstructural arallels:35the mother figure s thedriving force behind the narrative; the threeaspects of home (the parents' home, the ginger-


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FIGURE 3

WiederherstellungGliick: genug zu essen des Gliicks:

genug zu essen

Hungersnotdie Hexe .. .?

Suche erHelden]

FIGURE4

l~.r

bread house, and the father's ouse at the end);the three fires the empty fire t the beginning,the deceiving fire n the woods, the ife-threat-ening fire at the witch's house); the three de-ceptions of the children by the mother, thethree deceptions of the mother by the chil-dren. The abrupt reference o the woman atthe end; The woman in the meantime haddied, can initiate great deal of reflection ndcan be discussed n the ight f the overall struc-ture of the story.

Intratextual ariations. ewriting he tale, indi-vidually or in groups, is part of the reconstruc-tion process necessary for ppropriation of thetext by the readers. Different formats arepossible:

- Providing a frame: how does the story goon? Gretel and her husband one day find hem-selves incapable of feeding their two children.Imagine the story; or, imagine the life of thewoodcutter and his family before the storybegan.- Changing the time scale: start telling thestory f Hiinsel and Gretel when they go to thewoods for he second time. Recount the begin-

ning in retrospect; or, imagine the life of thewoodcutter's amily etween the two periods ofhunger.

- Changing point of view: imagine a dia-

logue between the woodcutter and his wife onthe evening of the first day; or, imagine anentry n Hansel's diary, when he was still athome; or, write a letter from Gretel to herfather uring her captivity n the witch's house;or, Gretel explains to her father t the end howshe got the precious stones; or, find nother itlefor the fairy tale.

The very reconstruction f the text by thestudents makes apparent to them better thanany analysis by a teacher some of its stylisticfeatures.

For example, as they re asked to re-write the story from a different erspective,they uddenly realize the necessity f changingtone and register s well. The husband wouldbe unlikely osay to his wife: Hor mal, wir habennichtsmehr u beifien nd zu brechen, n expres-sion clearly within he register f Grimms' om-niscient narrator. The opposite will occur withtexts told from the character's point of view.Students recounting Kafka's Verwandlung, orexample, from an omniscient perspective,would be ill-advised to

copythe text and write

Gregors ater erfolgtehn n sein Zimmer, ince theverb verfolgen nly makes sense from GregorSamsa's point of view.

Intertextual ariations. ust as parallel textsconstructed y the students help enrich hedia-logue between the text and its many readers,so too can a comparison of the text with relatedtexts on the same topic serve to illustrate hecultural and esthetic choices made by theauthor. An appropriate comparison can bemade here with the tale's original (1812) ver-sion, entitled riiderchen nd chwesterchen.6Thistranscription of the oral narrative is muchshorter han the Grimm version. The Grimmselaborated on motives, reasons, and feelings,and added in particular he final pisode of thewhite duck that carries the children across thelake to their father's house. Furthermore, heGrimm text distinguishes tself rom he origi-nal by its religious and moralistic overtones,which clearly reflect he Biedermeieralues of thetimes.

At this point, the teacher may provide moredetailed cultural and historical information,e.g., on Romanticsm and Biedermeierzeit,o sup-plement the students' nterpretation.37


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364 ClaireKramschCONCLUSION

This paper represents continuing plea forengaging students n the negotiations f mean-ing n spoken and written iscourse. The strate-

gies they earn from oral communication canbe put to use for he nterpretation, iscussion,and personal understanding of literary textswithin the group interaction f the classroom.

The methodology utlined above gives a fewpractical suggestions for achieving this goal.For example, the enforcement f a strict imelimit for many of the activities reduces anxietyand keeps discussion in focus. The presence ofpeer observers in role-play provides valuabledebriefing ossibilities. he non-normative ole

of the teacher n the discussion of esthetic, ul-tural, and social values is crucial for success-ful discussion of literary works. However,beyond these specific echniques which are inpart well-known, he main thrust f this paperis a plea for a change in orientation n class-room discourse. A group reception dialogue re-quires more natural forms of discourse in theclassroom than the traditional instructionalones. In view of the professional tendency oflanguage teachers to overdidacticize ocial in-teractions n the

classroom,the

onlyvalid

ap-proach to teaching iterary exts s to be readyto discover every one anew with every newgroup of students nd to be surprised by theirinsights.38 A discourse perspective n the teach-ing of iterary exts alls therefore or changein the nature of student-teacher elationship nthe classroom.39

This approach is not only consistent withreading comprehension research and literarytheory, t also restores classroom students totheir full reative ole as a community f auton-

omous and responsible readers. The mostvaluable information s in our students' ercep-tions and not our own, remarks Carrell.40Theseriousnesswith which students' erceptions retaken reduces the threat of the expectationsplaced on them as non-native readers and pro-tects heir elf-esteem. aking learners' percep-tions into account does not mean that the stu-dents should not earn about the text's ulturaland historical frame of reference, but onlythrough the prism of parallel texts and their

own constructs can they grasp the uniquenature of the literary work they are reading.Finally, the discourse between a literary ext

and its readers and among readers of the sametext an serve as the ink between communica-tive language teaching and the teaching of it-erature. Whether it be everyday spoken dis-course or literary discourse, the communica-tive, poetic, and phatic functions f anguagejoin together n the teaching of anguage as asocial event. Readers understand literary extas

theyunderstand themselves nd each other

responding to and rewriting the text. Thepleasure they derive from t is both individualand communal. A discourse perspective canhelp build the social reality f the student groupand at the same time sensitize each student tothe esthetic, game-like quality of all languageinteraction.41

NOTES

1The communicative extspublished recently y Langen-scheidt contain many more literary exts than the earlierones, e.g., Peter F. Hajny & Horst Wirbelauer, Lesekurs

fiir Anfdnger. ine Einfiihrug n die TexterschliessungMuinchen:Langenscheidt, 1983)and Christoph Edelhoff t al., DeutschAktiv 3. Materialienfiir die Mittelstufe, eil I (Mfinchen:Langenscheidt, 1984). The Goethe Institute has recentlybeen organizing numerous workshops and seminars on theteaching of iterature n language classes, from which thefollowing publications are available: Bernd Kast, Literaturim Unterricht. ethodischdidaktische orschliigeiir den Lehrer(Miinchen: Goethe Institut, 1984); New YorkerWerkstattge-spriich 984 -Literatur m kommunikativenremdesprachenunter-richt, d. Manfred Heid (Miinchen: Kemmler und Hoch,forthcoming). The topic is now attracting doctoral

dissertations n Germany, e.g., Ingrid Mummert, SchiilermigenDichtung auch n derFremdspracheFrankfurt: Lang,1984). A recent survey of the use of literary texts in thiscountry is given in Judith Muyskens, Teaching SecondLanguage Literatures: Past, Present and Future, ModernLanguageJournal, 67 (1983), pp. 413-23.

2Michael Breen & Christopher N. Candlin, The Essen-tials of a Communicative Curriculum in LanguageTeaching, Applied Linguistics, (1980), pp. 90-91.

3See the Sanders-Kramsch exchange of views in Unter-richtspraxis, 6 (1983), pp. 313-18.

4Ralph M. Hester, From Reading to the Reading ofLiterature, ModernLanguageJournal, 56 (1972), p. 284.

5Walter J. Ong, Interfaces f the Word-Studies n the vo-lution f Consciousnessnd CultureIthaca: Cornell Univ. Press,1977), p. 58.

6Renate A. Schulz, Literature and Readability: Bridg-ing the Gap in Foreign Language Reading, ModernLan-guageJournal, 65 (1981), pp. 43-53.


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7Robert J. di Pietro, Discourse and Real-Life Roles inthe ESL Classroom, TESOL Quarterly, 5 (1981), pp.27-33, and Interaction with Literary Texts in Foreign Lan-guage Instruction, ew YorkerWerkstattgespriich984 -Litera-tur m Kommunikativen SU, ed. Manfred Heid (Miinchen:

Kemmler & Hoch, forthcoming).8Institute for Readers' Theater, PO Box 17193, San

Diego, CA 92117.9Diane Birckbichler Judith Muyskens, A Personalized

Approach to the Teaching of Literature at the Elementaryand Intermediate Levels of Instruction, Foreign anguageAnnals, 13 (1980), pp. 23-27.

1oGeraldPrince, Literary Theory and the Undergradu-ate Curriculum, Profession 4 (New York: MLA, 1984),p. 37.

11SeeElizabeth Bernhardt, Toward an Information ro-cessing Perspective n Foreign Language Reading, ModernLanguage ournal, 8 (1984), pp. 322-31; Janet K. Swaffar,

Reading in the Foreign Language Classroom: Focus onProcess, Unterrichtspraxis, 7 (1984), pp. 176-94, andReading Authentic Texts in a Foreign Language: A Cog-

nitive Model, Modern LanguageJournal, 69 (1985), pp.15-34. For a general overview of schema theory n read-ing comprehension, see Marilyn J. Adams & Allan Collins,A Schema-Theoretic View of Reading, New Directions n

DiscourseProcessing, d. Roy O. Freedle (Norwood, NJ:Ablex, 1979), pp. 1-22; Janet Binkley, Schema Theoryand the Reduction of Concept Density for Foreign Lan-guage Readers, Lesen in der Fremdsprache. eitriige inesWerkstattgespriichses Goethenstituts ew York nd esACTFL,ed. Helm von Faber & Manfred Heid (Miinchen:Kemmler& Hoch, 1981), pp. 41-54; Patricia L. Carrell, SchemaTheory and ESL Reading: Classroom Implications andApplications, Modern LanguageJournal, 68 (1984), pp.332-43; Tuinman Jaap, The Schema Schemers, JournalofReading,23 (1980), pp. 414-19; Walter Kintsch & EdithGreene, The Role of Culture-Specific Schemata in theComprehension and Recall of Stories, Discourse rocesses,1 (1978), pp. 323-36; David E. Rumelhart, Schemata:The Building Blocks of Cognition, Theoreticalssues n Read-ing Comprehension, d. R. J. Spiro, B. C. Bruce, & W. F.Brewer (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1980), pp. 33-58.

12Carrell note 11 above), p. 333.13SeeMarvin Minsky, A Framework for he Represen-

tation of Knowledge, ThePsychologyf Computer ision, d.Patrick Winston (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975); RogerC. Schank & R. Abelson, Scripts, lans, Goals and Under-standing Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1977); Ira Goldstein &Seymour Papert, Artificial ntelligence, Language and theStudy of Knowledge, Cognitive cience, 1977), pp. 84-123.

14Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, cited in Marie JeanneBorel's L'explication dans l'argumentation Approchesemiologique, LangueFranGaise, 0 (1981), p. 22.

15Henry G. Widdowson, Explorations n AppliedLinguis-tics Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1979), p. 93.

16Widdowson (see note 17 above), p. 147.

17Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation heory:Discourse and the

Surplus f Meaning Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian Univ.Press, 1976). See also Norman H. Holland, TheDynamicsofLiterary esponseNew York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1968);Wolfgang Iser, TheAct of Reading:A Theory f Aesthetic e-

sponse Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978); HansRobert Jaugt, Paradigmawechsel in der Literaturwissen-schaft, Methoden er deutscheniteraturwissenschaft,d. VictorZmegac (Frankfurt: Athendium, 1971).

18The same is true, of course, though to a lesser extent,

of native readers interpreting lder texts n their own lan-guage.

19SeeOng (note 5 above).20Dietrich Krusche, Die Chance des fremdkulturellen

Lesers, New YorkerWerkstattgespriich984. Literarische exteimkommunikativenremdsprachenunterricht,d. Manfred Heid(Miinchen: Kemmler & Hoch, forthcoming).

21Breen and Candlin (note 2 above).22ClaireJ. Kramsch, Interactions angagieres en travail

de groupe, Le Franfais dans e Monde Feb.-March 1984),pp. 52-59.

23Northrop Frye, Literary and Linguistic Scholarshipin a Post-literate World, PMLA, 99 (1984), pp. 990-95.

24Bertram C. Bruce & Dennis Newman, InteractingPlans, Cognitive cience, (1978), pp. 195-233.

25Grimms iirchen, d. Willy Schumann (Boston: Suhr-kamp/Insel, 1982), and Mdrchen er ruder rimm. UVfassungnach der Originalhandschrift er Abtei Olenberg m Elsafi, ed.Joseph Lefftz Heidelberg: Winter, 1927), pp. 40-49.

26SeeBreen & Candlin (note 2 above). See also ClaireJ. Kramsch, Interactiontdiscours ans aclasse e angueParis:Hatier-Credif, 1984).

27SeeCarrell (note 11 above), p. 341.28For discussion of cross-cultural ifferences n associa-

tions, see Claire J. Kramsch, Culture and Constructs:Communicating Attitudes nd Values in the Foreign Lan-guage Classroom, Foreign anguage Annals, 16 (1983), pp.437-48.

29For discussion of top-down and bottom-up processes,see Gillian Brown & George Yule, DiscourseAnalysis(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983), p. 234.

30Formore detail on group work, see Claire J. Kramsch,Interactive Discourse in Small and Large Groups, Inter-

active anguage Teaching, d. Wilga A. Rivers (Cambridge:Cambridge Univ. Press, forthcoming).

31Jenny Thomas, Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure,Applied Linguistics, (1983), pp. 91-112.

32SidneyB. Simon, Leland Howe, & Howard Kirschen-baum, ValuesClarification: Handbookof Practical trategies(New York: Hart, 1972).

33Carrell note 11 above).34Vladimir Propp, TheMorphology f he olktale Austin:

Univ. of Texas Press, 1968).35RudolfGeiger, Mit Miirchen m Gespriich. rfahrungen n

sechzehnMiirchen er Bruder Grimm Stuttgart: Urachhaus,1972), pp. 69-91.

36Seenote 25 above.37The Restoration Period in Germany (1815-1848) is

often referred o as the Biedermeierzeitnd is seen as a timethat stressed he bourgeois values of family, piety, nd civilobedience.

38Hans-Jiirgen rumm,Nur die Kuh

gibtmehr

Milch,wenn Musik erklingt, Zielsprache eutsch, Heft 4 (1983),p. 5.

39ClaireJ. Kramsch, Classroom Interaction and Dis-course Options, Studies n Second Language Acquisition,


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366 ClaireKramsch

(1985); Hans-Jiirgen Krumm, Die Veriinderung derLehrer-Lerner Interaktion durch Ernstnehmen der Kurs-teilnehmer m Fremdsprachenunterricht, ew YorkerWerk-stattgespriich 982 (Miinchen: Kemmler & Hoch, 1983).

40Carrell see note 11 above).411am grateful omy colleaguesCatherine Chvany, Edith

Waldstein, and Robert DiDonato for heir aluable editorialcomments on this paper.

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