A Mirror and a Telescope: Using Reader Reponses in an International Literature Project
A Mirror and a Telescope: Using Reader Reponses in an International Literature Project
Keywords: ESL, Literature, Literary Criticism, Reader Response
Paul C. Corrigan
City University, Hong Kong
Muayyad Omran Chiad
Karbala University, Iraq
Bio
Dr. Paul Corrigan joined CityU as Lecturer in 1994 and has held many posts since then. His teaching has mostly been in the areas of English for Specific Purposes, English literature, and teacher education. He has also taught at universities in Japan and the United States and has published and presented on ESL, EMI, TESOL, CLIL, research ethics, and education.
Dr. Muayyad Omran Chiad is an instructor of Linguistics, and Short Stories at the University of Kerbala, Iraq. He received his M.A in Linguistics at Baghdad University in 1999 and Ph.D. in English at Pune University, India in 2011. His primary research interests are is in the field of applied linguistics, pragmatics, contrastive analysis, and literary studies. In addition, he is a member of International Pragmatics Association, Belgium, 2013-present, an editor in Asian Journal of English Studies(AJES),European Research Journal and Indian Stream Research Journal.
Abstract
Reader Response literary theory affords a useful paradigm for understanding how literature can be used in the ESL classroom. This paper discusses an international literature project in which university students in Iraq, Hong Kong, and the United States read the Hemingway short story, “Cat in the Rain” and exchanged reader responses with students in the other countries. It enabled students to articulate and mirror their own views to themselves, as well as enabling students in distant lands to read those reader responses through the telescope of email. From a student perspective, multiple benefits were thus realized while from an institutional perspective the project facilitated internationalization of a small patch of the university curriculum.
See page: 44-55
Category: Monthly Editions
