Constructing Meaning through Visual Spatial Activities: An ALAN Grant Research Project

Shamatee stood in front of the class, cardboard box in hand, explaining how her model was related to the book, Mick Harte Was Here (Barbara Park, Random House, 1996). It was a recreation of the scene when Phoebe, Mick's sister, was speaking at his funeral. This was the culminating project of a six-week unit using literature circles. The project was minimal with little detail. In fact, if Shamatee had not explained that it was a model of the church, there would have been no way of identifying it. Her accompanying writing, however, told a different story. In it she explained how the book, and this scene in particular, had reminded her of her own brother who died in a motorcycle accident. Shamatee empathized with Phoebe and could feel her sadness and fear as she spoke at her own brother's funeral. The black, dark walls spoke to her intense emotions when she recalled this event because of reading the book. Shamatee understood Phoebe's pain and loss. Her connections to the book were real; her model was, in fact, a three-dimensional object showing in-depth meaning-making from this book. In general, Shamatee did not have a great track record of completing written assignments as they were usually minimal with little evidence of understanding or depth. But here was a piece of writing, almost two pages in length, discussing why she chose to create this scene and what it meant to her. The model was a bridge between her reading of the book and her writing about the book.

This experience made me wonder about how students construct meaning from a book. In particular, how do students construct meaning through visual spatial activities such as models and other art forms? This article describes a study in which I sought to answer that question by working with ten sixth-grade struggling readers responding to short stories using visual spatial activities. Research shows that alternate ways of constructing meaning are infrequently used in reading classrooms (Smagorinsky; Smagorinsky & Coppock 1994). The norm in most reading and language arts classes is to encourage students to use the mode of writing to show what they know. However, according to Armstrong, "linguistic intelligence is not the only building block for reading competence" (79). I cannot help but wonder what amazing examples of constructing meaning we are missing in our classrooms when we limit our students' mode of communication to writing. Let me state that there is nothing wrong with using written expression in the reading classroom; the problem arises when that mode is the only option available.

Reader Response Theory

This study is built upon Rosenblatt's (1978) Reader Response Theory in which she speaks of reading as a transaction, a type of living through text with two different ways of transacting with text-aesthetic and efferent. "Sensing, feeling, imagining, thinking, synthesizing the states of mind, the reader who adopts the aesthetic attitude feels no compulsion other than to apprehend what goes on during this process" of reading (26). Contrary to transmission beliefs, which "emphasize understanding the author's intended meaning" (Schraw 96), transactional theory connotes the activation of the text by the reader. Differing from the efferent stance in which the reader "disengages his attention as much as possible from the personal and qualitative elements in his response" (Rosenblatt 27, 1978), an aesthetic response demands that the reader actively involve all five senses as well as invest her/his emotions in the act of reading. In effect, the reader is bringing life to the text through this investment. According to Rosenblatt (1978), "the text is merely an object of paper and ink until some reader responds to the marks on the page as verbal symbols" (23). The reader is an active participant in the creation of meaning as reading is seen as "an event in time" (12) in which the reader and the text come together suspending reality thus allowing the reader to enter the world of the text. seen as a continuum of what the reader does while reading (see Figure 1), at the farthest efferent end, the reader is totally disengaged in the reading seeking only information that can be used after reading. At the aesthetic end of the continuum, the reader is actively involved in the text having her/his purpose fulfilled during the reading. The reader chooses which stance is needed at a particular time reading a particular text.

I was concerned particularly with the students' aesthetic reading of a text, which requires a spirit of exploration, an active imagination, and a willingness to experience a relationship with the text. "The word exploration is designed to suggest primarily that the experience of literature, far from being for the reader a passive process of absorption, is a form of intense personal activity" (Rosenblatt v, 1976). Exploration speaks of the reader's active involvement in the construction of meaning. Just as explorers do not just sit and wonder about the world beyond their walls, the reader cannot just sit and decode each letter and word. Both the explorer and the reader must get involved in their respective worlds. According to Rosenblatt (1976), a piece of literature does not stand by itself. The reader counts as much as the text as s/ he responds to the literature through exploring both the text and her/his personal response to the text. "The finding of meanings involves both the author's text and what the reader brings to it" (Rosenblatt 14, 1978). This investment of self brings about an aesthetic experience in which the reader brings individual meaning to the text. Furthermore, the topic to explore can change over time. As people change, their interests change as well. "The relation between reader and text is not linear. It is a situation, an event at a particular time and place in which each element conditions the other" (16). The transaction between text and reader depends both upon the text read and the particular situation in which the reader finds him or herself.