Responding to Student Poems: Applications of Critical Theory

Author(s): Patrick Bizzaro

Responding to Student Poems urges writing teachers to “better understand themselves as writers and readers.” For Bizzaro this means questioning our own preconceived critical biases and expanding the range of responses offered to the student-writer. To this end, Bizzaro presents a thoughtful study of himself in the process of evaluating student poetry through the lenses of four different contemporary critical theories: New Criticism, reader-response criticism, deconstruction, and feminist criticism. What we learn is that “some poems demand certain types of readings,” and teachers should be able both to offer those readings and to show student-writers how to make such readings of each other’s poems. Ultimately, “the writing teacher must become a reading teacher” as well.
236 pp. 1993. College. ISBN 0-8141-4088-2.
No. 40882

ISBN: 0-8141-4088-2

Grade Level(s): College

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