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The National Reading Panel (NRP) defines comprehension as the “construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text” (National Reading Panel Report, 2000, p. 39). That the panel understands this construction in solely cognitive terms is evidenced in the lack of acknowledgement of the personal experience and cultural history the reader employs to guide this construction. Instead, readers construct “mental representations of what they read and store them in memory” and teachers should therefore use cognitive strategies, like helping students generate questions while reading, to aid readers’ mental representations. The NRP believes “young readers are not likely to question themselves…[or] use questions spontaneously to make inferences” (p. 87), and thus encourages teachers to help students ask questions “of the why, what, how, when, or where variety” so readers will “process the text more actively” (p. 40).

As Jordan (2005) found in her detailed analysis of top-selling, federally-endorsed basal reading programs, however, a white-male ideology is at work in the fact-based comprehension questions that typically follow basal stories—an ideology privileging “white males and their definitions, experiences, and conceptions [as] the norm—the unbiased standard” against which all “others” (non-white males) and their experiences are measured (p. 206). As example, questions following stories about Clara Barton and Sally Ride-- “Where did Sally Ride grow up?” “How long did Sally’s astronaut training last?” and “How old was Clara Barton when she died?”--reduce their lives to lists of events rather than complex portraits of women who had to overcome much to obtain success in a male world. Jordan explains such questions render the female characters “lifeless and docile” (p. 210).

Similarly, fact-based questions following basal stories about Squanto (“Why did the first group of Englishmen come to America?” “What month did the first Pilgrims arrive in America?” “Squanto could speak to the Pilgrims because he spoke what language?”)
turn Squanto’s story into the Pilgrims’ story: another life “silenced by comprehension questions” (p. 210).

Couched as “research-based,” scientific, and cognitive, then, active text processing as defined by the NRP is actually doubly passive: first, underlying the NRP’s suggestion that teachers ask fact-based comprehension questions are the beliefs that reading is the extraction of meaning from texts and thus a text operates on its readers (and not vice versa); secondly, and more nefariously so, fact-based questions meant to facilitate this narrow understanding of comprehension quiet the lives and voices of anyone not affluent, white or male. The NRP doesn’t want active readers, then; it wants readers who don’t think they have to do anything when they read, who don’t challenge what they read, and who don’t question the overrepresentation of some at the expense of others. Such a system of silencing is ingenious, really; the myth of equal opportunity and access stays intact, the material realities of students’ lives remain hidden, and teachers catch the blame when the boredom, anxiety, and lack of confidence in ability that ensues causes their students to be labeled as failures.

While I still have a job that lets me do so, and because—to borrow from Audre Lorde--our silence will not protect us, I encourage the prospective teachers who come through my young adult literature course to consider how reading and reading instruction can be progressive political work that critiques the silencing processes at work in NCLB policy. To do so, however, involves troubling NCLB definitions of comprehension and active reading.

Redefining Active Reading

Readers are not “passive ciphers” (Thomson, 1987, p. 125), but active and reflective meaning-makers, who constantly ask questions and formulate unstated connections in texts to make meanings, using their experience of the world and their knowledge of the conventions of literature to do so. Rather than ask fact-based comprehension questions, then, we should be asking: What questions do we already, always ask as we read? What do we want to know and how do we come to want to know it? These questions are important in that they encourage us to think about our own reading processes and desires, and how texts, through their producers, work on those processes and desires--making us care, for example, about some characters while we despise others, or assuming we agree with their politics. Iser explains that the questions readers ask and the connections readers are continuously making as they read make the reader a “creative co-participant, collaborator, or co-author in the creation of meaning” (cited in Thomson, 1987, p. 123).

The students who come through my course, however, have not always considered themselves “co-creators” of meaning. Many self-report that their English teachers worked out of the New Criticism or reader-response paradigms—paradigms that don’t necessarily encourage readers to interpret the political messages of texts or interrogate one’s own reading processes. They resist a little—as studies (e.g., Borko & Putnam, 1996: Lortie, 1975) have shown novice teachers tend to do when encouraged to shift from ways they have been taught to new theories of effective practice. O’Loughlin (1995) explains:

Students come to us with embodied conceptions of teaching and learning—ideas that have built up not from learning about these topics intellectually but from experiencing them over many years of schooling….Prospective teachers do not think teaching should be done a certain way; they know it from their lived experience….We have failed in our responsibility to our students if we unveil possibilities for them, yet deny them opportunities to reinvent their teaching philosophies in action by seeing and doing the kinds of teaching we advocate. (p. 114).

To provide my students an opportunity to “see and do” the kinds of active, critical reading and teaching I advocate in the course, then—to make active reading and meaning-construction visible--we read Avi’s young adult novel Nothing But the Truth (NBTT), a multi-genre, multi-voiced work that tells the tragic stories of Philip, a ninth-grader, and his homeroom/English teacher, Miss Narwin. Philip, who wants to run track but isn’t doing well enough in English to make the team, takes out his frustration on Miss Narwin during the playing of the morning national anthem by humming (students are to stand at silent, respectful attention). Philip is ultimately suspended from school and once the story gets leaked to the media, is celebrated as a patriotic hero, while Miss Narwin is publicly denigrated and ultimately fired.

This novel unsettles many of my students: unlike traditional adolescent narratives, Avi reveals the story through multiple documents, i.e., school memos, journal entries, newspaper articles, radio transcripts, telegrams, etc., that give voice to multiple characters and their motives. Thus, Avi gives no sharply focused point of view, no adolescent narrator at the center of the story and only so much access to the characters’ thoughts. We get to know a personal side to Philip through his diary entries, conversations with his parents, and with his friends. Similarly, though, we get to know Miss Narwin through her letters to her sister, conversations with her sister and others, and memos sent to her by Dr. Doane, her principal.

Gillis (2002) explains:

the more ‘multi’ the genre or voice (and the more complex or unfamiliar the genres), the less firm the ground for the reader. For these novels readers must take on some of the narrative task and assume greater authority over the text. They are thrust into positions of reporters, detectives, or juries hearing testimonies. They must review evidence and draw patterns from what they see and hear, actively constructing meaning. (p. 56)

When my students read the book they report feeling “manipulated,” feeling “sorry for Philip, then Miss Narwin, then no one,” and not “feeling a part of the story at all. I was an observer.” Authors always manipulate us, I tell my students, by framing a story through a particular point of view, by causing one thing to happen first, then another, so we establish narrative questions we want answers to. Too, we become emotionally involved, as the author positions us to be sympathetic toward the individual adolescent protagonist characteristic in many young adult novels by giving us access to his or her thoughts, “by giving the book a very sharply focused point of view…by putting at the center of the story a child through whose being everything is seen and felt” (Chambers, 1977, p. 72).

Thus, Avi makes the sometimes disconcerting active meaning-construction visible and tangible to readers not accustomed to paying attention to how texts work on our desires. When the reader can not pick sides, can not form allegiance to, sympathize with, or begin to care for any one character—or begins to see the plot will not be revealed in a neat, tidy, linear fashion—the reader experiences a disequilibrium caused by the intimate omniscience Avi forces onto the reader. Bloom & Mercier explain:

Nothing But the Truth makes explicit the interaction between the fiction (writer) and the reader. This novel demands that readers formulate a narrative bias of their own. Morever, Avi’s ordered presentation of the documents ‘keeps his audience unsettled’ as it forces them to continually redefine their perspectives, their alliances, and their allegiances when given new information. (p. 81)

Considering the Social and the Cultural

Rather than dismiss the “unsettled” feeling (and thus the text) that readers experience upon reading NBTT, I encourage students to think about how reading Avi’s text differs from reading more traditional texts, to consider and mine the tensions at those places where the reader experiences emotions and allegiances being formed or undone, and where the reader feels his or her worldview being confirmed or challenged in the text. It is these places where active meaning-making occurs because it is these places where readers negotiate the social and cultural worlds the text presents with their own cultural and social histories—what they have already lived and seen. It is these places, then, that are ripe for teachers to ask questions that make the repertoire of social and historical norms and rules readers use to comprehend texts visible.

As example, the prospective teachers who take my young adult literature course already recognize adolescents as certain “types” of people before they ever start reading a young adult novel. When I ask them at the beginning of the course to describe adolescents, they say they are impulsive, awkward, hormonal, rebellious, moody, absent-minded, too worried about peer culture, only concerned about current fads, too into peer pressure, trying to find themselves, and not concerned with politics or social issues.

Some adolescent literacy researchers believe adolescent identity is shaped by multiple and competing influences (cf. Finders, 1997) and thus argue adolescence cannot be examined without regard to race, class or gender (and place, I would add). Questions I like to pose, then, to encourage them to consider the social and historical norms we employ as we consider adolescence and read a text like NBTT, then, include: How would our readings of Philip be different if he were a girl? If he were a Black male or female? a Latino/a? If his parents were of a different class position? If his teacher were male? Female? Could this construction of adolescence be transferred to another country?

When a student, (Lauren), in my course posed the question, “Do you think the story would have been different if Philip had been a girl?” to her web pals—local middle school students she talked to online about the book as part of a class project—the middle school students began to think about gender roles in ways it didn’t seem they’d been encouraged to do previously:

Curt: if philip was a girl wouldn't she still have the same personality

Lauren: Maybe, but would the response from Ms. Narwin be the same?

Emily: yeah

Lauren: Or the school?

Emily: probly

Emily: the gender i dont think mattered

Curt: it should be. girls aren't better than boys and boys aren't better than girls

Emily: i act unpridictable ways too sometimes

so you cant really go by that

Lauren: That's true, do you think Ms. Narwin's gender mattered?

Emily: no

Curt: hey what are yall trying to say here

Steve: no

Lauren: I'm not trying to say anything, I'm just trying to find out what you think. There are no right or wrong answers

Curt: i treat my teachers the same

Emily: yeah y does the gender matter/

Curt: ok just checking

Steve: but ive never seen a girl act like phill

Emily: true but when you’re a teen the traits run on a thin interlocking line

Curt: i have no problems with neither

Lauren: Do you think it was important to make Philip a boy because girls don't usually act like that? Girls are nice, obedient, and quiet, right?

Lauren: Or do you think a girl would have apologized from the beginning?

Curt: hey i am nice, sweet, quiet, and obedient.

While I don’t have the space here for a detailed analysis of this excerpt, I must point out some interesting things happening here. First, the students don’t think gender “matters;” too, gender is something they understand only in terms of boys and girls being equal. They wonder what Lauren is up to by even asking such a question. But Emily says she’s “unpredictable,” like Philip, so, she suggests, you can’t clump all boys into that category. Similarly, Curt says, he’s “nice, sweet, quiet, and obedient,” so, he suggests, that stereotype for “girls only” doesn’t work.

While Lauren, new to talk about books (and chatting online with teenagers), didn’t quite have the tools to direct this discussion toward more introspection of gender stereotypes and how they get implemented and maintained, she saw that the questions she posed got the students thinking in ways she
”didn’t know they were capable of.” She furthered, “I’m surprised to see it was the students challenging stereotypical gender categories…gender does ‘matter’ a great deal to these kids—they just don’t know it!” She felt, too, that she’d missed opportunities to take up Steve’s comment that he “never saw a girl act like Phil” and Emily’s comment that “When you’re a teen the traits run on a thin interlocking line.” She continued to reflect on what she could have said—what she will say next time—to continue the conversation.

The kinds of questions Lauren posed provide opportunities for readers and their teachers to consider the culturally and socially constructed meanings of characters they use to actively comprehend text—something the NRP fails to acknowledge. Mellor, O’Neill, & Patterson (1992) suggest students “recognize” the characters they read about as particular types perpetuated through popular narratives, the media, schooling, etc. (p. 47). Had Lauren pursued Steve’s and Emily’s comments, she may have been able to tease such popular narratives at work and continue the deconstructing she noticed Emily and Curt were already doing on their own. A critique of silencing may be possible as Lauren begins to raise topics for discussion that can lead students to reconsider and resist stories that render them lifeless, docile, and insignificant.

Political work may be possible, then, if we pay attention to the questions we ask, and ask different kinds of questions than those promoted by the NRP—questions that allow ourselves and our students their voices—to read, critique, and transform.

References

Avi. (1991). Nothing but the truth: A documentary novel . New York: HarperTrophy.

Bloom, S. P., & Mercier, C. M. (1997). Presenting Avi. New York: Twane.

Borko, H. & & Putnam, R. T. (1996). Learning to teach. In D.C. Berliner and R.C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 673-708). New York : Simon and Schuster Macmillan.

Chambers, A. (1977). The reader in the book. SIGNAL Journal,23,72-76.

Finders, M. (1997). Just girls: Hidden literacies and life in junior high. New York: Teachers College Press.

Gillis, Candida. (2002). Multiple voices, multiple genres: Fiction for young adults. English Journal, 92, 52-29.

Jordan, N. (2005). Basal readers and reading as socialization: What are children learning? Language Arts,82, 204-213.

Lortie , D.C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Mellor, B., O’Neill, M., & Patterson, A. (1992). Re-reading literature teaching. In J. Thomson (Ed.), Reconstructing literature teaching: New essays on the teaching of literature, (pp.40-55). Portland, ME: Calendar Islands.

National Reading Panel. (2000, April). Report of the National Reading Panel: TeachingChildren to Read. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrppubskey.cfm

O ' Loughlin , M. (1995). Daring the imagination: Unlocking voices of dissent and possibility in teaching . Theory into Practice , 34, 107-16.

Thomson, J. (1987). Understanding teenagers’ reading: Reading processes and the teaching of literature. Australia: AATE.

All names are pseudonyms.