In the beginning of chapter 3, Appleman discusses reader response and how it effects making meaning of literature when it becomes to individuals. On page 29 Appleman quotes Bonnycastle's work where he says, "If each of us only pays attention to the individual experience, the communal basis for the discipline will disappear and literature classes will have nothing to hold them together." I have to say I agree most definitely with this particular quotation because I can see many students losing focus of the actual text, and focusing more on how they have actually experienced something similar. I can see this causing many problems in the classroom where literature will become less important in the classroom atmosphere, and students like Leah in chapter 3, will use it as a venting session. However, I do feel that the teacher should have full control of reader response, and incorporating personal responses is not entirely wrong, but should not be the main focus of those responses.
Appleman then briefly discusses those who are uncomfortable with personal response. Again, although personal response is not the focus of a literature class, it does help in discussions, relating to the texts, understanding character perspectives, and so on. For those students who are uncomfortable with personal response may have trouble with this part of an English classroom. I feel that personal response should be an option in reader response since there are those students who are uncomfortable. Maybe instead of relating the texts to their own lives and experiences, they could relate it to our society. For example, if a character in a book is a young teenage girl who gets pregnant, comes from a broken home, does drugs, etc, we could ask students if they believe there are young teens in our society that can relate to these types of issues and they could expand off of that if they do not want to talk about themselves.
Overall, I like the discussion of personal reader response in the classroom. I gave me a good idea of what may happen if you allow too much leeway in personal response as well as considering those who may not feel comfortable doing them.
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It's interesting you're talking specifically about "personal" reader response. I think that's the distinction Appleman is warning us about. When reader response delves too deeply into the personal and strays too far from the text, then the reader is not making a true connection to the text.
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