Multimedia and Response-Based Literature Teaching and Learning: A Critical Review of Commercial Applications. Report Series 2.23.

Response-based approaches to teaching and learning literature provide alternatives to objectifying literature. Where traditional approaches champion close readings of texts and "correct" interpretations, response-based theorists regard readers as active meaning-makers whose personal experiences affect their interpretations of literary works. Response pedagogies encourage the exploration of multiple perspectives and the construction of defensible interpretations and make the quality of students' critical and creative thinking the focus of assessment. They place student-generated questions at the center of learning, encouraging a "problem-finding" as well as problem-solving approach to critical thinking. There is reason to believe that response-based approaches might be facilitated by multimedia applications; the computing medium seems to represent cognitive processes in ways that support their internalization as habits of thought. Therefore, 25 graduate students, most of whom were teachers, evaluated 45 multimedia literature programs to determine their suitableness to response-based pedagogy. They rated the programs on a 10-point scale in several different categories, but reviews were essentially narrative. Results showed that while programs are of high technical quality, the pedagogical approaches taken are not response-based. Programs designed for elementary students equated literature education with reading instruction; programs for high school students adopted a traditional text-centered approach. (Contains 33 references.) (TB)