Preoccupation with the academic context disrupts the student’s experience with a text. The assignment, or whatever syllabus-anchored item approaches or is present, need not be repeated, overemphasized. Reader-Response is about exploration of a text.. interpretive, cognitive, analytical freedom. Authors don’t assemble manuscripts with one interpretation in mind. Some don’t write with a message in mind, at all. Just as a reader shouldn’t have a prompt or question set, or point total, trafficking in their mind while turning pages. The student should be unchained, invited, guided only when necessary by professor.
This ties into journal usage, intricately and intimately. Students of Literature should log their findings, questions, respond to specific lines, capture quotes, certain evidences bolstering some idea or position they’re formulating. The freedom they find in reading should be transferred to text. This encourages the student to read, and WRITE, well. From this sense of ownership and owned onus.
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