Narrative
Listening to Readers
Introduction
What do people actually read? Where do they get their reading material? Where and when do they read it? For what purposes? In this narrative, undergraduate students enrolled in a university course listen to readers to answer these and related questions. The focus of the course was on popular culture and everyday reading practices in Edmonton. The course opened with a look at definitions of popular culture and approaches to reading. The students then learned about and completed their own investigations of what people read, how they do so, and to what purposes. The first assignment asked students to report on everyday reading practices in Edmonton. Relevant questions included: What is everyday reading? What do most people read? What can we say about the role it plays in readers’ lives?
Reports
Conclusion
Two of the aims of the course on reading popular texts from which these reports evolved were (1) to further knowledge of “popular culture” and “reading popular texts” in Edmonton and (2) to develop a knowledge of and practice in relevant theories and explanatory models. By listening to actual readers speak about their own reading practices, students took up an ethnomethodological approach to the study of communication. Perhaps more importantly, within the confines of a literature course, students confronted some rather rigid preconceptions about what it means to be a reader. As these reports attest, reading practices outside of the university vary considerably, and are always situated by particular communication situations. Put otherwise, people read according to interests and circumstances that are not governed by the priorities of classroom reading.
By David Buchanan
Last Updated: Mar 10, 2018
What do people actually read? Where do they get their reading material? Where and when do they read it? For...
