WHAT IS THIS LITERACHURCH STUFF ANYWAY - PRESERVICE TEACHERS GROWTH IN UNDERSTANDING CHILDRENS LITERARY RESPONSE

IN THIS yearlong study, the authors analyze the effects of using caref ully assisted case studies to prepare preservice teachers to be more k nowledgeable and skilled in supporting children's response to literatu re. As a part of a class assignment for an undergraduate course in chi ldren's literature, 43 preservice leachers read to and kept careful fi eld notes on individually selected children. Drawing upon their field notes and final papers as well as the course lecture notes, handouts, activities, and assigned readings, our analysis reveals intriguing pat terns that mark shifts in the preservice teachers' perspectives on lit erary response. The teachers began the study with relatively low expec tations. In their initial, comprehension-based view of response, they privileged the text over their case study child. Over the course of th e study, however, the teachers moved towards a vision of literary resp onse that highlights interpretation over comprehension. Their broadene d expectations emphasized the affective, personal, and social nature o f literary discussion which privileges intertextual connections betwee n the text on the page and the texts of readers' lives. Here we argue for a side-by-side model of children's literature instruction-with the university course on one side and the case-study children on the othe r-moving from the more distanced study of children in articles and boo ks to the here and now of working with real children who will comment on, challenge, question, and/or silently resist preservice teachers' e fforts to engage them in literature. Thus, a university course infusio n of new research ideas with multiple, though distanced, examples must be balanced with authentic, literary interaction with children, if we expect to see preservice teachers shift from limited, comprehension-b ased expectations to broader interpretive possibilities for literary e ngagement.