Narrative style, social class, and response to poetry

This study examines adolescents' responses to poetry, comparing the meaning -making strategies that young readers display in literary response with the narrative strategies they use in telling stories of personal experience. P articipants were a group of high-achieving fifteen-year-olds, six from work ing-class and four from middle-class families. The working-class adolescent s characteristically produced responses to poetry that elaborated on the ac tions, thoughts, and intentions of the characters in the literary narrative . They also made relatively frequent mention of their own role as readers. Responses by the middle-class students were more likely to emphasize meanin g removed from its narrative context through a focus on the poem's "big ide as." These contrasts in styles of responding to poetry show parallels with the adolescents' styles of narrating stories of personal experience. The mi ddle-class participants' point-driven approach to redding literary narratio n may reflect a style of oral storytelling that is less personally involved , sparser, and less elaborated. The narrativizing strategies evident in mos t of the working-class participants' responses to poetry may reflect their experience of oral storytelling as an important context for the elaboration of personal and social meanings.