GRADE 10 READER-RESPONSE
GRADE 10 READER-RESPONSE
Submitted by:
Leslie R. Labtic
BSED ENGLISH 4A
FIELD STUDY STUDENT
SEMI-DETAILED LESSON PLAN IN ENGLISH 10
February 2025
I. OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, the students are able to:
a. define the reader-response approach in literary criticism
b. analyze a literary selection using the reader-response approach
c. compose an independent critique of a literary selection based on their
personal interpretation and interaction with the text
III. Procedure
A. Preparatory Activities
1. Classroom Routine
Prayer
Greeting
Attendance
2. Motivation
PICTURE ANALYSIS
The class will be divided into 3 groups. Each group will receive a
shredded or cut-up picture. As a team, students will work together
to piece the shredded picture back together like a puzzle. Once the
picture is reconstructed, the group should analyze its details
carefully.
B. Lesson Proper
1. Activity
The students will read a short passage and analyze it focusing on their
personal reactions, emotions, and interpretations.
Maria stood at the edge of the stage, her hands trembling as she
gripped the microphone. The entire auditorium seemed to blur into one
massive, intimidating shadow. She took a deep breath, remembering
her mother’s words: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the
determination to face it.” With a shaky voice, she began to speak. As
her words flowed, the fear slowly melted away, replaced by something
stronger—confidence.
2. Analysis
What emotions did you feel while reading the passage?
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to overcome fear? How did
you handle it?
How do Maria’s actions connect to your own experiences?
3. Abstraction
READER-RESPONSE APPROACH
Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or
"audience") and has experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and
theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the
work. In other words, the reader creates the meaning.
There are Five (5) types of reader-response approach:
2. Affective stylistics, established by Fish, believe that a text can only come
into existence as it is read; therefore, a text cannot have meaning that is
independent from the reader.
Reader-Response
A view of literary interpretation associated with the American critic Stanley Fish. It
holds that meaning does not reside in the text, but in the mind of the reader. The text
functions only as a canvass onto which the reader projects whatever his or her
reactions may be. The text is a cause of different thoughts but does not provide a
reason for one interpretation rather than another. The theory chimes in with much in
postmodernism but threatens to make a mockery of the fact that there is such a thing
as learning to read, also that a sign such as ‘sharp bend’ does not only cause some
people to expect a sharp bend but gives them good reason to do so. See also
indeterminacy of translation.
Reader response criticism not only allows for, but even interests itself in how these
meanings to change from reader to reader and from time to time. Reader-response
theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts “real existence” to the
work and completes its meaning through interpretation. It argues that literature
should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates their own
possibly unique text-related performance.
2. Write the body paragraphs. You should write 3-4 paragraphs that
discuss the text and the reading questions in depth. You don’t
necessarily have to answer each question in order. Multiple questions
can be combined and addressed in a single paragraph, or reordered in
a way that flows well and makes sense to you.
3. Remember to explain how, why, and what. As you write your paper,
think about explaining not just how you felt about the text, but why it
made you feel in a certain way. Remember that a reader response is meant to be
personal, so it’s OK to incorporate all anecdotes and opinions into your analysis.
Application
Students will read Bertrand Russell’s essay "The Three Passions I Have Lived For"
and analyze it using the Reader-Response Approach.
By Bertrand Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the
longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of
mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a
wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of
despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would
often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it
next because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering
consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless
abyss. I have sought it finally because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic
miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.
This is what I have sought, and though it may seem too good for human life, this is
what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts
of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend
the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this,
but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.
But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my
heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated
burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a
mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I
too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the
chance were offered me.
INSTRUCTIONS: Students will be divided into three groups. Students will read
Bertrand Russell’s essay "The Three Passions I Have Lived For" and analyze it
using the Reader-Response Approach.
1. What are the three passions of the author?
2. Why does Rusell call the ‘three passions simple’
3. Why has he compared the three passions to great winds?
INSTRUCTION: Read again the essay of Bertrand Russell and then answer the
comprehension questions below.
QUESTIONS ANSWER
IV. Evaluation
Directions: (Choose ONE of the following tasks and complete it in at least 150
words.)
V. ASSIGNMENT
INSTRUCTION: Choose one literary selection from the list below. Read the text
carefully and reflect on your personal interpretation of its meaning. Then, write a 1–
2-page critique based on the Reader-Response Approach, following the guide
questions provided.
GUIDE QUESTIONS
1. Personal Reaction – How did the text make you feel? Did it remind you of
any personal experiences?
2. Interpretation – What message or theme did you take away from the story?
How do your personal beliefs, emotions, or background influence this
interpretation?
3. Character Connection – Were there any characters you related to? Why?
4. Symbolism & Meaning – Did any objects, settings, or events stand out to
you? What personal meaning did you assign to them?
5. Overall Evaluation – Do you agree or disagree with the way the story was
written or its ending? Why or why not?
Checked by:
Excell V. Balinas
Teacher II
Cooperating Teacher
Prepared by:
Leslie R. Labtic
Pre-service Teacher