Interpretations of Literature: The Roles of Prompting, Processing and Attention to Rhetorical Cues

Previous research suggests that literary experts, but not novices, are particularly adept at engaging in literary reasoning and making interpretations about the theme of literary works (Goldman, McCarthy & Burkett, in press; Graves & Frederiksen, 1991; Zeitz, 1994). The current study investigated whether and under what conditions literary novices produced literary interpretations when reading a short story. Results indicated that literary novices attend to literary devices in stories and provide interpretations of both symbolism and themes of stories, but are more likely to do so when prompted than spontaneously during story reading. Spontaneous interpretations during reading were rare despite high amounts of elaborative processing, attention to literary devices while reading and evidence of adequate literal comprehension of the story. Results also indicated a positive relationship between elaborative processing and both the tendency to provide spontaneous interpretations and the production of prompted interpretations. Taken together, these findings suggest that elaborative processing and prompting play important roles in literary interpretation by novices.