Chapter 7: The Transactional

Theory of Reading and Writing

by Louise M. Rosenblatt
Bridgette Buhlman

Rosenblatt, L. M. (2011). The transactional theory of reading and writing. In

Historical, theoretical, and sociological foundations of reading in the United States
(pp. 123-159). Boston, MA: Pearson.

The human being is seen as part of nature,

continuously in transaction with an environment
each one conditions the other (Rosenblatt, 2011, p.
125).
In any linguistic event, speakers and
listeners and writers and readers have only
their linguistic-experiential reservoirs as the
basis for interpretation. Any interpretations
or new meanings are restructurings or
extensions of the stock of experiences of
language, spoken and written, brought to the
task (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 128).

Thus, while language activity implies an intermingled

kinesthetic, cognitive, affective, associational matrix,
what is pushed into the background or suppressed and
what is brought into awareness and organized into
meaning depend on where selective-attention is
focused (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 128).

Some sense of a reader or at least of the fact

that the text will function in a reading process
thus is implicit in the writing process
(Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 129).

The Readers Stance

The Efferent-Aesthetic Continuum

The Efferent Stance: designates the kind of reading in which
attention is centered predominantly on what is to be
extracted and retained after the reading event (Rosenblatt,
2011, p. 133).
The Aesthetic Stance: the aesthetic reader pays attention
to savors the qualities of the feelings, ideas, situations,
scenes, personalities, and emotions that are called forth and
participates in the tensions, conflicts, and resolutions of the
images, ideas, and scenes as they unfold (Rosenblatt, 2011,
p. 133).

The Writing Transaction

Writing is always an event in time, occurring at a
particular moment in the writers biography, in
particular circumstances, under particular external as
well as internal pressures. In short, the writer is
always transacting with a personal, social, and
cultural environment. Thus, the writing process must
be seen as always embodying both personal and
social, or individual and environmental, factors
(Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 139).

The Writing Process

There is a continuing to-and-fro or
transactional process as the writer looks at
the page and adds to the text in light of what
has been written thus far (Rosenblatt, 2011,
p. 138).
When a reader describes, responds to, or
interprets a work that is, speaks or writes
about a transaction with the text a new text
is being produced (Rosenblatt, 2011, p.
140).

Authorial Reading A
Writers Reading
Expression-Oriented Authorial Reading
As the new words appear on the page, they
must be tested, not simply for how they make
sense with the preceding text but also against
an inner gauge the intention, or purpose. The
emerging meaning, even if it makes sense,
must be judged as to whether it serves or
hinders the purpose, however nebulous and
inarticulate, that is the motive power in the
writing (Rosenblatt, 2011, pp. 142-143).

Reception-Oriented Authorial
Reading
The emerging text is read to sense what others
might make of it. But this hypothetical interpretation
must also be checked against the writers own inner
sense of purpose (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 142).
The experienced writer will probably engage in a
synthesis, or rapid alternation, of the two kinds of
authorial reading to guide the selective attention that
filters out the verbal elements coming to mind
(Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 143).
The readers to-and-fro process of building an
interpretation becomes a form of transaction with an
author persona sensed through and behind the text
(Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 143).

 Validity of Interpretation
The same text takes on different meanings in transactions
with different readers or even with the same reader in different
contexts or times (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 144).
Warranted Assertibility
Sound interpretation of the evidence
In short, the concept of warranted assertibility, or shared
criteria validity of interpretation in a particular social
context, recognizes that some readings may satisfy the
criteria more fully than others (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 145).
The criteria for the predominately aesthetic reading call for
attention to the referential, cognitive aspects but only as they are
interwoven and colored by the private, affective, or experiential
aspects generated by the authors patterns or signs. Especially in
the middle ranges of the efferent-aesthetic continuum, it becomes
important for writers to provide clear indications as to stance and
for readers to be sensitive to the writers purpose and the need to
apply relevant criteria (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 146).

Implications for Teaching

How fruitful the interplay between the individual
students writing and reading will be depends
largely on the nature of the teaching and the
educational context (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 147).
The classroom environment, or the atmosphere
created by the teacher and students transacting
with one another and the school setting, broadens
out to include the whole institutional, social, and
cultural context (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 148).
Dialogue between teacher and students and
interchange among students can foster growth
and cross-fertilization in both the reading and
writing processes (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 149).

 Because both stances involve cognitive and affective

as well as public and private elements, students need
to learn to differentiate circumstances that call for
one or the other stance (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 150).

Teaching practices and curriculums, from the very

beginning, should include both efferent and aesthetic
linguistic activity and should build a sense of the
different purposes involved. Instruction should foster
the habits of selective attention and synthesis that
draw on relevant elements in the semantic reservoir
and should nourish the ability to handle the mix of
private and public aspects appropriate to a particular
transaction (Rosenblatt, 2011, p. 150).

Further Research
Research will need to be sufficiently
complex, varied, and interlocking to do
justice to the fact that reading is at once an
intensely individual and an intensely social
activity, an activity that from the earliest
years involves the whole spectrum of ways
of looking at the world (Rosenblatt, 2011, p.
155).

Ch. 10: Inquiry and literacy: An

unquestionable connection
By Nancy L. Gallenstein
Gallenstein, N. L. (2011). Inquiry and literacy: An unquestionable connection. In
Historical,
theoretical, and sociological foundations of reading in the United
States (pp. 189-200). Boston, MA: Pearson.
How can teachers promote the use of inquiry-based instruction while teaching
literacy?

Teachers must facilitate inquiry lessons and activities that address the questions students
have about the world. Teachers can promote inquiry through literacy instruction by using
appropriate childrens literature that triggers conceptual understanding. Teachers should
also provide opportunities to compare, contrast, classify, investigate, take notes, organize
facts and summarize. Literacy skills and inquiry thinking can be applied and practiced
through all content areas and in numerous activities.

Inquiry Models
Scientific Method
Learning Cycle Lesson Format
Inquiry Training Model
Group Investigation Model

Ch 10: Continued
How does the process of inquiry relate to the
constructivist theory?
Inquiry: involves activity and skills, with a focus on the active
search for knowledge or understanding to satisfy a curiosity or
solve a problem (Gallenstein, 2011, p. 189).
Constructivism: the notion that people build their own
knowledge and representations of new information from their
own experience (Gallenstein, 2011, p. 190).
Inquiry instruction relates to the constructivist theory because
it requires instruction that builds on students prior knowledge.
However, in inquiry instruction the teacher is active in providing
inquiry lessons and activities that help students address their
questions about the natural world (Gallenstein, 2011, p. 190).