Nina Mikkelsen in Words and Pictures: Lessons in Children's Literature and Literacies has captured a study with authentic responses for our review in Margaret Meek's reading of Rosie's Walk. (pp. 273-276) Rosie's Walk is a simple text, pictures accompanied by one sentence -- 32 words -- about a chicken named Rosie who strolls through the pages pursued by a fox, who takes all of the falls. The text includes words and pictures, but due to its short length and simple structure, it is possible to describe it and break it into units for discussion. It would not be as practical, and may not even be possible, to present the same exhaustive analysis of textual elements and reader responses with Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Because children's texts are short and children are such responsive readers, children's literature is an exciting environment for this type of research.
After observing the reading of this story by her child reader, Meek comes to a conclusion that the text, formed by the "author's narrative choices," (p. 275) is the primary holder of meaning. The task of the reader then becomes to decipher the meaning. In Meek's view, not only is the text the primary holder of meaning, but the text also serves to "teach children what they need to know in order to read these books." (p. 275) Her work is convincing, and we can see clearly that the text has the types of authority Meek observes. However, when Mikkelsen applies the theory of Stanley Fish to the same set of observed phenomena, (p. 276) we can see that the reader might be making his own meaning just as clearly as we can see that the text holds meaning.
Reading the Mikkelsen text, we see that Meek, Fish, and Mikkelsen have each constructed meaning from the same set of phenomena, which is to say the same "text," but they have produced divergent meanings. Each of these readers (theorists) is certainly a first-hand observer of the meaning-making process, an author, and a reader. That they do not agree is an argument against meaning as primarily contained within a text, since these readers of the "text" on meaning-making reach such different conclusions.
As an avid reader over several genres and a teacher of reading experienced at several grade levels and in adult literacy, I can call to memory many different texts. That texts are individual is crucial to the question of meaning and deserves to be considered. Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is different from Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. There is meaning in one that is not in the other. Upon finishing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I know the events of the story, the descriptions of story elements such as the raft, the river, the fog, and the characters. In reading the book, I learn about the river. I know more about the river when I close the book than I did when I opened it. I acquire impressions and opinions of rivers in general and this river in particular. Such meaning is most certainly text-based to some extent, because I would not acquire the same understandings from The Secret Garden.
There are, however, shared meanings in these books also. Both of them have strong emphases on personal relationships. Both have similar messages of social responsibility, individual choice, and the ability of a person to make a difference. Are these messages mine, or are they in the texts? I can with little effort cite passages in each text that convey the ideas to me. Would the same passages convey the same meaning to all readers? I find these messages frequently in books and poems. Do I find these meanings or impose them? Do I find them frequently because they are mine and I read them into any text that I read? Do I find them frequently because they are mine and I choose only texts that are compatible with my meanings? These are significant questions related to meaning-making.
Meanings can easily be categorized into two types, informational and philosophical. It may be useful to categorize them in this way, but it is also artificial and restrictive. It may also be deceptive, since the categories are neither clear-cut or nor exclusive. Information about the river in Huckleberry Finn would be placed by some readers in the informational category, particularly if the reader had little information about rivers before the reading. The same information -- that the river is for swimming, that the river is free, that the river is dangerous, that the river is whatever it is at any moment in the book -- can become a philosophical or political meaning for another reader.
Such messages can be received or not, depending upon the reader, and they are therefore at least to some extent in the reader to begin with. It may be possible to say that the same message would surely be received by a reader with the same level of skill in deciphering texts, but this has in my experience proven to be not so. Sometimes people who read as well as I read actually disagree with me very effectively about what a text means.
Added to the text-based and the reader-based ideas of meaning, we must also consider that some messages are continuously re-told in literature. They are present in ancient writings and in the newest Newbery books. Because this is true, I am most comfortable with the statement that such meanings do not belong either to the text or to the reader. They are shared social property, created and embedded in many stories over time, and they stand apart from both the text and the reader, as artifacts.
Mikkelsen explains the idea of Stanley Fish that meaning resides "in the readers (italics mine) and their interpretive communities -- home, family, town, nation, or classroom." (p. 276) It is just as reasonable to state that meaning resides in texts and their interpretive communities. The reader and the text both exist within interpretive communities, and at least some of our meanings -- friendship, love, social responsibility, independence, and other positive meanings as well as greed, envy, vice, etc., on the negative side -- are artifacts belonging to our interpretive communities.
If we understand meaning as artifact, the search for meaning becomes a kind of archeology. Our literature and art are both expressive and formative of meaning. We must therefore be committed to developing a range of skills for the appreciation of literature. We must observe and catalog the text with precision, while at the same time applying our own individual intuition, insight, and perspective. The implication for teaching is that we must teach close and careful reading while at the same time validating and encouraging (or at least not discouraging) individual response.