Readers’ Response Theory
The graphic narrative format that Mo Willems uses to have his pigeon, elephant, and piggie tell the stories allows students to interpret and think creatively about the action and the off-page participants in each book. This empowers students to think about the stories through their own individual lenses, much as Willems expresses when he says he wants to “make 49% of the story” and wants the audience to make the other 51%.
Reader-response theory is a literary theory that emphasizes the reader's role in interpreting a text. It suggests that meaning is not fixed within the text itself, but instead, created through the interaction between the reader and the text. This perspective allows the reader to draw on personal experiences, emotions, and individual interpretations as components of understanding what they are reading, as opposed to the theories that prioritize author meaning or intention.
Reader-response theory emerged in the mid-20th century as a response to approaches that prioritized the text alone without including the notion of the reader's experience. Key figures in developing reader-response theory include Stanley Fish, who argued that reading is an activity that creates meaning rather than discovers it. Readers bring their own context, background, and emotional responses to a text, which influences how they understand it.
This approach allows for multiple interpretations of a single text – two readers can arrive at completely different meanings based on their personal experiences. This thinking elevates the importance of community in reading as discussions among readers can further shape and enrich individual interpretations.19 Students will engage in this type of discussion as they experience Pigeon speaking directly to them in his various tones and Elephant and Piggie expressing their concerns and adventures as friends.
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