What Characters Appeal to Me?

In Chap. 4 , I present three lessons dedicated to exploring fictional characters—archetypes, stereotypes and countertypes. If you find yourself excited by the character work and wish to explore this further, please consider reading Jeff Wilhelm’s (2016) You Gotta Be the Book and/or Angus Fletcher’s (2021) fascinating Wonderworks. Students are immersed in stories involving examples of each, with accompanying role-play and discussion of different representations. The nature of reader expectation is explored with reference to Dewey’s (1934) ideas on directional forces in human experience. The role of the teacher as director of students’ aesthetic perception is explained. The temporal factor of past experience bringing meaning to present reading encounters is introduced. The educative nature of work-of-art is further explored and explained. The potency of the students’ cogenerative dialogue is described in detail. The progress the students are making after ten lessons and the transformative potential of their book talk is demonstrated in the vignettes. The underpinning philosophy of structured classroom discourse is extended with reference to leading scholars in this field.