An analysis of the five selected short stories of Aida Rivera-Ford using reader-response theories

This study presented the different responses that were elicited in reading five of the selected short stories in English by Aida Rivera-Ford. The stories included in this study were A Window in the War, The Madonna Face, Now and at the Hour, The Chieftest Mourner, and Love in the Cornhusks. The researcher annotated and read the short stories several times before analyzing them. Moreover, 18 Fine Arts students enrolled in Philippine Literature class were asked to write down their responses. This study successfully established the effect of the stories on the researcher as she personally responded to each story. She analyzed her reactions to each story in relation to her own experiences in life. She also pointed out the predominant effect of the story on the student readers by processing the students’ responses in class. This study also identified the underlying factors that caused differences in each of the student’s responses. The differences among the students’ responses are brought about by their own feelings, experiences and beliefs in life. Finally, this study also effectively presented the differences between the researcher’s responses and expectations and those of her students and the implications of the responses on their reading, values and assumptions regarding literature. The students responded to the text in such a manner different from the researcher primarily because the researcher, being the literature teacher of the students, is academically aware of the purpose of her own responses. Compared to that of her students, the researcher combined close reading and interactive reading models as she studied the five stories of Aida Rivera-Ford using Louise Rosenblatt’s Transactional Reader-Response Theory and David Bleich’s Subjective Reader-Response Theory. Aida Rivera-Ford provided significant “gaps” which readers of different age brackets, social strata, religion, sex, and maturity level can react into.