Reading against the Texts: Furthering Reader Response in English as a Second Language (ESL) Literacy Education

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ways to complicate functionalistic approach in ESL literacy education and to introduce the concept of reading against the texts (Harper, 2005; Parry, 1993), which can strengthen readers’ abilities to critique and to challenge the dominant cultural beliefs represented in reading texts. Developing critical views on the issues and analyzing the implicit ideological positions taken by the authors can be an important stepping-stone to overcome the limitations of skill-based and functional literacy approach. The author found out that reading against the text facilitated students’ functional literacy skills as well as helped them to find their active positions on the issue that they read about. Being able to critique the author’s perspectives as one ideological construct could be evidence of taking ownerships and of being agent in their reading practices. Through reading against the texts, students learned not to accept what they read as they were. They also understood that every text included particular perspectives that could implicitly privilege the dominant groups or their cultural values. Students made sense of the texts more critically by challenging and resisting those dominant ideological positions in the texts.