Digital Commons Network^™

Gender Influences: Reading Student Texts, Donnalee Rubin

Doctoral Dissertations

This project examines how the findings of reader-response theorists and feminist theorists apply to the circumstance of teachers reading student texts. Although the overwhelming weight of theoretical evidence suggests strong connections, two related studies show that the reading differences which theorists find when males and females read literature do not necessarily occur when teachers read student writing.

In the first study, thirty-one writing teachers responded orally and in writing to four student essays. A statistical analysis of the written responses showed few significant differences for three of the essays. The responses to the fourth essay showed marked gender differences due …