The Rights and Responsibilities of Readers and Writers: A Contractual Agreement. Reading Education Report No. 15

An implicit contract between author and reader during discourse production and comprehension that defines the liberties each may take in relation to the text is proposed in this report. Discussed in the report are the writer's responsibilities in such a contract--to be sincere, informative, relevant, and clear and to establish points of contact between the communication and the reader's experience. Also discussed are the reader's responsibilities, including the selection of a fitting text that generates meanings that do not distort the author's message, bringing to the text conceptualizations that support a reasonable interpretation of the text rather than result in an abandonment of the author's message, employing strategies that are sensitive to the purposes of the text, responding to the text as it exists in context rather than apart from it, and recognizing that a text represents an author's viewpoint. It is recommended that teachers use the notion of "contract" as a frame from which to explore and encourage effective communication. Appended to the report is a linguist's response to the idea of "contract" that supports adding correct grammar usage and discourse fluency to the writer's list of responsibilities, and a teacher's view that exploring a variety of responses to text material works only with literature or creative writing texts and not with expository writing where students need to learn to restrict their interpretations. (AEA)