Using Twitter to Teach Reader-Oriented Biblical Interpretation: “Tweading” the Gospel of Mark

Twitter offers an engaging way to introduce students to reader-oriented interpretation of the Bible. The exercise described here introduces students to the idea that the reader has a role in the production of a text's meaning, which thus varies from reader to reader. Twitter enables us to captu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Williamson, Robert (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2013
In: Teaching theology and religion
Year: 2013, Volume: 16, Issue: 3, Pages: 274-286
Further subjects:B Pedagogy
B reader-oriented criticism
B Social media
B Twitter
B Literary Theory
B reader-response theory
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:Twitter offers an engaging way to introduce students to reader-oriented interpretation of the Bible. The exercise described here introduces students to the idea that the reader has a role in the production of a text's meaning, which thus varies from reader to reader. Twitter enables us to capture the real-time thoughts of a variety of respondents to the text of Mark as it is read aloud. Students can concretely observe the effects of particular textual moments on individual respondents as well as analyze their general interpretive stances with regard to the text as a whole. Students come to grasp that the meaning of the text varies depending on the reader, setting the stage for more complex theoretical discussion of reader-response theory, the reader's role in the production of meaning, the adjudication of “allowed” and “disallowed” interpretations, and the appropriateness of “reader-response” criticisms for texts that were composed to be encountered orally.
ISSN:1467-9647
Contains:Enthalten in: Teaching theology and religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/teth.12049