Many credit Lee Atwater with the quote, “Perception is reality.” And when viewing your own life, does this not ring true? One would never consider a turtle to be a speedy creature, but then again, that depends on who is doing the considering.
Perspectives have much to do with experiences, schema, and interpretation. Author’s bring their own unique perspectives to the texts they write. They select what they will reveal to the reader explicitly and implicitly, how the text will be organized, and how their point of view will be carried out. Often the author’s own ideas begin as incomplete thoughts, twisting and turning through the process of writing, changing and evolving until they come out the other side into a cohesive whole. At times, the characters of novels reveal themselves to the authors through the storytelling, and take on a life of their own, and yet, the author still has command over what will be revealed through the character’s dialogue, actions, and thoughts. Despite all this control, readers develop their own interpretation based upon the evidence within the text, but also their own personal perspectives. Other experiences with texts, the world, and other people affect how they view what the author reveals. Therefore, readers apply their own connections to develop their own perspective, but must also examine the evidence within the text to understand what the author directly reveals as well as infer to gain meaning from underlying messages, ideas, and themes.
Common Core emphasizes the importance of point of view, devoting standard six for Reading Literature and Informational Text to this concept. Why is it so significant? Understanding the role of point of view allows the reader to think critically about a piece. What are the author’s motives and purposes in writing a text? What context or historical background does the author emerge from? How does this affect the portrayal of events? Readers must understand the effects of their own perceptions and the author’s point of view in order to get at the truth of what they are reading. Even then, that gets us to a deeper question – what is the truth?
Learning is a journey, not an endpoint. 