Constructing meaning when reading poetry: An expert-novice study

Research in cognitive science has focused on expert performance in various domains, but there has been no expert-novice study on how meaning is constructed when reading poetry. In this study, "experts" were 8 PhD English candidates, and "novices" were 8 undergraduates or advanced high school students. Participants thought aloud as they attempted to make sense of 2 period poems. The protocol analysis, framed by 4 research questions, resulted in 4 broad findings: As in studies of expertise in other domains, for the experts, knowledge is an important component of poetic communication. Novices did, however, have well-developed expectations for understanding the category of poetry as discourse. The experts employed productive interpretive strategies in making the poems coherent. The difficulty novices had in making sense of the texts diminished their appreciation of the poems.