| This study focused on incoming college students' participation in a multicultural book club in which they read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Sub-questions addressed the following: individual participants' responses to the novel, how participants' involvement in the group discussions changed over time, ways in which individual responses were affected by the group discussions, and the nature of group interactions around topics of culture and race. Nine participants of varying ethnicities were members of a summer developmental program. The book club ran concomitantly with, but was not part of, this program.;Rosenblatt's transactional theory of literature provided the conceptual framework for the study, which was designed to provide free and open-ended discussions of readers' responses to this novel set in an unfamiliar culture—the Igbo tribe in nineteenth-century Nigeria during British colonization. The researcher acted as facilitator rather than instructor. Data collected using qualitative methods of participant observation and in-depth interviews included transcripts of eleven discussions held over four weeks, journal entries written by the students, and individual interview transcripts.;Findings were presented first as individual portraits of participants and analysis of their participation in group discussions, followed by a survey of group sessions and ways that group talk influenced individual responses.;Cross-case thematic analysis indicated that most participants expressed strong emotional responses to certain aspects of the novel, including violence against women, racism, father/son relations, and the wrongs of colonialism, and saw relationships with contemporary American culture. A minority theme stated that, as presented in this novel, adopting Christianity and the colonial civilization may have been a sensible alternative. Both the social groupings of students in the club setting and the lively and assertive nature of their comments presented a freer and more open multicultural exchange than evident in some other studies.;The findings are consistent with other studies in reinforcing the value of a transactional approach to teaching literature while also suggesting that teachers consider how best to intervene and improve group discussions. |
