Abstract

This essay begins with a presentation of the narrative self from the perspectives of Personality Psychologists Arnold Ludwig, Jerome Bruner, and Dan McAdams. These personality theorists hold different but overlapping views of personality, particularly regarding the concept of the self. Ludvig’s view of the self begins this essay with his focus on how biography shapes and defines a self. Within a narrative structure similar to Ludvig, McAdams’s and Bruner’s views of the self are presented. These theorists agree that selves are different from persons. This overview prepares the reader to think about and apply the concept of a reading self. The second part of this essay draws on Ludvig’s, Bruner’s, and McAdam’s perspectives on a biographical or narratively composed self. Their understanding of selves is a jumping-off place for the formulation of a reading self. McAdam’s framing of action, agency, and author provides a scaffold for the construction of a reading self. Drawing on the author’s own experiences as both a learner and a teacher offers a possible way to explore the concept of a reading self. Trial and error, research, and conversations with colleagues and students provide the tools for learning within an ongoing struggle in personal learning, aiding students to become better thinkers and readers. Reflexivity is central. Through reflexive practices, one’s beliefs, experiences, and identity are developed through reading and storytelling. This essay emphasizes that reading is not a passive activity but rather a dialogical one – readers engage in a conversation with books, and books respond to the reader, allowing them to participate in an internal dialogue. Using Turkle’s concept of evocative objects, we view books as tools for constructing a bricolage of a reading self.

Keywords

actor, agent, author, bruner, Mc Adams, Ludvig, evocative objects, bricolage, reflexivity, autobiographical self, biographical self, reading self