Explores the tenets of both the New Criticism and reader response criticism, and concludes that there is a need for a new imperative in criticism that conceives literary understanding in terms of a communication process in which both text and reader are granted importance. (FL)

Combining academic prose, some narrative, a poem, and some literary criticism, this project paper presents a theoretical framework for the literature base of the curriculum the teacher hopes to make operational on various levels over several years. The first section of the paper discusses the goals and various approaches of multicultural…