Creative Reading: Scaffolding Reading for Transformation

2026-06-02

AI Summary

This work addresses a critical limitation in current reading augmentation systems, which predominantly prioritize information transmission while neglecting the reader’s active role in interpretation and meaning-making during scholarly reading—thereby constraining critical thinking and creative transformation. To counter this efficiency-driven paradigm, the project introduces the concept of “creative reading,” reconceptualizing reading as a generative process co-constituted by the reader’s evolving identity and pluralistic interpretations. Integrating literary narrative theory, humanistic HCI approaches, and design principles from creativity support tools, the study proposes an interaction mechanism centered on provocation. It articulates the first design space for reading augmentation explicitly oriented toward long-term cognitive development and the emergence of diverse meanings, offering both theoretical grounding and practical pathways to support readers’ transformative engagement with texts.

Abstract

Reading augmentation systems increasingly help readers process text at scale. While these tools address real constraints of time and cognitive load, they often implicitly frame reading as information transmission, or "reading to discard," delegating interpretation and effort to the machine. Yet this delegation changes the outcome of reading. For example, in scholarly reading, deciding what a research text implies and why it matters is central to the work of scholarly production. We propose creative reading as an alternative goal: reading augmentation that supports readers in creating both readings and themselves as readers. By putting literary and narrative theories into conversation with scholarly sensemaking and creativity support, we present a provocation-oriented design space for valuing the process of reading as a way of preserving a plurality of readings and transforming readers over time.

Problem

• reading augmentation
• creative reading
• scholarly reading
• sensemaking
• interpretation

Innovation

• creative reading
• reading augmentation
• provocation-oriented design
• sensemaking
• reader transformation