Literature education as a school for thinking: Students' learning experiences in secondary literature education

Abstract

Critical thinking and cognitive well-being are commonly associated to tendencies that do not come naturally to humans: inhibition of automatized cognitive processing (de-automatization) and thoughtful (re)construction of meaning. A previous study showed that students' growth in literary interpretation skills can be partly explained by skills and dispositions related to de-automatization and (re)construction. The present study aims to identify students' learning experiences of de-automatization and (re)construction during lessons in literary fiction. We selected 21 students (grade 10-12, mean age 17,2) of whom 15 students had shown growth in literary understanding (Growth group) and 6 had not (No-growth group). We conducted stimulated recall interviews focused on learning experiences during four months of a specific literature course, using students' literature portfolio as stimulus. All interviews were fully transcribed. First, segments containing learning experiences with de-automatization and/or (re)construction were selected. To chart the nature of de-automatization and (re)construction experiences each segment was then coded bottom-up, iteratively and axially. Findings indicate three types of de-automatization (questioning, interpretation awareness and delay), and three types of (re)construction (reasoning, considering alternatives and concluding), with participants in the No-growth group recalling significantly less experiences of questioning, delay and reasoning than students in the Growth-group. Thus, the specific literature education under study potentially offered students experiences that might stimulate their tendency to engage in de-automatized (re)construction of meaning.

Planning for progression? Norwegian L1 teachers’ conception of literature teaching and literary competence throughout lower secondary education

“…There has been a multitude of studies on literature education published the last couple of decades, in Scandinavia as well as internationally. Some focus broadly on L1 paradigms and discourses (Elf & Kaspersen, 2012;Krogh, 2012;Saywer & Van de Ven, 2016;Scholes, 1998;Westbury, 2000), others more specifically on literature instruction, discussing its purpose (Fialho, 2019;Wintersparv et al, 2019;Zabka, 2016), theoretical framework (Abraham, 2016;Witte et al, 2012;Yimwilay, 2015), curriculum (Gourvennec et al, 2020;Witte & Samihaian, 2013), textbooks (Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020), pedagogical praxis (Fialho et al, 2012;Gourvennec, 2017;Sønneland, 2019;Van de Ven & Doecke, 2011a), or effect (Koek et al, 2019;Schrijvers et al 2019). We will return to some of these perspectives and specific studies below, in the section on theoretical framework.…”

Complex characters of many kinds?

“…As for the latter question, classroom activities in which children themselves would perform whole-text evaluations as shown under Step 1, or even, in more advanced stages, in-text analyses akin to Step 2, would combine many of the benefits toward (inter)personal (Kumschick, et al, 2014) and critical thought (Koek, et al, 2019) development that progressive literary education has to offer. In employing concepts from cognitive literary studies to assess texts along different dimensions of experience and their representation, complexity, and variety, this approach departs from traditional evaluations based on content analysis, which have focused solely on the presence of characters of different types or their pre-selected characteristics (such as chores, interests or occupation) and thus evaluated the texts as more or less stereotypical.…”

“…While existing empirical research seems to confirm that children's empathy and mentalising skills flourish when they read literary narratives, both the specific classroom setup (Koek et al, 2019;Schrijvers et al, 2019) and choice of text remain vital (Kumschick, et al, 2014). Kucirkova (2019) contends that narratives generally provide space for perspective-taking and identification with others and, as such, may be a good tool for empathy-building.…”

Twenty years of L1

“…A detailed look at the table shows that in papers dealing with written literacy, oracy and the acquisition of language skills or metalinguistic knowledge, a quantitative approach dominated, whereas in papers dealing with literature education, digital media and classroom discourse, qualitative methods have more frequently been applied. Nevertheless, one might add that during 2016-2020, some groundbreaking quantitative studies on literature education have been published in L1 (Janssen & Braaksma, 2018;Koek, Janssen, Hakemulder, & Rijlaarsdam, 2019;Schrijvers, Janssen, Fialho, & Rijlaarsdam, 2019). This may have contributed to the high visibility of the journal specifically in the domain of literature education which has been reported above.…”