Understanding Barriers for Students to Move Beyond Propositional Information in Literary Reading
Submitted by:
Mark-Oliver Carl
Abstract:
According to various empirical studies from the past two decades (Janssen et al. 2006; Levine/Horton 2013; Jörgens et al. 2023; Carl 2023), a significant number of students in secondary education do not move beyond the construction of a propositional textbase (van Dijk/Kintsch 1983) when reading literary texts. Instead of immersing themselves in imaginations of the world described by the text, instead of grappling with the thoughts, emotions, and views fictional characters espouse, instead of recognizing the genre, appreciating the poeticity of language, reading between the lines or evaluating the literary work, they limit themselves to “retelling” (Janssen et al. 2006) or “paraphrasing” (Jörgens et al. 2023) chunks of information provided by the text, showing a “literal-descriptive response” (Levine/Horton 2013) and “verbalisations of the propositional textbase” (Carl 2023). This should be troubling news for teachers and teacher educators: these students do not seem to make any personally relevant or enjoyable aesthetic experiences when reading literature, and neither do they seem to engage in culturally relevant reflections about their identity or literary insights into human nature.
Why do these students limit themselves to the construction of a propositional textbase when reading literary texts? In our paper presentation, we sketch the outlines of a medium-scale mixed-methods empirical study which aims to test the following two main explanatory hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: The limitation is caused by deficiencies in reading fluency.
Hypothesis 2: The limitation is caused by the lack of a literary control system (Zwaan 1993).
To test these hypotheses, 150 students each from Swiss and German (Lower Saxon) schools will participate in a screening for fluency, a think-aloud study with two narrative literary texts chosen for their affordances for ironical resp. eudaimonic interpretations, and questionnaires testing for their literary competency, their general acquaintance with literature (Author Recognition Test) and their attitudes towards (reading) literature.
Since the project is still in the pilot phase and data will be collected but not yet analysed by next June, we cannot present empirical results yet. Instead, we seek to discuss with ARLE members both the theoretical framework, the methodical research design, and the different educational implications entailed in Hypotheses 1 and 2.
Works Cited:
Carl, Mark-Oliver (2023): Kontextualisierungen literarischer Texte durch fortgeschrittene Lernende. Eine Laut-Denk-Studie mit Kurzprosatexten der 1940er-Jahre. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.
Janssen, Tanja/Braaksma, Martine/Rijlaarsdam, Gert (2006): Literary reading activities of good and weak students. A think aloud study. In: European Journal of Psychology of Education 21: 1, pp. 35-52.
Jörgens, Moritz/Carl, Mark-Oliver/Schulze, Tina/Rosebrock, Cornelia (2023): Drei Arten poetischer Effekte. In: Magirius, Marco/Führer, Carolin/Kubik, Silke/Meier, Christel (eds.): Evaluative ästhetische Rezeption im Klassenzimmer. Theorie, Empirie, Vermittlung. München: kopaed, pp. 183-202.
Levine, Sarah/Horton, William (2013): Using affective appraisal to help students construct literary interpretations. In: Scientific Study of Literature 3: 1, pp. 105-136.
Van Dijk, Teun A./Kintsch, Walter (1983). Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Zwaan, Rolf A. (1993): Aspects of Literary Comprehension. A Cognitive Approach. Amsterdam: Benjamins.