The story, the self, the other Developing insight into human nature in the literature classroom

Which instructional approach to literature teaching in Dutch upper secondary education is appropriate for fostering students’ insight into human nature? To answer this question, five studies are included in this dissertation. After empirically exploring 297 students’ learning experiences and the instructional practices of their literature teachers (Study 1), we identified design principles in a systematic review study (Study 2). These informed an iterative design process, resulting in an instructional approach for 10^th grade: Transformative Dialogic Literature Teaching (TDLT; Study 3). Key elements for students included: attending to transformative reading experiences that are related to insight into human nature, reading short literary stories with social-moral themes, engaging in internal dialogues with stories, and engaging in external dialogues with peers about their reading experiences. Implementation and effects of two TDLT versions were tested in intervention studies. TDLT-1 consisted of four 50-minute units and was tested in a quasi-experimental switching replications design in which 603 students participated (Study 4). In the control condition, students received no literature lessons. No consistent effects on insight into human nature were found. TDLT-2 contained six 50-minute units, centered around a single social-moral theme, and included more strategy instruction for internal and external dialogues. When tested in a regular quasi-experimental design with 166 students in the experimental condition and 166 students in a regular literature teaching condition (Study 5), TDLT-2 was found to positively affect students’ insight into human nature, their eudaimonic reasons for reading, their use of literary reading strategies, and their motivation for literature education.