Nederlandse Letterkunde - Volume 23, Issue 3, 2018

Literary research in the classroom. Research education using LitLab.nl and the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur

In Dutch secondary schools, pupils rarely learn how to research Dutch language and literature. While other school subjects promote the development of disciplinary research skills, the curriculum of Dutch lacks a similar focus. As a result, secondary school pupils are taught to treat the Dutch literary history as a collection of literary and historical facts rather than a status questionis of the current field of literary scholarship. In this article we argue that the connection between the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur (GNL) and LitLab.nl – a digital laboratory for literary research on secondary schools – could support the development of a scientific research disposition and facilitate the shaping of pupils as literary researchers. We discuss the theoretical and didactic background of LitLab in order to demonstrate how an adjusted and more accessible version of the new GNL could be integrated in the curriculum by using LitLab as a medium.

A web of 20^th century Dutch literature. Towards a new approach for teaching 20^thcentury literary history

This article presents the first results of work-in-progress of a teacher development team that works on teaching Dutch 20^th century literature. The starting point of this project was: so-called modern literature has to be dealt with as a phenomenon that is historical to students in secondary education. Our analysis of the main problems that teachers experience with 20^th century literary history has led to a set of principles that will serve as guidelines for the design of a model for teaching 20^th century literature. We present a first draft of this model that aims to offer a series of lessons in a digital framework resembling a network of texts. This web of 20^th century literature will combine two perspectives: at the one hand a contextual perspective on the literary text (‘text in context’), in which a central literary text is compared to contemporary historical texts and developments, at the other hand a longitudinal perspective (‘text in frame’), in which the text is compared to texts and developments from different time periods by using transhistorical themes or frames. The development of the first series of lessons according to our guidelines provides insights that will contribute to a next version of the web under construction.

Karel, Reynaert – and the others? The broadness of the concept ‘literature’ in secondary education

Current scholarship on historical Dutch literature – as reflected by the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur (GNL) – is characterized by its broad definition of ‘literature’. This article examines whether the ambition to look beyond the literary canon impacted on historical literature education in secondary schools. On the basis of a survey among former pupils of 72 secondary schools in the Netherlands and an analysis of the download data of the website scholieren.com, we reveal that secondary schools generally prescribe a small set of canonical books. We also conduct a case study on Tekst in Context – a series of historical texts for pupils – which includes the analysis of its content and sales figures, and interviews with secondary school teachers. We demonstrate that Tekst in Context on the one hand supports a dynamic approach to the literary canon (since it includes some unknown texts and reflects on the changeability of esthetic judgements), but most of all enhanced the canonical status of texts (as most Tekst in Context issues focus on canonical texts, and these issues are by far the most popular ones). So the dynamic canon approach, as supported by the GNL, hardly impacted on current secondary education.

Cyriel Buysse? No, I don’t know him! The Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur (GNL) and the schoolbooks in secondary education in Flanders. Cyriel Buysse as case study

Schoolbooks as they are used in secondary education in Flanders often determine the way an author is presented and taught. For most pupils these schoolbooks are the only remaining source to get into contact with literature in an educational context. Many literary authors are subject to a double reduction. Not only an inevitable quantitative reduction of their complete works but also a reduction concerning content in order to use them as typical examples of a literary period. Tools like the GNL among others can supply however a broader view on these authors. In this article we discuss the importance of schoolbooks, the way they are organised and how they can possibly benefit from the GNL. We use the author Cyriel Buysse (1859-1932) as an example.

Learning through literary knowledge: a transhistorical perspective

The teaching of literature in high school should always do justice to the specificity of literary knowledge, which requires and can improve a range of competences. The knowledge that emerges from reading literature cannot be reduced to a certain content or theme, it should be understood as an experiential knowledge that is shaped by the formal strategies of the work as well as the interaction between the original context and the context of reading. This article offers a transhistorical reading of the theme of migration in three literary works (Renout van Montalbaen, Spaanschen Brabander and La Superba) which demonstrates how a classroom reading can recognize the nature of literary knowledge in order to advance the student’s competences on several levels (personal development, cultural knowledge, aesthetic training, social competences). In that way, the article want to emphasize that the levels often set apart by literature pedagogy are actually strongly interlinked.

The art of teaching. About the promising future of literature education

Literature as a serious art form is losing ground. Also in secondary education, literature has lost its sacrosanct position. Young people are reading fewer and fewer books. This also means that the functional illiteracy of socially vulnerable groups increases and the writing and reading skills of students is often below par. To reverse the tide, it is important to re-legitimize literature education. An overview of the functions of literature education shows that teaching of literature is of essential importance for language development, cultural socialization and personal education of students, and fits very well with the general aims of (secondary) education. Teachers see the decline in reading habits and motivation of many students as one of the greatest didactic problems. To turn the tide, it is therefore also important that the teaching of literature is at its best: that it motivates students to read books, that it enables them to develop their literary competence, and that it contributes to their cultural socialization. To this end, a didactic theory is set out in seven axioms that enables literature and reading of books to be firmly anchored in the curriculum. The article concludes with the axiom that for good (literature) education a strong professional community of teachers, teacher trainers and university specialists is necessary.