Agendas

Literary learning in dialogue: interactive practices, building and developing conversational skills, didactic implementation - Gernot Knittelfelder

The question of literary learning processes, especially literary comprehension, is one of the main areas of research in German didactics in Innsbruck; theoretical modelling sometimes focuses in particular on the relationship between language, cognition, affect and physicality. It is precisely these factors that not only play a central role in the individual, silent reading of literary texts, but may also be considered constitutive in conversations, i.e. in the collective, 'loud' discussion of literature. Using multimodal sequence analyses, it has already been possible to show which interactive, holistic strategies conversation participants use to express, communicate and make themselves understood in relation to a literary object (cf. Master's thesis Knittelfelder 2022). In this context, the idea of "literary understanding as a dynamic conversational process" (Härle 2014: 111) clarifies the premise assumed here that the collaborative negotiation of textual meaning, which is quite rightly practised as a common procedure in the classroom, is characterised by movements of understanding of various kinds. This is based on the assumption that - contrary to what is suggested, if not demanded, by competence models based on level models - these are not always characterised by a linear forward progression, but in particular also exhibit stagnating, even regressive moments of irritation and uncertainty the deeper an approach to possible text meanings is made. Against this background, questions about practices of concrete documentation of understanding in literary dialogue are moving to the centre of empirical basic didactic research, as are efforts to trace the development of an ability to talk to each other on the basis of literature through intensifications of this approach in German lessons over time.

Literature:

Härle, Gerhard (2014): Lenken - Steuern - Leiten. Theory and practice of leading literary dialogues in universities and schools. In: Kein Ders./Steinbrenner, Marcus (eds.): Kein endgültiges Wort. The rediscovery of dialogue in the literature classroom. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren, 107-139.

 

Art or life? Aesthetic learning in times of global crises at the university

Anthology in planning for the second conference of the Austrian Forum for German Didactics (ÖFDD) at the University of Innsbruck, 27-29 September 2023. Johannes Odendahl, Marcel Illetschko (eds.).

Programme Second Conference of the ÖFDD

 

On the self-image of academic subject didactics: goals, research fields and methods.

Proceedings of the 5th Innsbruck conference on specialised didactics. Caroline Bader, Johannes Odendahl (eds.). Waxmann-Verlag. GFD series "Fachdidaktische Forschungen". Publication date expected early 2024.

Programme of the 5th didactics conference

 

Literary history networked

ide (informationen zur deutschdidaktik) 1/24. Matthias Pauldrach (University of Salzburg), Johannes Odendahl, eds. March 2024

While the debate on literary didactics in the past has mainly centred on the construction of the subject matter, for example the legitimisation of literary history in the classroom in general, the problematic nature of epochal concepts or canon issues (see Der Deutschunterricht 6/2003 and ide 4/2012), the planned issue aims to focus more on social and practical teaching aspects. How can literary history be taught in heterogeneous classes, in a globalised and multi-ethnic (media) society? How can literary history be more closely linked with the historical dimensions of other subjects and universal history? How can the subject be modelled more strongly as a history 'from below' that ties in with the students' lifeworld, i.e. less as a history of authors and texts than a history of readers and literary practices? And last but not least: How can literary history be presented in a more attractive and vivid way for learners?

The aim of such literary history lessons is to develop "historical awareness "¹ instead of declarative literary-historical knowledge and to promote insights into typical literary-historical constellations and procedures. This means that pupils should be enabled to discover and explore the conditions of the creation, dissemination and reception of literature as well as the various ways in which literary history is constructed and passed on.

This should begin in secondary school. It is not understandable why history is taught there, but literary history should be left solely to the upper school. Therefore, if possible, all contributions should also consider or even focus on the lower and middle school levels.

 

¹ Pandel, Hans-Jürgen 1987: Dimensions of historical consciousness. An attempt to make its structure discussable for empiricism and pragmatics, in: Geschichtsdidaktik 12, pp. 130-141.