UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA FACULTY OF EDUCATION Peter Grandits Model pouka literature preko narativne identitete Model of Literature Education through Narrative Identity Doctoral Dissertation Ljubljana, 2022 UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA FACULTY OF EDUCATION Peter Grandits Mentor: prof. dr. Janez Krek Co-mentor: doc. dr. Darija Skubic Model pouka literature preko narativne identitete Model of Literature Education through Narrative Identity Doctoral Dissertation Ljubljana, 2022 Model pouka literature preko narativne identitete Model of Literature Education through Narrative Identity Statement of original authorship I, Peter Grandits, declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and it has been generated by me as the results of my original research. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. The electronic copy of the dissertation is identical to the printed copy. Date: June 2022 Signature: ABSTRACT This thesis introduces the NDR-model of literature education that is intended to enhance narra-tive engagement and identity learning. The NDR-model stimulates learners to experientially engage in narration, dialogue, and text response. During the practices of writing/reading the life story (narration) and of reading/writing the literary story (response), the self as narrative trans-acts with the text as narrative. Reading/writing the literary story and writing/reading the life story are instances of the poietic play on the principle which results from the interaction of the productive and the creative imagination. During the act of reading, the NDR-model facilitates the mediation between the world of the text and the world of the reader, which has been con-ceptualized as the learner’s narrative identity, by encouraging the learners to intertextually link the literary texts with their life stories. These personally relevant connections are found to be the condition of possibility of accommodative and transformative identity learning. A mixed-methods quasi-experimental study explored the effects of the NDR-model on upper secondary grammar school students’ reading orientations, attentional mode, modes of reading engage-ment, and reading outcome. In the quantitative study, statistically significant increases in liter-ary response scores (insight orientation, attentional shifting, experiential and analytic engage-ment, self-insight) were detected in the experimental group. In addition, participants’ self-re-ported scores differed significantly between the experimental and control groups, which again indicates that the NDR-model increased the students’ attentional shifting, fostered their narra-tive engagement and triggered self-insight, whereas regular literature education did not. The qualitative analysis of interview, observation, and artefact data suggested that the NDR-stu-dents’ learning practices of narration (writing/reading the life story), response (reading/writing the literary story), and dialogue were promoted. Additionally, participants experienced insight into the self and insight into the other because they were stimulated to engage with literary texts in the context of their personal identities. Keywords: narrative engagement; transformative learning; narrative identity; literature educa-tion; scientific study of literature POVZETEK Doktorsko delo v izobraževanje književnosti vpeljuje model NDO (naracija, dialog, odzivanje), ki naj bi okrepil narativno zavzetost in spoznavanje identitete. Model NDO spodbuja dijake k izkustvenemu vkljucevanju v naracijo, dialog in odzivanje na besedilo. Med praksama pisanja/branja življenjske zgodbe (pripovedovanje) in branja/pisanja literarne zgodbe (odziv) se jaz kot narativni sporazumeva z besedilom kot narativnim. Branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe in pisanje/branje življenjske zgodbe sta primera poeticne igre po nacelu, ki je posledica interakcije produktivne in ustvarjalne imaginacije. Med dejanjem branja model NDO omogoca posredovanje med svetom besedila in svetom bralca, ki je bil konceptualiziran kot dijakova narativna identiteta, tako da spodbuja dijake k intertekstualnemu povezovanju literarnih besedil z lastnimi življenjskimi zgodbami. Ugotovljeno je, da so te osebno relevantne povezave pogoj za možnost akomodativnega in transformativnega spoznavanja identitete. Z mešano kvantitativno-kvalitativno kvazi-eksperimentalno raziskavo smo raziskovali ucinke modela NDO na bralne usmeritve, nacin pozornosti, nacine bralne zavzetosti in bralne rezultate dijakov višjih letnikov gimnazije. V kvantitativni študiji je bilo v eksperimentalni skupini ugotovljeno statisticno pomembno povecanje rezultatov literarnega odziva (usmerjenost k vpogledu, premik pozornosti, doživljajska in analiticna zavzetost, uvid v samega sebe). Poleg tega so se samoocene udeležencev med eksperimentalno in kontrolno skupino pomembno razlikovale, kar ponovno kaže na to, da je model NDO pri dijakih povecal preusmerjanje pozornosti, spodbudil njihovo narativno zavzetost in sprožil samoopazovanje, medtem ko pri obicajnem izobraževanju književnosti ni. Kvalitativna analiza podatkov na osnovi intervjujev, opazovanja in artefaktov je pokazala, da so bile pri dijakih, ki so se ucili na osnovi medela NDO, spodbujene ucne prakse naracije (pisanje/branje življenjske zgodbe), odzivanja (branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe) in dialoga. Poleg tega so udeleženci doživeli vpogled vase in vpogled v drugega, saj so bili spodbujeni k sodelovanju z literarnimi besedili v kontekstu svojih osebnih identitet. Kljucne besede: narativna zavzetost; transformativno ucenje; narativna identiteta; izobraževanje književnosti; znanstveno preucevanje književnosti Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to dr. Janez Krek for his supervision and for the advice provided throughout the making of this dissertation. Many thanks go to my wife Irene and my daughters Anna and Linda for their encouragement and unconditional support. Contents Part I 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 2 1.1 The facilitated mediation in appropriation ...................................................................................... 4 2 Imagination............................................................................................................................................ 10 2.1 The Kantian link between experience and understanding ............................................................ 11 2.1.1 Schema in alliance with figurative synthesis ............................................................................ 16 2.2 Kantian creative imagination ........................................................................................................ 30 2.3 Ricoeurian imagination ................................................................................................................. 52 2.3.1 Traditionality and the intertextual archive: imagination and memory...................................... 60 2.3.2 Innovation and self-understanding ........................................................................................... 69 3 The principle of mythos ........................................................................................................................ 75 3.1 The texturing principle ................................................................................................................. 75 3.2 The integrating principle .............................................................................................................. 78 4 The mimetic principle: An imaginative theory of writing/reading the story ...................................... 101 4.1 Representation as engagement: Expression, interpretation, reflection, and attention ................. 101 4.2 Imaginative writing/reading the life story: Mimesis2 ................................................................. 111 4.2.1 Narrative identity .................................................................................................................... 111 4.2.2 Practical identity ..................................................................................................................... 162 4.2.3 Learning through writing/reading the life story...................................................................... 185 4.3 Imaginative reading/writing the literary story: Mimesis3 ........................................................... 187 5 Learning through writing/reading the story ......................................................................................... 214 Part II 6 The model ............................................................................................................................................ 246 6.1 Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 246 6.2 Identity-orientation ..................................................................................................................... 247 6.2.1 Identity concepts in literature education ................................................................................. 247 6.2.2 Social effects on identity ........................................................................................................ 254 6.2.3 Cultural effects on identity ..................................................................................................... 257 6.3 The practices ............................................................................................................................... 267 6.3.1 Narration ................................................................................................................................. 267 6.3.2 Dialogue ................................................................................................................................. 273 6.3.3 Response ................................................................................................................................. 286 6.4 The phases .................................................................................................................................. 289 6.5 Design principles ........................................................................................................................ 291 7 Validation study .................................................................................................................................. 293 7.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 293 7.2 Method ........................................................................................................................................ 293 7.2.1 Research objectives ................................................................................................................ 293 7.2.2 Participants ............................................................................................................................. 294 7.2.3 Procedure ................................................................................................................................ 294 7.2.4 Instruments ............................................................................................................................. 294 7.2.5 Data analysis ........................................................................................................................... 295 7.3 Results ........................................................................................................................................ 297 7.3.1 Suitability of the data.............................................................................................................. 297 7.3.2 Exploratory factor analysis ..................................................................................................... 297 7.3.3 Reliability ............................................................................................................................... 300 7.3.4 Regression analyses ................................................................................................................ 301 7.3.5 Confirmatory factor analysis .................................................................................................. 303 7.4 Discussion and conclusion .......................................................................................................... 308 8 Intervention study ................................................................................................................................ 312 8.1 Design process ............................................................................................................................ 312 8.2 Educational context .................................................................................................................... 313 8.3 Development phase..................................................................................................................... 314 8.4 Comprehensive description of cycles 1 and 2 ............................................................................ 315 8.5 Time frame ................................................................................................................................. 319 8.6 Learning objectives ..................................................................................................................... 320 8.7 Implementation measures ........................................................................................................... 322 8.7.1 Method.................................................................................................................................... 322 8.7.2 Results .................................................................................................................................... 322 8.8 Evaluation measures ................................................................................................................... 323 8.8.1 Method.................................................................................................................................... 323 8.8.2 Results .................................................................................................................................... 324 8.9 Effect measures........................................................................................................................... 325 8.9.1 Research problem ................................................................................................................... 325 8.9.2 Research questions ................................................................................................................. 327 8.9.3 Research design ...................................................................................................................... 327 8.9.4 Participants ............................................................................................................................. 328 8.9.5 Data collection ........................................................................................................................ 329 8.9.6 Data analysis ........................................................................................................................... 333 8.9.7 Quantitative study ................................................................................................................... 335 8.9.8 Qualitative study ..................................................................................................................... 346 8.9.9 Integration of the quantitative and the qualitative study ........................................................ 378 9 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 382 Extended summary ...................................................................................................................................... 399 References ................................................................................................................................................... 416 Appendices (validation study) ..................................................................................................................... 444 List of Tables Table 1: The modalities of personal identity: idem and ipse ............................................................................... 152 Table 2: Definition of the constructs in the Landscape Model ............................................................................ 156 Table 3: Narrative and practice in identity-oriented literature ............................................................................ 185 Table 4: Dialogic activities and stance ................................................................................................................ 276 Table 5: Functions, students’ activities and constituent acts of learning talk...................................................... 282 Table 6: Relevant forms of teacher talk .............................................................................................................. 283 Table 7: Pearson Product-Moment correlations between all scales .................................................................... 300 Table 8: Descriptive statistics and reliability of subscales .................................................................................. 300 Table 9: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Self-Perceptual Depth ................................. 302 Table 10: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Emotional Engagement ............................. 303 Table 11: Goodness of fit indices ........................................................................................................................ 308 Table 12: Time frame of one cycle ..................................................................................................................... 320 Table 13: Main competence-based learning objectives of the respective phases of the NDR-model ................. 320 Table 14: Protocol for evaluation interviews ...................................................................................................... 323 Table 15: Differences in mean scores between Expressive Enactment and Integrative Comprehension ............ 326 Table 16: Protocol of the in-depth interview session .......................................................................................... 332 Table 17: Cronbachs’ a of scales in the pretest, posttest and validation study ................................................... 336 Table 18: Wilcoxon signed-rank test .................................................................................................................. 336 Table 19: Items with highest effect sizes in Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test .......................................................... 337 Table 20: Mann-Whitney-U-test for posttest scores ........................................................................................... 338 Table 21: Items with highest effect sizes in Mann Whitney U Test .................................................................... 340 Table 22: Pearson Product-moment correlations between TREQ Self-Other insights, LRQ Insight and EQ Self-perceptual depth .......................................................................................................................................... 340 Table 23: Self-Other Insight items with highest effect sizes in Mann Whitney U Test ...................................... 341 Table 24: Comparison of results in the experimental and control groups ........................................................... 372 Table 25: Pattern matrix and communalities for PAF with Promax Variation ................................................... 444 Table 26: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Peri-Personal Space ................................... 445 Table 27: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Pre-Enactive Empathy ............................... 445 Table 28: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Self-Implicating Givenness ....................... 445 Table 29: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Extra-Personal Space ................................. 446 Table 30: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Cognitive Perspective-Taking ................... 446 Table 31: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Realism ...................................................... 446 List of Figures Figure 1: Synchronic perspective on the relationships between text, self, and their respective models ............... 89 Figure 2: Kerby (1991, p. 106) model of the self ................................................................................................ 119 Figure 3: The empirical structure of narrative identity: The Landscape Model (McLean et al., 2020, p. 80)..... 156 Figure 4: The social psychological levels of identity and their interrelationships .............................................. 166 Figure 5: Identity formation patterns in late modern society according to Cote and Levine (2002, p. 137) ....... 168 Figure 6: The figures of the ethical self and the moral self (adapted from Greisch, 2009; pp. 126, 129) ........... 174 Figure 7: Illeris’ (2017, p. 27) model of learning ................................................................................................ 218 Figure 8: Jarvis’ (2009, p. 29) model of secondary experience .......................................................................... 223 Figure 9: Wenger’s (1998, p. 5) social theory of learning .................................................................................. 226 Figure 10: The position of identity in the structure of learning (Illeris, 2017, p. 131) ........................................ 232 Figure 11: Learning through writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story ..................... 242 Figure 12: NES narrative engagement predicting EQ Self-Perceptual Depth (Model 1) .................................... 303 Figure 13: Kuiken-Douglas model (Model 2) ..................................................................................................... 304 Figure 14: Kuiken-Douglas model + NES Attention (Model 3) ......................................................................... 305 Figure 15: Kuiken-Douglas model decomposed + NES Attention (Model 4) .................................................... 306 Figure 16: Kuiken-Douglas model + NES Attention + LRQ Reading Orientations (Model 5) .......................... 307 Figure 17: Overview of the design process according to Plomp (2013) ............................................................. 313 Figure 18: Flowchart of the basic procedures in implementing an explanatory mixed-methods design ............. 328 Figure 19: Mean ranks of control and experimental groups in the posttest ......................................................... 339 Figure 20: Mean ranks differences between control and experimental groups in the posttest ............................ 339 Part I 1 Introduction How do we educate literature in the upper secondary classroom so that students engage with fictional texts in a personally relevant way that facilitates text comprehension, understanding of the self and the other? It is hypothesized that it is meaningful connections between the world of the student and the world of the text that bring about these desired effects. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to devise and empirically test a model of literature education that mediates these meaningful connections between text and student during the act of reading. At the beginning of such a pedagogical endeavor, the educational objectives need to be set. This project is about what we can learn about ourselves and others when we learn about fiction. What we are aiming at here is supposed to transcend the acquisition of knowledge about the learning object. Engagement with the object is complemented with engagement with oneself, thus link-ing the study of literature with the quest of the self. In the first place, we need to raise the following question: What shall students learn that is beyond the knowledge of the text? First, expanding students’ agency is a major goal. Transaction with the contingent world of the text that transgresses actuality (Meuter, 2013, p. 35) opens up future possibilities of action for the student; the reader adopts different perspectives and experiences different worlds in “thought experiments” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 148). In addition, engagement with the text reveals the student’s capacities of action. By reading fiction, students learn about the double nature of the subject as capable agent of the act and the objectifications of the agent produced by that very act (I am a reader/writer of the narration and I am inscribed in the narration.). Further-more, students learn about the relation of ascription between the doer and the deed in which the deed discloses the doer. This revelatory relation works on two planes: (a) the plot reveals the character within the diegesis, (b) the reading reveals the reader in the transaction of the reader with the text. On the one hand, teaching literature needs to address the possibilities of action, the question of what can be done and how it can be done. Possibilities are the external boundary of the self. On the other hand, literature education that seeks to promote the interaction of the reader and the text also needs to pose the question of who the doer is that is capable of doing. Capabilities are the internal boundary of the self. Through action we attest to our capabilities, and through ca-pabilities we attest to ourselves. Understanding our capabilities adds to the understanding of the who. Changes in capabilities and possibilities and changes of our understanding of ourselves as capable beings with possibilities on the meta-level fall under Illeris’ (2017) definition of learning as ‘capacity change’; students learn, and they learn about themselves when they reflect on their capabilities and possibilities and realize these capabilities and possibilities. Extending possibilities and capabilities through reading fiction contributes to a gain in autonomy, which nevertheless remains necessarily partial (Straub, 2019b, p. 40) in its dialectic relationship with heteronomy. In the field of educational praxis in which possibilities and capabilities are realized by students, ethical implications of actions need to be considered. Within his adaptation of Aristotle’s aim of the good life, Ricoeur (1992) proposes the ethical aims of self-esteem and solicitude. Reagan (1996) explains: “Self-esteem is the reflexive moment of the goal of the good life, while the relation between the self and the other is characterized by solicitude, which is based on the exchange of giving and receiving.” (p. 87) The reflexive moment deals with the value of the self that is derived from the self’s evaluation of the actions it attributes to itself. This presup-poses responsibility for one’s own actions. Solicitude, however, operates in intersubjective di-alogue and calls for responsibility to the other (Ricoeur, 1992, pp. 180-194). So it is the ethical aim of the model of literature education to promote thought about value and responsibility for one’s actions and to others. Transactional reading that is inextricably linked to the self is said to particularly facilitate the understanding of the self and the other. Therefore, the major aim of devising and implementing a new model of literature education is to further both intrapersonal development and interac-tional self-orientation through engagement with self-narrations and fictional narrations. On the one hand, students thematize their own selves in (a) textually mediated reflections on their own relations to the self and the other, and in (b) culturally embedded oral and written self-expres-sions. These reflections and self-expressions are interpretive enterprises in which students gain insight into the self and the other. Furthermore, generating personal continuity across change that is crucial in the transition period of adolescence is a key objective. Students enact their narrative identity that is inter alia informed by its intertextual borrowings from fictional narra-tives, thus possibly achieving a stronger sense of permanence that bridges biographical disjunc-ture. On the other hand, the given model of literature education also pursues the objective of further-ing students’ orientation during their interactional identity negotiations. Positions in relation to the other within diverse social spaces are mapped in order to gain insight into the self and the other. Diverse forms of emotional and cognitive perspective-taking in dialogical interaction need to be practiced to explore the nature of the relation between the self and the other. The crucial methodological aim is to safeguard literature against its instrumentalization for the quest of the self. This pedagogic endeavor is not about the self, but about the relation of the self with the cultural other. During the reading process, attention between the text and the reader must be balanced to allow a transaction of the world of the reader and the world of the text. Both disinterested (Kant, 1790/2000) and self-absorbed (Sikora et al., 2011) reading must be prevented. 1.1 The facilitated mediation in appropriation The aim of this thesis is to devise a model of literature education that does not only promote narrative understanding, but also self-understanding by having students make connections be-tween their own worlds and the worlds of the text. For this reason, we primarily need to address the question of how reader and text are linked, and how the teaching of literature can intervene in these connections so that self-understanding is generated. Ricoeur’s (1992) “detour by way of objectification [i.e., literary texts]” (p. 313) which potentially results in self-understanding seems an appropriate theoretical foundation for our endeavor. In the following, we will outline the basic assumptions that underlie the model of literature education that will be proposed and tested here. First, the focus on connections between text and reader implies that the desired model is both text-oriented and student-oriented1. Second, students engage in appropriation. Appropriation in Ricoeur’s sense (1981, pp. 144-156) means that the connection of reader and text is conceptualized performatively, not structurally: the connection is established through the act of reading which is a reciprocal transaction (Rosen-blatt, 1978) between the text and the reader. The term appropriation that Ricoeur used to de-scribe his theory of reading is adopted because it emphasizes the active role of the reader during the process of reading and the potential effect of that active engagement on the understanding of self. Both the reader’s active engagement (forms of reading) and the desired self-understand-ing (reading outcome) are crucial components of the proposed model. That is why the notion of appropriation especially lends itself to be applied for the given model. It must, however, be noted that appropriation does not mean that the reader takes the text for his own use, thus as-similating the text into his own existing schemata and, by this means, destroying the text’s 1 Based on recent findings in neuropsychology, student-orientation is a necessity. Roth (2019) holds that “Lehren und Lernen stets im Rahmen der Persönlichkeit des Lehrenden und Lernenden stattfinden, also der höchst indivi-duellen Art des Wahrnehmens, Denkens, Fühlen, Wollens, Handelns sowie der Bindungs- und Kommunikations-fähigkeit eines Menschen“ (p. 41). Therefore, we need to take the students‘ personality into account if we are intending to promote learning. transformative power. In an act whose structure Hall (2007) rightfully described as “active re-ceptivity” (p. 38), the reader is both receptive to the text and active in creating meaning by linking the world of the text to his own world. From the perspective of the reader, appropriation of the text necessarily includes an element of distancing from the self. Mattern (1996, p. 115) holds that appropriation of the text implies a disappropriation of the self. The distance in relation to oneself that is effectuated by the reading of the literary text offers the reader the possibility of critically questioning and potentially re-vising his primordial belonging to the given order (Cf. Heidegger’s ‘Being-in-the-world’). Epis-temologically, disappropriation of the self is thus the prerequisite for transformative self-under-standing in appropriation. Appropriation is the reading act that mediates between the world of the text and the world of the reader (Ricoeur, 1988, pp. 157-179). In the given project, we suppose that literature educa-tion intervenes in this balancing process of reading, aiming at advancing the mediation process. In other words, appropriation is the intersection where the world of the text and the world of the reader meet and where learning can take place. The function of literature education at the metaphorical intersection is facilitation. Literature education is supposed to make learning pos-sible and easier during the act of reading. Our fourth assumption is that facilitation is directed at mediation. The term mediation discloses the theoretical anchoring of the given model in the dialectical method of Ricoeurian hermeneu-tics. Moreover, it denotes the primary methodological aim of the model: the bringing together of text and reader in the act of reading for the purpose of learning. Clarification of (a) what is brought together in appropriation, (b) how appropriation works, and (c) how literature education might bring about learning during appropriation is vital. As for (a), structural-representational models of text and of narrative-practical identity that are linked via a general theory of reading and writing within a framework of literature education will be de-veloped. In the beginning, we need to arrive at an understanding of the world of the text and the world of the reader, i.e., of the constructs that are mediated in reading. The following considerations require working on two distinct but interconnected levels: (a) the abstract level of models, (b) the concrete level of experience. For the purposes of devising a model of literature education that is applicable to diverse texts in diverse situations with diverse students (criterion of transferability) and of testing whether the prime actors, the text and the reader, can be adequately linked by a theory of reading (criterion of compatibility), we will address abstractions first. As soon as the model is operationalized in an actual intervention, we will leave this abstract level and work with connections between concrete literary texts and students’ self-narrations that are established in the concrete act of reading. Here, the models of text and identity under-lying the model of literature education must be tested against the reader’s experience to which they are applied (criterion of adequacy). In addition, it needs to be clarified whether the abstract models of text and of identity are adaptive, i.e., whether they have the ability to capture chang-ing text material and individual students (criterion of adaptability). What then is the hitherto unexplored relation between the model of the text and the material text? What is the relation between the model of identity and the student’s self? Finally, what is the relation between the model of the text and the model of the self? We will start from the premise that it is not physical entities, i.e., the material text and the body, that are mediated in the act of reading, but interpretations of these entities, i.e., the literary text read as mythos and mimesis and the self read as mythos and mimesis. Ricoeur (1984) terms these interpretations ‘world of the text’ and ‘world of the reader’, thus stressing the poietic referentiality actualized in the interpretation of the physical entities. Thus, the mediation operates on the level of noema, the about of the act of reading that comes into being in the act of reading, i.e., the act of inter-pretation. As a consequence, reading encompasses two interlocked processes: (a) the poietic-referential projection of the worlds of the text and the reader, (b) the mediation of these worlds. During the act of reading, the worlds come into being, and, to use a Gadamerian (1975) notion, they fuse. Let us start with the text component. First, it is hypothesized that the relation between the model and the individual text is representational. To borrow a term from qualitative research, the model is a theoretical generalization in the first place. In analogy to the speculative principles that are derived from an idealized experiment, the principles of mythos and mimesis are de-duced from the idealized interpretation of texts. In this sense, the model stands for the actualized text on the level of discourse. Based on the partial isomorphy, i.e., their qualitative similarity, of the texts actualized by the act of reading, configurational and referential principles are in-ferred for the model.2 Based on the criterion of similarity, the model is descriptive. The partial isomorphy is depicted into a reductionist representation, the mythos and mimesis. These prin-ciples are expressed metaphorically: (a) the mythos as ‘discordant concordance’ (Ricoeur, 1984), (b) mimesis3 as “fusion of horizons“ (Gadamer, 1975). We will call this model-text 2 The representational relationship between the model and the individual text must, however, be distinguished from the relationship of text and praxis as explicated in Ricoeur’s (1984) triadic mimesis. relation the metaphorical relation between model and text. Here, the model allows a description of the text according to the principles formulated in the model. In addition, the metaphorical relation facilitates text understanding. The text is comprehended as mythos and mimesis. Second, the principles of the model are not solely representative in nature. They form a matrix that allows narratives to be organized (mythos) and to be anchored in the practical world (mi-mesis). Based on the criterion on contiguity, the model is generative. We will call this model-text relation the metonymic relation between model and text. Here, the model allows the pro-duction of the text according to the principles formulated in the model. From the paradigm of syntagmatic texts realized in reception common qualities are deduced, and these are translated into the syntagm of the model that describes the features of text structure and referentiality. On the other hand, the syntagm of the model (i.e., the syntagmatic relation of mythos and mimesis) prescribes and potentially produces a paradigm of syntagmatic texts. In conclusion, the relationship of model and text is reciprocal: (a) text . model: description, understanding as; (b) model . text: prescription, production. What follows from the metaphorical and metonymic relations between model and text is the assumption that the model is predictive such that the principles on the meta-level of the model are operative on the level of the actual text as well. The model allows inferences about the structural and operating principles of the text from the model level: If the text can be subsumed under the model, mythos and mimesis apply to the text. In this sense, the effectiveness of the actual intervention in its entirety is dependent on the model’s capacity to predict the processes on the concrete level of the intervention. The predictive potential of the model has to be tested empirically: Does the intervention fulfil the prediction of the model? In sum, the model describes the text and thus makes it understandable, i.e., it represents the common principles of the text and makes the text readable; the model produces the text, i.e., it provides a matrix for the generation of texts; the model predicts the text, i.e., principles that are true on the model level are true on the text level. The model is heuristic, productive, and pre-dictive in nature. At this point, we aim at transferring the model of the text to the domain of the self. It is note-worthy that it is the model of the text, not an actual literary text that is shifted. Following Ric-oeur (1992), the text model can be considered an adequate pattern for the understanding of the self. In other words, the principles of the text model are applicable to the reader’s self, resulting in a textualization of the self, i.e., the self’s narrative identity (Ricoeur, 1992; Kerby, 1991), through the principles of the text model. The appropriateness of the transfer of the organizational principle of mythos and the referential-communicative principle of mimesis to the self is to be justified according to the four traits of the text model (Ricoeur, 1971, pp. 531-537): (a) Meaning is fixated in an objectification, the text escapes the momentary character of the event. (b) The author’s mental intention (noesis) and the verbal meaning (noema) of the text are dissociated. (c) The text’s referentiality is not limited to ostensive reference, it is the pro-jection of a world (Ricoeur, 1971, p. 536). The text refers to “possible modes of being, as sym-bolic dimensions of our being-in-the-world” (Ricoeur, 1971, p. 536). (d) The text can be char-acterized by the “universality of its address” (Ricoeur, 1971, p. 537), it is addressed to the “au-dience that it creates itself” (Ricoeur, 1971, p. 537), not to the specific and co-present interlo-cuter in the given conversational situation. The text model can be applied to the research object of self if the reader’s life conforms to the model of text as expressed in the given traits. In “The model of the text: Meaningful action considered as text”, Ricoeur (1971, pp. 537-545) proves that the four criteria of his text model are fulfilled by the concept of meaningful action to which the mythos is linked via mimesis. Here, we need to test whether the transfer of the text model to the domain of the self is justifiable. Ricoeur’s Oneself as another (1992, 6th Study, Part 1, pp. 140-151) is relevant here. In the following, I will explicate the hypotheses that (1) being is understandable through doing, and (2) the text model can be transferred to being because being is understood as doing. The transfer of the text model takes place at the intersection of narrative theory and theory of action. Ricoeur (1992) puts forward the thesis that “the identity of the character is comprehen-sible through the transfer to the character of the operation of emplotment [i.e., mythos], first applied to the action recounted; characters, we will say, are themselves plots.” (p. 143). Return-ing to hypothesis (1), we can maintain that the text model has a heuristic value to the under-standing of self. Through the transfer of mythos from the level of action organized according to mythos, i.e., the plot, to the character, the being of the self is treated as doing. Characters are plots. Not only mythos, but also mimesis is transferred to the self. The “ensemble of reference opened up by the texts [here: the narrated self]” (Ricoeur, 1971, pp. 535-536) constitutes the world of the self, in our case, the world of the reader. Characters are emplotted narratives tied to the world of action (praxis) via mimesis. Characters are actions mediated through the princi-ples of the text model. The self can be understood as mythos and mimesis. What follows is that being is comprehended as doing (Cf. (2)). Therefore, following Ricoeur’s line of reasoning in his article “The text as model” (1971) that meaningful action is compatible with the text model, this text model can be transferred to being understood as primarily doing. It is significant that the self is understood in mediated doing. Narrating self is doing whose noema is doing. The doing is objectified in narrating, thus fulfilling criterion (a) of Ricoeur’s (1971) text model. The result of the objectification is the narrated self. Through objectification in textualization, verbal meaning is dissociated from authorial intention (criterion (b)). The nar-rated self does not only mirror the doing self, it also opens up new modes of being for the self in non-ostensive productive reference (criterion (c)). Eventually, the narrated self’s address is potentially universal (criterion (d)). Above we have held that the text model is also productive in nature. In the constitution of the self for oneself and the self-understanding of oneself, what is different from the domain of the text is that the author and the reader of the self’s textual interpretation of the self are the same self, thus changing the communicative axis of mimesis. In the mode of reading-oneself-write, the self finds self-experience as an author and reader in self-referential mediated “Vergegenwärtigung” (Husserl, 1963).3 Husserl’s dictum that the self’s experience of oneself is immediate in auto-affective soliloquy is rejected. In reading-oneself-write, the self experiences itself via Ricoeur’s “detour by way of objectification”, via the detour through the story about oneself. The change in the communicative axis of reading-oneself-write has repercussions on criterion (b) of the text model. The dissociation of authorial intention and verbal meaning, i.e., the autonomization of the meaning of the life story from the writer-reader is completed only if the objectification is released from the boundaries of solilo-quizing reading-oneself-write into the sphere of the other. 3 Cf. Derrida’s phenomenological description of hearing-oneself-speak in Chapters 5 and 6 of Voice and phenom-enon (1967/2011) which is the inspiration for Vergegenwärtigung in reading-oneself-write during narrative self-constitution and self-understanding. Now that the transfer to the realm of the self is completed, we can hold that the text model’s organizational and referential patterns fulfil identical functions: they are heuristic, productive and predictive. The relationship of the text model and the self is again reciprocal. Mythos and mimesis are true for the interpretation of the agentive self. The self’s life is organized narra-tively, and the narrative organization of life is mimetically rooted in praxis through the acts of writing and reading the life story. The mental capacity that is crucial for the reading/writing the literary story and writing/reading the life story according to the model of mythos and mimesis is imagination. Therefore, we will now address this topic extensively. Kant and Ricoeur will guide our deliberations on the signif-icance of imagination for the teaching of literature that takes the learner’s identity seriously. 2 Imagination In Time and Narrative. Volume 1, Ricoeur construes Kantian productive imagination as a “gen-erative matrix of rules”: It will be recalled that I compared the ‘grasping together’ characteristic of the configu-rational act to judgment as understood by Kant. Remaining in a Kantian vein, we ought not to hesitate in comparing the production of the configurational act to the work of the productive imagination. This latter must be understood not as a psychologizing faculty but as a transcendental one. The productive imagination is not only rule-governed, it constitutes the generative matrix of rules. In Kant's first Critique, the categories of the understanding are first schematized by the productive imagination. The schematism has this power because the productive imagination fundamentally has a synthetic function. It connects understanding and intuition by engendering syntheses that are intellectual and intuitive at the same time. Emplotment, too, engenders a mixed intelligibility be-tween what has been called the point, theme, or thought of a story, and the intuitive presentation of circumstances, characters, episodes, and changes of fortune that make up the denouement. In this way, we may speak of a schematism of the narrative function. (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 68). Configuring is compared to the act of imagination which is a transcendental capacity. This means that productive imagination is an a priori and necessary condition for the possibility of experience of Ricoeurian configuration (writing) and, I would like to add, refiguration (read-ing). This condition reveals itself in the “matrix of rules”, the schematism. The schemata, which are in consequence a corollary of the imagination, have a synthetic function, they connect con-cepts and percepts. According to Ricoeur (1984), narrative is such a schema that mediates be-tween sensibility and understanding. In other words, the concepts of the understanding are linked to the sense perceptions via the narrative schema. As far as understanding is concerned, we hypothesize that the writer/reader of the text operates both with Kantian pure concepts of understanding and his empirical concepts. The judgement involves an empirical concept of the text (matter) as well as a priori concepts derived from a narrative logic (form) which Bruner (1986, 1990) termed the narrative mode of thinking. Now we need to resort to the Kantian epistemological model as explicated in the Transcendental Deduction (TD) of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1998) in order to understand what Ric-oeur means by writing/reading as narrative schema. The TD will be analyzed in order to better understand (1) the role of imagination and its capacities, i.e., schematization and figurative synthesis; and (2) “the a priori conditions on which the possibility of experience depends” (A96), in our case the category of quantity (unity/plurality/totality) that is essential for the con-cept of identity over time which is our target area of learning. In sum, Kant’s model of cognition that is removed from his full philosophical system by force serves as a heuristic figure of thought that shall help us comprehend how, according to Ricoeur, the processes of reading and writing as narrative schema under the numerical category of unity work. For this reason, Kantian imagination and its capacities will be studied first. Second, we will explore how Kant connects the experiential world and the formal logic by means of schemata and figurative synthesis, thus generating representation (relation between experience and mean-ing) and structure (order from the unstructured manifold). Third, productive imagination will be complemented with Kantian creative imagination that is operative during reflective judge-ments. Fourth, a deduction of the concept of personal identity over time will be attempted by transferring Kant’s category of quantity as schematized by narrative from text to self (Ricoeur, 1984, 1992). Finally, implications for pedagogy will be discussed. We will hold that the productive rule (schema and figurative synthesis) is learnable by application and explication through assimila-tion, accommodation or transformation in the learner’s mind (Illeris, 2017). As the application of the rule is subject to the interplay of sedimentation and innovation (Ricoeur, 1984, pp. 68-69), the rule can be modified by the learner when he uses it. In our endeavor, we are especially interested in transformative processes. Here, there is a potential change in both the rule and the learner that is affected by the respective counterpart: (1) the rule changes the learner, (2) the learner changes the rule. 2.1 The Kantian link between experience and understanding Let us start with an attempt to define Kantian imagination. As Ricoeur (1984) compares the production of the configurational act to the work of the productive imagination, I will focus on this type of Kantian imagination here. Therefore, the workings of reproductive imagination which lead to image formation by way of the threefold mimesis of apprehension, reproduction and recognition will only be alluded to. First, we will try to elaborate how the transcendental activities of the productive imagination, i.e., schematism and figurative synthesis, make expe-rience possible. Second, the contribution of Kantian creative imagination, a type of imagination disregarded by Ricoeur, to aesthetics will be explored. To begin with, Young (1988) holds that Kantian productive imagination does not denote the “capacity for the mental imaging of absent objects”, but that imagination plays a role in the “grounding or justifying of certain judgements” (Young, 1988, p. 140). According to Kant, imagination is a vehicle to connect sensibility and understanding, thus potentially making the application of the categories to appearances possible (A137, B176). Knowledge can only be produced if percepts are identified as instances of concepts. Imagination enables this identifi-cation as it is the “capacity to construe or interpret sensible awareness in accordance with gen-eral rules” (Young, 1988, p. 163). Therefore, both sensibility and imagination are necessary for the generation of knowledge. It is noteworthy that imagination does not contribute to the content of knowledge: His claim, as he puts it at one point, is only that imagination is a subjective source of knowledge (A115). He does not mean to imply that it is an objective source, i.e., that it contributes to the content of knowledge. Indeed, he would deny that it does so. Imagi-nation is the capacity to bring sensible affection under a rule, to construe it as the aware-ness of something manifesting certain general features. The features in question, how-ever, are features present in sensible awareness; imagination is simply the capacity to identify them and to construe particular states of sensible awareness in accordance with them. (Young, 1988, p. 164) Imagination is subjective, it is the faculty of understanding that eventually produces objectivity. What then is the use of imagination? According to Young, it “constru[es] what is sensibly pre-sent as something other, or something more, than what immediately appears” (Young, 1988, p. 141) according to a rule. Imagination is the moment when interpretation enters the stage. The sensory intuition provides the content which is interpreted as the “awareness of something man-ifesting certain general features” by imagination. Below we will again encounter this interpre-tation as in Ricoeur’s mode of seeing as which is characteristic of schematic narrative. As far as agency is concerned, the figure of ‘active receptivity’ is applicable to the workings of imagination on percepts. Having a sensible state in intuition is the pole of passivity whereas the construal of that state constitutes the pole of activity. Let us now tackle the question of how imagination makes the application of categories to the appearances possible. Kant states that it is schematism, which is a function of the faculty of productive imagination, that brings about the subsumption of the appearance under the cate-gory, thus establishing a relation of representation: “Without schemata, therefore, the categories are only functions of the understanding for concepts, but do not represent any object.” (A147, B187). Before we delve into the schematic and synthetic functions of productive imagination, we need to distinguish this type of imagination from reproductive imagination. A first dividing line can be found in the TD: Now insofar as the imagination is spontaneity, I also occasionally call it the productive imagination, and thereby distinguish it from the reproductive imagination, whose synthesis is subject solely to empirical laws, namely those of association, and that there-fore contributes nothing to the explanation of the possibility of cognition a priori, and on that account belongs not in transcendental philosophy but in psychology. (B152) Here, the degree of agency is the distinctive feature between productive and reproductive im-agination. Whereas productive imagination is spontaneous, i.e., active in Kantian terms, repro-ductive imagination is receptive. Therefore, its analysis tells us nothing about the a priori con-ditions for cognition. In §28 of his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798/2006), Kant provides another clue for the distinction in question: The power of imagination (facultas imaginandi) as a faculty of intuition without the pres-ence of the object, is either productive, that is, a faculty of the original presentation of the object (exhibitio originaria), which thus precedes experience; or reproductive, a faculty of the derivative presentation of the object (exhibitio derivativa), which brings back to the mind an empirical intuition that it had previously. Matherne (2016) rightly concludes: “What we can learn from the Anthropology, then, is that the imagination can mediate between what is sensible and nonsensible in either a productive fashion, in which case it makes particular experiences or experience in general possible, or in a reproductive fashion, in which case it is constrained by past experience.” (p. 56). Both types of imagination denote a capacity for synthesis (Young, 1988, p. 155), both bridge the gap between the sensible and the intelligible, but they differ in their directionality of the representational relation. Reproductive imagination by synthesis forms a posteriori concepts out of empirical laws and Humean associations which belong to intuition. The work of productive imagination (i.e., schema and figurative synthesis), however, makes intuition possible with regard to a priori concepts, the Kantian categories. Young summarizes: When the type in question is one that cannot be defined or characterized by reference to things previously encountered in sensible awareness – when the concept is a pure con-cept of the understanding – then the function of imagination by which we identify things sensibly present as instances of that type is one through which we contribute to experi-ence.” (p. 156) Reproductive imagination acts in an exclusively empirical way (Matherne, 2016, p. 56), the synthesis of reproduction, which the empiricists call association, is governed by empirical laws (Cf. B152 above) and is based on past habitual experiences (Matherne, 2016, p. 59). The three-fold synthesis of reproductive imagination is essential for image formation, which is also rele-vant for the reading of literary text during which reproductive imagination apprehends, repro-duces and recognizes connections to past perceptual experiences and thus supplies the visual content of the reading experience. To sum up, reproductive imagination executes the actual act of image formation whereas productive imagination enables, i.e., is the condition of the possi-bility of experience in general. Let us now turn to the functions of productive imagination that Ricoeur (1984) employs to elucidate the narrative schema. Johnson (1987, p. 159) states that one productive function of imagination is the generation of mineness, which, as we will see below, is a crucial feature of ipse, a mode of Ricoeurian narrative identity that is capable of ensuring self-continuity. Pro-ductive imagination unifies successive states of consciousness as my states: “Only in so far, therefore, as I can unite a manifold of given representations in one consciousness, it is possible for me to represent to myself the identity of the consciousness in (i.e., throughout) these repre-sentations” (B133). Thus, productive imagination does not only configure succession4 by means of synthesis, but also provides a link to the self. The unity in my consciousness is, ac-cording to Kant, the ground of objectivity in experience. This seems paradoxical at first sight. How can something in the subjective consciousness be the basis for objectivity? Kant’s answer is the a priori concepts that productive imagination necessarily refers to. The category of unity which represents an objective form is the ground of objectivity. Johnson (1987) therefore con-cludes that “there can be no meaningful experience without imagination” (p. 151) and under-stands this to mean that the synthesis into the categorical pattern of unity is a prerequisite of meaning. Here I would like to add that by tying the unity of experience to the unity of the self in apperception, i.e., by making the experience my experience, the possibility of personal rele-vance is opened up. 4 We will return to the configuration of succession when we deal with Ricoeur’s (1984) combination of cosmo-logical and phenomenological time in narrated time. Johnson (1987) summarizes the accomplishments of reproductive and productive imagination as follows: “As productive, imagination gives us the very structure of objectivity. As reproduc-tive, it supplies all of the connections by means of which we achieve coherent, unified, and meaningful experience and understanding.” (Johnson, 1987, p. 151) Imagination provides us with conceptual unity, “the very structure of objectivity” and intuitive connections of past ex-perience. Thus, it enables coherence, unification and meaning. Finally, imagination is capable of bridging the chasm between intuition (“experience”) and concept (“understanding”). So let us now enter the matter of representation and turn to the question of how Kantian productive imagination can link the concept and the percept. We here make a short digression to prevent the fallacy of attributing Ricoeurian productive reference to Kantian productive imagination because of the affinity of the two terms. When we remember Kant’s remarks on imagination in the Anthropology as cited above, the power of imagination is situated within the domain of the presentation of the absent object, thus addressing the matter of reference. As far as the productive type is concerned, imagination brings forth the object due to its “faculty of the original presentation of the object”. In my interpretation, productive imagination does not originate, i.e., create, the object, originality is attributed to the presentation and not to the object. Productive imagination creates the form, it does not generate the hitherto inexistent object. Therefore, Kant’s exhibitio originaria is not compatible with Ricoeur’s image without an original5 that enables productive reference. Ric-oeur develops this notion “through an inspired extension of the phenomenological concept of intentionality” (Tayler, 2018, p. 159): “When we bracket existence in the imaging, we also bracket existence in the object.” (Ricoeur, 1975/2018, 7.15) The intentional object comes into being, but it does not have its origin in reality, its place is the “absolutely nowhere” (Ricoeur, 1975/2018, 14.15). The lack of a referent outside the image is the condition of the possibility of productivity of the sign. It can produce a possible world once it is set free from the constraints of the reference to the empirical world. Whereas the condition of the possibility of experience is attributed to Kant’s productive imagination, the condition of the possibility of productivity must be ascribed to poietic imagination. The image without an original opens up Ricoeur’s ‘productive reference’, later remodeled into ‘figuration’ which “allows, as the empirical refer-ence does not, an interplay between the ‘real’ and the ‘unreal’ that lies at the heart of productive [here in the sense of poietic] imagination’s creativity: what was deemed ‘unreal’ can become ‘real,’ manifest.” (Taylor, 2018, p. 165). Kant gives support for this in the Anthropology: “The world of the text becomes real by the power of poietic imagination “[…] which puts material under the understanding in order to provide content for its concepts (for cognition), [and thus it] seems to provide a reality to its (invented) intuitions because of the analogy between them and real perceptions” (Kant, 1798/2006, § 28). As far as representational function is concerned, poietic imagination is not only the condition for the possibility of creation, but also the condi-tion for the possibility to make the created seem real. 5 The image without an original will reappear in our intertextual theory of reading below that is based on the conception of the intertextual sign as simulacrum: “Die imagio als simulacrum […] strebt die Austreibung und Vertreibung des Modells, des Originals, des Urbilds an. Das referenzlose Trugbild nimmt den Platz der verwei-senden und durch die Qualität ihrer Relation zu den Signifikaten an diese gebundenen Zeichen ein.“ (Lachmann, 1997, p. 32). The simulacrum is a sign without original or archetype. The referential sign is replaced by a generative sign. The simulacrum has an additional characteristic: it is illusionary. We will return to this when we consider the implications of the transfer of the text model to the self. In conclusion, productive imagination is not poietic in nature, it does not “involve the produc-tion of novel sensible content or of novel sensible form” (Young, 1988, p. 155). Therefore, productive imagination is not the matrix for Ricoeur’s ‘productive reference’ of the literary sign. Productive reference that generates worlds of the text must be understood in reference to poietic imagination. The “novel sensible content” or “novel sensible form” - the potential out-puts of poietic imagination - are, in order to be experienced, in turn dependent on productive imagination and its conditions. These ideas will be refined below in reference to Kant’s 3rd Critique. Eventually, we will focus on how Kantian productive imagination manages to link the concept and the percept. 2.1.1 Schema in alliance with figurative synthesis The productive imagination serves a mediating function between the faculties of sensibility and understanding. In order to bridge the gap between the sensual and the conceptual, imagination produces schemata which allow the application of the mental concept to the phenomena: Now how is the subsumption of the latter [empirical intuitions] under the former [pure concepts of understanding], thus the application of the category to appearances possi-ble, since no one would say that the category, e.g., causality, could also be intuited through the sense and is contained in the appearance? […] Now it is clear that there must be a third thing, which must stand in homogeneity with the category on the one hand and the appearance on the other, and makes possible the application of the former to the latter. This mediating representation must be pure (without anything empirical) and yet intellectual on the one hand and sensible on the other. Such a representation is the transcendental schema. (Kant, 1781/1998, A138/B177) Kant faces the problem of how to connect the separated poles of impression/material and thought/form. He wonders how the abstract mental structures can be linked with the contents of our sense perceptions (Johnson, 1987, p. 152) in determinate Kantian judgements6. His so-lution is the temporal schema that he regards as “the third thing”, a hybrid that has both con-ceptual and intuitive features. The temporal schema is a function of productive imagination (A138f., B177f). By way of schematism, i.e., “the procedure of the understanding with these schemata” (A140, B179), productive imagination effectuates the bridge that mediates between the impression and the concept, between the sensible and the intelligible (Taylor, 2018, p. 161). Kant holds: “Hence an application of the category to appearances becomes possible by means of the transcendental time-determination which, as the schema of the concept of understanding, mediates the subsumption of the latter under the former.” (A139, B178) 6 We will deal with reflective judgement when we address poietic imagination. As the schema is a “transcendental time-determination”, imagination necessarily involves a temporal ordering. This is confirmed by Johnson (1987): “[…] imagination is a schematizing activity for ordering representations in time” (p. 153). And he continues that this “temporal character of imagination [is] the chief means for establishing order in our experience” (Johnson, 1987, p. 153). The temporal schema, however, is not only a means of structuring representa-tions, but, first and foremost, a means of making connections between the concepts and expe-rience: “categories are realized and they are given reference to concrete experience” (Walsh, 1958, p. 101). Representation here is a precondition for the organization process. In line with Ricoeur, we will initially be attempting to order cognition, i.e., the writing and reading of a story, according to the category of quantity/multitude, which comprises Unity, Plurality and Totality7, as synthesis fulfils its integrative function according to this concept. It must be noted, however, that categories necessarily interact during cognition. Kant explicates on the schema of quantity/magnitude: 7 As we will see below, the self will also be conceived according to the category of Quantity (Unity/Plurality/To-tality), and not according to the category of Substance belonging to the paradigm of Relation. The aspiration to-wards unity and purpose that is central for the narrative identity paradigm (McAdams, 1997) to which we subscribe in our work also revolves around the category of Quantity. The pure schema of magnitude (quantitatis), however, as a concept of the understand-ing, is number, which is a representation that summarizes the successive addition of one (homogeneous) unit to another. Thus number is nothing other than the unity of the synthesis of the manifold of a homogeneous intuition in general […]” (A142f., B182). The Kantian quantitative schema is a condition of the possibility of unified (= concept) experi-ence (= percept) through synthesis. Ricoeurian narrative has an analogous purpose: it mediates between concept and percept and thus makes the unified experience of writing and reading a story possible. But there is a difference. Kantian intuition is homogeneous whereas Ricoeur (1984) synthesizes heterogeneous elements that necessarily belong to each other, e.g. the plot and the character. The “synthesis of the heterogeneous” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 66) blends the quan-titative categories of unity and plurality. According to Ricoeur (1984), narrative synthesis fa-cilitates unity without discarding plurality. This formula marks the primacy of concordance, but it does not neglect discordance. Kant’s schemata serve a double function: (a) they provide a rule for the making of connections in generative synthesis, and (b) they move the products of synthesis into speakability, i.e. they make them expressible in symbolic form: “Now one sees from all this that the schema of each category contains and makes representable: in the case of magnitude, the generation (synthesis) of time itself […]” (A145, B184) Synthesis which is the effect of quantitative schema is poietic, in case of the quantitative schema it generates time according to the schematic rule. And it enables us to say how time is generated. Again, an analogy with Ricoeur (1988) is discernible. Narrative provides the rule for the synthesis of cosmological and phenomenological time into narrated time, and narrative makes narrated time, the product of the rule-governed synthesis, sayable. Kant concludes: “The schemata are therefore nothing but a priori time-determinations in ac-cordance with rules, and these concern [in our case of the schema of number] the time-series […]” (A145, B184f.). Considering this quote, Walsh (1958) rightly holds that the schema “has to do with determining the temporal relations within which the objects of human experience stand” (p. 102). Ricoeur considers narrative such a Kantian “transcendental time-determina-tion” that gives an aesthetic answer to the aporias of time by configuring, i.e., synthesizing8 the succession of time, thus mediating between the two conceptions of cosmological and phenom-enological time. The schematic-synthetic-configurational rules determine Kant’s time-series, i.e., the manifold of succession. (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 22). 8 You will recall that Ricoeur compares the configurational act to the work of productive imagination. Thus, con-figuring here means the work of imagination: schematism + synthesis. 9 Walsh (1958, p. 99) proposes these two possible meanings of schema in his landmark article on schematism. We stated that we understand the schema as “a rule of synthesis of the imagination” (A141, B180), not as feature of things that can be indexed.9 Initially, we will address the issue of the normativity of imagination. This raises the question of what kind of rule the schema is. Following Ginsborg (2006, p. 357), the work of imagination can be described as the generation of systematic normative patterns of differentiated reactions to things. Her starting point is that “concepts are rules for perceiving objects” (Ginsborg, 2006, p. 359). Here two complications arise: (a) Following Kant, we situate the rule in the schema, not in the concept, although we need to admit that the border between concept and schema is blurred with Kantian empirical concepts. (b) We are not exclusively dealing with perception and its threefold Kantian synthesis of apprehension, reproduction and recognition, but with cognition in general. Our common ground is that normativity is linked to imagination, and that makes Ginsborg’s ideas compatible with our reasoning. Ginsborg explains the normativity of imagination in connection with her construct of ‘perceiving something as being’ (Ginsborg, 2006, p. 358). Whereas perceiving an object is subject-oriented, perceiving as being is object-oriented and linked to the concept of ‘ought to’: The idea is that for experience to have conceptual content, what is needed is not merely that the subject experience things in certain ways, but that she take it, in so doing, that this is how she (and all other relevantly similar subjects) ought to experience them: in other words, she must take it that her ways of perceiving them are appropriate to those things. (Ginsborg, 2006, p. 359) We can conclude that imaginative processing is normative: “[…] in engaging in these processes, human beings take them as exemplifying normative standards or rules” (Ginsborg, 2006, p. 359). Perceiving as being prescribes the appropriate dealing with an empirical thing. Ginsborg’s mode of perceiving that she proposes for empirical concepts can be a model for imagination’s normative effect on intuition in general. Adopting the criterion of appropriateness to things, we might ask how we ought to experience the literary text. What we share with Gins-borg is that imagination is normative, but we differ in the point of reference of normativity. As far as cognition of the literary text is concerned, we think that normativity is situated in the schema, not in the material object. Therefore, we will speak of perceiving as narrative, not of perceiving as the material text. The prescript of the ‘ought to’ lies in the schema of narrative. In conclusion, the writing and reading of the story must be recognized as conforming to a rule (in agreement with Ginsborg) that governs appropriateness to the narrative schema (in disa-greement with Ginsborg). When we apply the above findings about the normative nature of the schema to learning in the field of literature education, the following questions suggest themselves: (a) Is the normative schema learnable? If it is, how is it learnable? (b) Is perceiving as schema learnable? If it is, how is it learnable? In her article, Ginsborg (2006) takes up these issues. She holds that […] we can learn to engage in a rule-governed activity without antecedently grasping the rules that govern it. We acquire a grasp of the rules simply by virtue of becoming competent in an activity, as long as the performance of the activity itself involves the awareness that, in performing it, we are by and large performing as we ought to (p. 362) And she adds that “it is only after sophisticated reflection on the activity that we come to be able to characterize those rules non-demonstratively, by describing in general terms how it is that the activity should be performed” (Ginsborg, 2006, p. 362). We can infer that no knowledge about the rules of the rule-governed activity is needed. If you become competent in the rule-governed activity, you learn the rules. There is a second condi-tion: The performance of the activity needs to adhere to the pragmatic standards of the activity in question. It is only through reflection that we can describe the rules underlying the activity. In our rule-governed behavior, the consciousness of the rule is subtle. We act appropriately, but we are not conscious of the reference point: we know that we stick to rules, but we are not conscious to which rules we actually stick. From Ginsborg’s account, we can conclude that we need to teach activities, not rules that govern activities, and we need to teach these activities in a way that a feeling of the normativity of the activity is evoked in the student. In addition, a post-activity reflection process could teach the students what the general rules underlying the activity, i.e., the schemata that link con- and percepts are so that they can discursively under-stand the rules shaping their actions. To sum up, Ginsborg assumes that the schema is learnable, but it is not learned directly, but through the acquisition of competence in doing something. In order to act appropriately in a given pragmatic context, we are required to learn how to act according to the rule without being conscious of the rule – what we previously referred to as ‘perceiving as schema’ -, not to acquire the rule itself. The rule can be learned on the meta-level of reflection on actual action. Let us now return to the question of what the nature of the schematic rule is. First, we have learnt that the schema is temporal. Second, the schema is applied in Kantian determinate judge-ment in which it functions as a rule of subsuming empirical intuitions under the formal catego-ries. Therefore, it is a condition for providing concepts with reference, and, as we will see be-low, with ‘real’ significance (Walsh, 1958, p. 97). The schema is representational. Third, “im-agination is a schematizing activity for ordering representations in time” (Johnson, 1987, p. 153). It follows that the schema is not only temporal (“in time”), but also organizational. Fourth, the schema is embedded in the dynamic process of representation and organization, it is proce-dural. We will dwell on representation for a moment longer as the connection of experience and un-derstanding is a decisive point when we think about the writing and reading of a story. We held above that the schema is the condition for representation. By representation, we will understand the connection between perception and understanding that is mediated by the work of imagina-tion. Kant wonders how the empirical connections of the categories are established. Whatever type of concept is concerned, the same question arises according to Walsh’s (1958) interpreta-tion of Kant’s TD: “[…] what does a man have to do in order to show that he has grasped a certain idea and can make use of it?” (p. 99) And Walsh continues that “in all cases the answer will include the statement that he must be able to indicate the kind of situation to which the idea in question applies, which means that, in a broad sense of the words, he must be capable of a certain kind of imaginative activity” (Walsh, 1958, p. 99). Walsh understands Kantian repre-sentation as a different kind of connection from the traditional deixis, the demonstrative gesture to a feature or object of the empirical world. Let us consider two snippets from Walsh’ citation: (a) “make use of [my emphasis]”, (b) “the situation to which the idea in question applies [my emphasis]”. The ‘making use’ and ‘applying’ of the idea mark the beginning of a shift in the conception of meaning from empirical reference to use which is to culminate in Wittgenstein’s (1958) theorem from the Philosophical Investigations: “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” (§ 43). Transferring Wittgenstein’s use theory back into the Kantian past, learning the significance (i.e., the meaning) of the idea means acquiring the capability for using the idea. We maintained with Ginsborg that learning the rule is the acquisition of compe-tence in the rule-governed activity. By learning the idea, we understand the procedure of gain-ing the capability for an imaginative activity which consists of making use of the idea. What the two learning processes share is that they aim to develop an ability to act. The learning of the idea teaches us that acting is ‘making use of’, and the learning of the rule tells us that imag-ination provides us with the schema according to which the ‘making use of’ operates. With Kant, the use, i.e., the application of the concept (the idea) to the empirical situation, must be regulated by the ‘third thing’ – the schema. The schema, which represents by schematic mediation and regulates by organization, is the prerequisite for the connection between concept and percept: Thus the schemata of the concepts of pure understanding are the true and sole conditions for providing them with a relation to objects, thus with significance, and hence the cat-egories are in the end of none but a possible empirical use, since they merely serve to subject appearances to general rules of synthesis through ground of an a priori necessary unity […] and thereby to make them fit for a thoroughgoing connection in one experi-ence.” (A145f., B185) The schema is the condition for relation. By relating the concept with the percept according to a rule, experience (the percept) can be unified (the process aiming at the concept) and the con-nection among appearance is made possible. To sum up, the schema is the condition of the possibility of significance. Let us summarize with Kant: “Without schemata, therefore, the categories are only functions of the understanding for concepts, but do not represent any object.” (A147, B187) The schema is indispensable for representation, and it averts two dangers of the concept: (a) it is so pure that it cannot connect to the empirical world (Cf. Kant’s ‘Gedankending’ (A311, B368)), (b) it is so general that nothing in particular can be characterized (Walsh, 1958, p. 101). Let us now consider the various definitions of the schema in relation to the different types of Kantian concepts in order to delve deeper into the nature of the schema. Johnson (1987, p. 154) summarizes Kant’s definitions of the various concepts: (a) empirical concepts: 1. “representation of a rule according to which imagination can delineate the figure of x in a general manner” 2. “representation of a method for representing a multiplicity in conformity to a concept” (b) pure sensuous (mathematical) concepts 3. “rule of synthesis of imagination, in respect of pure figures in space” (c) pure concepts of the understanding (categories) 4. “product of transcendental synthesis of imagination constructing an object of intuition in general (i.e., the figure of any object of possible experience)” According to Kant, concepts from the domains (a) and (b) employ schemata, concepts from (c) transcendental schemata. All three types of concepts are relevant for our purpose: (a) empirical concept: the material text; (c) category: quantity, esp. unity and plurality; (b) pure sensuous concepts: the figure of narrative (Cf. Ricoeur’s (1984) threefold mimesis of prefiguration, con-figuration, and refiguration) which represents a metaphorization of the pure sensuous concept. Two differences between schemata and transcendental schemata are conspicuous: First, sche-mata are rules for the method of how to empirically synthesize the multiplicity in conformity with the concept, thus telling us how to delineate the figure of an object in general. On the other hand, the transcendental schema, according to the quote above, is produced by the transcenden-tal synthesis (i.e., intellectual and figurative synthesis, Cf. below) through the linking of under-standing to time (Allison, 2015, p. 384). We would like to point out that the notion of “product” is problematic here because that process of production and possible other factors in the produc-tion are not dealt with. The transcendental synthesis generates the transcendental schema and thus makes the construction of the object via the schematic rules possible. Second, the schemata are referential in nature (“delineate”, “represent”, “in respect of”) whereas the transcendental schema is generative (“construct”). What the different types of schemata have in common is that they are general, synthetic, and figurative10 mental constructs. 10 In line with Ricoeur (1984), the attribute ‘figurative’ comprises both structural (to draw a figure of) and repre-sentational (the referential or generative figure) aspects. The question arises whether Ricoeurian narrative is schematic in nature. Considering the com-mon features of schema elaborated above, we can answer in the affirmative. It is a mental gen-eral rule that makes use of synthesis and that is figurative in nature. Narrative is both referential and generative. As we will see below, Ricoeur (1991a) explicated the rules of empirical synthesis on the practical and temporal planes, thus adopting the logic of the schemata. Gener-ally we can infer that narrative is regarded as a product of transcendental synthesis as it repre-sents a determination of time and space. An explicit thematization of transcendental synthesis, however, is absent in Time and Narrative. Walsh (1958, p. 103) adds a further feature of the schema to our list. He states that the schema is the interpretation of both the concept and the intuition. Narrative certainly is essentially in-terpretive, both of the perceived material text and the constructs of unity/plurality. Furthermore, the schema’s interpretive nature is essential when we transfer narrative to the self because it emphasizes that the storied personal identity is supposed to be an interpretation of the embodied self. Nota bene, narrative identity . embodied self. Some of the listed features of the schema are functional in nature. Johnson (1987) points out three main functions of the schema: “The schema is, for Kant, a procedure of imagination for producing images and ordering representations.” (p. 155). Johnson complements the represen-tational (“producing images”) and the organizational (“ordering representations”) functions with the unifying one: “[…] the activity of imagination […] constitutes the temporal unity of our consciousness” (Johnson, 1987, p. 157). In addition, he introduces a world-enabling func-tion that is relevant in our field: “[…] Kant saw correctly that the ability of humans to have, and dwell in, a ‘world’ is tied directly to such schematic structures of imagination” (Johnson, 1987, p. 156; my emphasis). We have a world and can live in this world by giving it form. And for our purpose, we would like to add that this world-enabling function of imagination is valid in the case of possible fictitious worlds as well. We will return to this when we think about the interplay of the world-enabling function of productive imagination and the demiurgic function of poietic imagination. And we must not forget Walsh’s interpretive function that could also be found in Ginsborg’s construct of perceiving as being. Writing and reading as schema are es-sentially interpretive efforts, with the schema supplying the interpretive lens. Walsh (1958, pp. 103-105) detects a problem with Kant’s doctrine that each category has its own particular schema. This precept precludes different schematic rules for the application of a given category to the appearances. According to Walsh (1958, p. 105), every category has an appropriate schema because Kant aimed at an objectively true philosophical system. This is not our aspiration. In line with Walsh (1958) who formulated the desideratum that the “connection between metaphysical concepts and their supposed empirical basis needs to be made far clearer than has hitherto been done” (p. 106), we are trying to understand what the schema is capable of accomplishing during the process of writing and reading the story. In order to allow diverse schemata that represent the same category to co-exist, we will resort to Kant’s symbol as an alternative to the schema. The symbols are applied to Kant’s ideas of reason which are not assignable to intuition.11 Symbols and schemata are of the same generic type, “symbolic and schematic modes of representation are each species of the intuitive genus” (Walsh, 1958, p. 104), but with the symbol there is no intimate relationship between concept and symbol, the idea can be symbolized in a variety of ways. Most certainly, narrative is not the only ‘matrix of rules’ that makes the category of quantity applicable, there is no intimate relationship between the category of quantity and narrative, i.e. that narrative is not the sole manifestation of number, but we are trying to prove that narrative is one schema that is a relevant Wittgensteinian form of life that gives “real meaning to the categories and find[s] for them a genuine use” (Walsh, 1958, p. 106). 11 As we will see below, this impossibility to assign the category to intuition is true for the products of Ricoeur’s ‘productive reference’ as well. Therefore, it seems justifiable to take the Kantian symbol into account when we ponder over the mediating function of the schema. A second problem arises with the schema. Kant’s schematism provides a rule for connection, but it fails to explain how we can accomplish the connection: “This schematism of our under-standing, i.e., its schematism regarding appearances and their mere form, is a secret art residing in the depths of the human soul, an art whose true stratagems we shall hardly ever divine from nature and lay bare before ourselves.” (A141/B181) Mattern (1996, p. 130) now holds that for Ricoeur the schema takes the form of narrative, i.e., the model of the text. Thus, the “secret art” is unfolded in the art of writing and reading a story. Although the working of narrative schema is subtle, we have learned that by being taught how to write and read the story, we learn the schema, and the schema itself can be disclosed in reflection on the activity of writing and read-ing the story. The second component of mediation is synthesis. As stated above, we need to distinguish be-tween transcendental and empirical synthesis. In the realm of transcendental synthesis, figura-tive synthesis is important for us because (a) it constitutes, in analogy with schematism, a con-nection between concepts and percepts, and (b) “produces the figure or structure that any set of representation must fit if they are to be experienced by us as objects in our shared world” (John-son, 1987, p. 151). Transcendental synthesis provides the spatiotemporal form that regulates experience, or, in other words, it is the figurative condition of possibility of experience. The form that every pos-sible object, in our case, that every text must meet is provided by the transcendental synthesis. According to Allison (2015), the transcendental synthesis “mak[es] possible the transition from the categories as mere forms of thought, lacking objective reality, to their true epistemic func-tion as a priori conditions of possible experience” (p. 384). This facilitation comes in two steps. The transcendental synthesis of the imagination (a) connects understanding to time, and (b) it “grounds the empirical synthesis of apprehension, through which the categories are related to empirical intuition” (Allison, 2015, p. 384). Let us first consider step (a). Kant works with two time conceptions, the single and successive all-inclusive time and the determinate time which is a delimited share of this single time. To be able to represent the determinate time, we need to be capable of representing the absent past (= reproduction as retention of past times), the absent future (= projection as protention of future times) and the single all-inclusive time of which all the moments of time in question are delim-ited parts of. For this representation, we are in need of imagination (Allison, 2015, p. 385). It is the figurative synthesis (e.g. the drawing of a line representing time) which provides us with the necessary form that enables representation and the interpretation of this representation. We are in need of figurative synthesis because it configures, i.e., it gives form to the phenomeno-logical time. Following Kant, time’s fundamental feature is not succession, but single-ness/unity. Therefore, determinate moments of the single all-inclusive time must be synthe-sized. Allison holds that the “determinate representation of the manifold of such an intuition requires unification” (Allison, 2015, p. 414). Unification requires synthetic activity, and the vehicle for this unification is the transcendental synthesis of the imagination. So we can con-clude that the nature of time is the figurative condition of the possibility of experience. This pattern of time, characterized chiefly by its unity, is accomplished through the configuration that the transcendental synthesis of the imagination performs. Here we would like to emphasize that the figurative synthesis, in analogy to the schematism and in contrast to the intellectual synthesis, works as mediator between concepts and percepts: This synthesis of the manifold of sensible intuition, which is possible and necessary a priori, can be called figurative (synthesis speciosa), as distinct from that which would be thought in the mere category in regard to the manifold in general, and which is called combination of the understanding (synthesis intellectualis) […].” (B 151) What the figurative synthesis accomplishes is the “determination of the manifold” (B 154). Kant gives some examples of determination: drawing the line in thought, describing the circle, placing three lines perpendicular to each other at the same point (B 154). Kant replies to the question of what the manifold is like by making a picture. The geometric shapes that Kant resorts to in order to determine the manifold illustrate that the transcendental synthesis of im-agination provides the formal condition of possibility of experience. Let us now turn to step (b). According to Allison, the link between the categories and the em-pirical synthesis of apprehension is “supposedly governed by the transcendental synthesis of the imagination” (Allison, 2015, p. 406). What is this power relationship like? Allison clarifies that the empirical synthesis “must conform to the conditions imposed by the transcendental synthesis; viz., the unification of appearances in a single time and space, the empirical synthesis must likewise conform to the rules of unification prescribed by the categories” (Allison, 2015, p. 406). He continues that “whatever turns out to be a necessary condition for the determinate representation of space and time will also be a necessary condition of the apprehension of per-ception of appearance in space and time” (Allison, 2015, p. 414). We can conclude that the empirical synthesis unifies the empirical manifold under the conditions provided by the spatio-temporal unification brought about by the transcendental synthesis. As both mental processes have unification as their goal, we can infer with Kant: “Consequently all synthesis, through which even perception itself becomes possible, stand under the categories.” (B161) Making connections is the mode of operation of synthesis: “By synthesis in the most general sense, however, I understand the action of putting different representations together with each other and comprehending their manifoldness in one cognition.” (A77, B103) Synthesis is a “combinatory act” (Allison, 2015, p. 420). Young (1988) holds that these Kantian connections that are established among representations by synthesis are not external in a Humean style, but that they are internal. He explains that “Kant’s view is that perception involves not just being in a certain sensible state but also construing that state as the awareness of something” (Young, 1988, p. 145). The construal is the “characteristic act of imagination” (Young, 1988, p. 145). By linking perception to interpretation, cognition turns into ‘active receptivity’ (Hall, 2007), it is no longer pure receptivity of the external. Construal links sensible states with other states, past or possible, and this linking of construal is normative: “[…] to construe one’s current sen-sible state as the awareness of something is to bring it under a rule that links it with other such states” (Young, 1988, p. 146). Internal connections are established by imagination by means of interpretive synthesis. Interpretation is rule-governed, and it is the rule that makes the connec-tions. Here, we need to remember that the schema is the rule. Therefore, Allison (2015, p. 134) rightly concludes that the figurative synthesis is governed by their schematized counterparts. We would like to generalize that all forms of synthesis are governed by the schemata. Here the problem arises that Young attributed the property of ‘internal’ to the connections made by syn-thesis. Is the rule that is conceptualized as schema and that governs interpretation internal? In our opinion, we need to admit that the dichotomy of internal/external does not help us when we want to describe the nature of the compounds produced by synthesis. Let us summarize at this point the three forms of synthesis with Allison (2015): “Considered with respect to its function of unifying the manifold of sensible intuition in general it is an intellectual synthesis; while the same act considered in relation to the specific forms of human sensibility is termed the transcendental synthesis of the imagination and in relation to the sen-sible content intuited under these forms it is the empirical synthesis of apprehension.” (p. 420) We omitted intellectual synthesis because it has no mediating function between concepts and percepts. Figurative synthesis provides us with the specific forms that are the unifying condi-tions of possibility of intuition, empirical synthesis unifies the intuitive content of perception. Finally, we would like to shift our attention from perception to experience. Kant regards expe-rience as “cognition through connected perceptions” (B 161). Therefore, not only the mathe-matical categories (Quantity and Quality) are relevant in this kind of cognition, but also the dynamical categories (Relation and Modality)12. The mathematical categories are necessary conditions of the possibility of experience because experience requires perception and the con-nection of perceptions in experience is the “epistemic tasks of the relational categories” (Alli-son, 2015, p. 423). Allison emphasizes the interdependence of the mathematical and dynamical categories in experience: 12 We will see below that Causality (Relation) and Possibility/Necessity (Modality) are relevant categories for Ricoeur’s (1984) configurational imaginative act. […] without the mathematical categories there would be no perceptions to connect through their dynamical counterparts (at least the relational counterparts), while without the latter the distinct perceptions constituted through the application to the manifold of an empirical intuition there could be no unification of these perceptions in a single con-sciousness (Allison, 2015, p. 425). The perceptions, i.e., the products of unification by empirical synthesis under the governance of transcendental synthesis, are unified once more in apperception. This double unification pro-cess that is dependent on our imagination’s faculty to make connections renders experience possible. And thus, synthesis produces cognition: The synthesis of a manifold, however, […] first brings forth a cognition, which to be sure may initially still be raw and confused, und thus in need of analysis; yet the syn-thesis alone is that which properly collects the elements for cognitions and unifies them into a certain content; it is therefore the first thing to which we have to attend if we wish to judge about the first origin of our cognition. (A 77f./B 103) What we learn from Kant is that synthesis necessarily precedes analysis. Cognition originates in synthesis, and it can be analyzed after synthesis has produced it in order to refine and organize its content. When we transfer Kant’s argument to the reading experience of the literary text, we can understand the difference between Ricoeurian (1984) narrative theory that attempts to explain the generation of the world of the text by the synthetic acts of prefiguration, configura-tion and refiguration, and the analytic activity exercised on the text as prescribed by structuralist narratology. At this point, we need to clarify the relationship of schematism and synthesis in order to be able to understand how the interplay of these functions of imagination can be operationalized in the field of writing and reading the story. We hypothesize that the interaction of schema and figur-ate synthesis can be grasped by the idea of the mediating productive rule. Synthesis is the pro-ductive element, it generates unified experience through making connections, schema is the rule of synthesis, and both synthesis and schema mediate between the categories and the intuition (Lohmar, 1993). This conception of the schema as a rule of synthesis can be justified when we consider Kant’s elaboration of the schema of the triangle: “The schema of the triangle can never exist anywhere except in thought, and signifies a rule of the synthesis of the imagination with regard to pure shapes in space.” (A141, B180; my emphasis) Lohmar (1993) offers a reading of Kant’s First Critique that is compatible with our interpreta-tion. The schema is a general rule for the production of all possible images of an object without actually executing the rule and thus producing any picture (pp. 102-103., p. 124). The figurative synthesis, on the other hand, tells us something about the mode of production (p. 103) which is characterized as the drawing of the Gestalt (B 162), or, as Lohmar (1993) puts it, the Gestalt-bildung (p. 106). It makes the concrete, distinctive connections of the manifold possible: “Eine konkrete, unverwechselbar bestimmte Verbindung des Mannigfaltigen wird also erst durch die Handlung der figürlichen Synthesis möglich.” (Lohmar, 1993, p. 105) To conclude, the schema is the normative, and the synthesis is the generative component in the transcendental interaction that mediates between concept and percept. In the same vein, Ricoeur states in the preface to Time and Narrative. Volume 1 (1984) that the synthetic operation is schematized. The schema here is a procedural rule, the synthesis being the procedure of making connections. With Ricoeur, the interplay of schema and synthesis can be characterized as a rule of relating. Moser (2021) offers an alternative view of the interplay of schema and synthesis in Kant’s First Critique: “[…] schematism is a general method, a synthesis, that is, a figural synthesis to be exact. Through a synthetic act the productive power of spontaneity brings connection to the manifold of intuition. This connection is understood as figure, as order, as structure.” (p. 109). Moser equates schematism with synthesis, a position that cannot be upheld in light of our argu-mentation above that synthesis and schematism are separate mental activities with their respective functions. Nevertheless, her understanding of the connection as figure that is brought about by the general method is a connecting factor to Ricoeur’s (1984) theory of the threefold mimesis as figuration. With reference to Krämer (2016), Moser provides a second definition of the interplay of schematism and synthesis. She holds that it is the task of schematism to bring about this figural synthesis. This is an apparent inconsistency: First, schematism and synthesis are equated, then the synthesis is the product of schematism. There is one more concern with Moser’s (2021) line of thought. She defines the concept as “rule according to which my imag-ination can generally build the Gestalt […] without being limited to any particular Gestalt that experience or even a possible picture would provide” (p. 109). We have dealt with all the com-ponents from this definition. First, both schema and figurative synthesis are functions of the imagination. We attributed the normative element, i.e., the prescript for construction, to schema, and not to the category itself, and the capacity to “build the Gestalt […] without being limited to any particular Gestalt” to the figurative synthesis. Although the description of the function-ality is identical, we differ in ascription. Whereas Moser ascribes the normative and formative functions to the faculty of understanding – it is the category that she defines - , we attribute these functions to imagination. It is noteworthy that Moser establishes temporal figurality as the principle for the schematiza-tion of all concepts (Moser, 2021, p. 110). In our view, this determination of the interplay of schema and figurative synthesis as temporal figurality is accurate although we disagree with the attribution of temporal figurality to schematization alone. The schema determines time and represents the temporal-normative component, the synthesis provides the form and constitutes the figurative component. Moser contributes two more relevant ideas: She links the schema to symbolization and states that it does not only determine time, but also allows insight into the self and the world. These impulses will be taken up when we discuss the narrative as schema with Ricoeur (1984). There, we will hypothesize that narrative as schema “relates only to the rule of how to bring about the symbolizations” (Moser, 2021, p. 110) and that narrative is a means of understanding oneself and the world. We will utter one final remark on what we learn from Moser about the nature of engagement from the application of the schemata. What we find in Kant’s schematism is not an underlining of constructivism, but a form of engagement that corresponds to ‘active receptivity’: “The sche-matism shows that there is something in the world itself, which allows it to be suited to be the form of our experience.” (Moser, 2021, p. 110). Schematism is not a kind of a priori intention-ality (Moser, 2021, p. 111), there is an unconscious, passive aspect to it. What schematism does is drawing an analogy between self and the world. In Krämer’s (2016) words we discover that we are “of the same kind”13 (p. 66). According to Moser (2021, p. 111), schema gives structure to something that already has structure. The “schematism shows the family resemblance be-tween what is subjective and what is objective” (Moser, 2021, p. 111), and these analogies are the condition of the possibility of cognition. 13 The German original metaphorically reads “vom selben Holz geschnitzt“. Let us now summarize what we learnt about productive imagination. We would like to conclu-sively hypothesize with Johnson (1987, p. 147) that meaningful unity (representation) and order (structure) are brought about by productive imagination. Mental representations are unified and structured under more general concepts in determinate judgements, and “knowledge is the result of [these] judgements in which the contents of our sense perceptions are organized by concepts” (Johnson, 1987, p. 148). With Ricoeur (1984) we will transfer the workings of imagination to the field of writing and reading the story, and we will ask ourselves what imagination as sche-matizing-synthesizing faculty accomplishes when we write and read the story. What can already be said is that mythos is assumed to perform the structural function of imagination, mimesis the representational one. The rule of relations as generated by the productive imagination consti-tutes the condition of possibility for cognition. This law of combination is worked on in poietic imagination, a process that Kant termed “free lawfulness” (KU 5: 240) in his 3rd Critique. To understand the poietic work on the law, we need to turn to creative imagination now. 2.2 Kantian creative imagination Kant evinces intense interest in the exploration of mental activities and the judgements they generate. Two types of judgements can be distinguished: (a) determinate judgement on the basis of available concepts (1st Critique), (b) reflective judgement generating new ideas (3rd Cri-tique): The power of judgment can be regarded either as a mere faculty for reflecting on a given representation, in accordance with a certain principle, for the sake of a concept that is thereby made possible, or as a faculty for determining an underlying concept through a given empirical representation. In the first case it is the reflecting, in the second case the determining power of judgment. To reflect (to consider), however, is to compare and to hold together given representations either with others or with one’s faculty of cognition, in relation to a concept thereby made possible. The reflecting power of judg-ment is that which is also called the faculty of judging (facultas diiudicandi). (KU 20: 211) What brings together these two kinds of judgement is their synthetic function: “All judgements are functions of unity among representations.” (A69, B93). As we learned above, unity is achieved by “bringing various representations under one common representation” (A68, B93). So we can conclude that creative imagination that brings forth reflective judgements makes use of the same synthesizing capacity as productive imagination does, the difference being that the synthetic activity is not governed by a schematized concept. When we refer to Kant again, we can hold that there are two ways according to which synthesis works: (a) manner (modus aes-theticus): creative imagination creates a “feeling of unity in the presentation” (KU 5: 318f.), (b) method (modus logicus): productive imagination follows determinate principles. Kant mainly addresses the reflective judgement in his 3rd Critique. Although reflective judge-ment is deficient in Kant’s view as it does not constitute an act of objective knowledge genera-tion, its poietic function is vital for our investigation of the role of imagination in the writ-ing/reading the story. Johnson characterizes this type of judgement as the “creative act of re-flecting on representations in search of novel orderings of them, which thereby generates new meaning” (1987, p. 157). It is exactly these novel orders and new meanings precipitated by new concepts (“for the sake of a concept that is thereby made possible”) that are in turn generated by “compar[ing] and hold[ing] together given representations either with others or with one’s faculty of cognition” that we are interested in when we deal with creative imagination below. The 3rd Critique aims at bridging the chasm between the domains of the rule (1st Critique) and freedom (2nd Critique) by means of the power of judgement. It is hypothesized here that imag-ination contributes to bridging the gap by establishing the dialectic of freedom and constraint14. Whereas productive imagination represents the pole of constraint, creative imagination consti-tutes the pole of freedom. This dialectic is, again, acted out in ‘active receptivity’; freedom is exercised under the constraint of the rule. Let us now turn to Kant’s remarks on aesthetic judge-ment and artistic creation to learn about this dialectic and its implications for engagement. Sub-sequently, we will tackle the question what the dialectic means for the writing and reading of the story and for the process of learning. 14 This hypothesis was inspired by Matherne’s (2016, p. 61) assumption that the Critique of the Power of Judge-ment bridges the gap between nature (1st Critique) and freedom (2nd Critique). According to Kant, the judgement of taste, i.e., the aesthetic judgement, is “produced through the free play of our imagination and understanding” (Matherne, 2016, p. 61; my emphasis). This means that the aesthetic judgement is not a cognitive judgement in the sense that a given concept is applied to intuition, but it has a cognitive dimension as it is defined as an interplay between the cognitive capacities of imagination and understanding. Johnson (1987) describes the processes during reflective judgement as follows: “[…] the mind ‘plays over’ various representations (percepts, images, concepts) in search of possible ways that they might be or-ganized, although this process is free from the control of understanding (which is the faculty that supplies concepts)” (p. 158). At first, the being “free from the control of understanding” seems to contradict the presumed interaction of understanding and imagination. This needs clarification: “The powers of cognition that are set into play by this representation [of the beau-tiful] are hereby in a free play, since no determinate concept restricts them to a particular rule of cognition.” (KU 5:217) Kant holds that one particular concept, here conceptualized as a rule, does not exert complete control over imagination. Playing on a rule does not imply imagina-tion’s absolute determination by the category, but the rule being constrained by the understand-ing’s concepts while playing freely with these concepts. The relationship between the faculties is therefore not hierarchical, but harmonious (KU 5: 218f.). In contrast to rule-governed reproductive and productive imagination, the “free play” of crea-tive imagination is “productive [in the sense of poietic] and self active” (KU 5: 240). In order to understand what it means that imagination is “productive”, it seems worthwhile to consider the discourse on the constitutive link between imagination and creativity (Gaut, 2003). For this reason, we will take up Stokes’ (2016) research question of what role imagination plausibly plays in creativity. Before we deal with the connection between imagination and creativity, we need to define cre-ativity. Stokes (2016, p. 247) lays down two criteria for the products of creativity: (a) novelty, and (b) value. Gaut (2010, pp. 1039-1040) exchanges novelty with salient newness which he terms originality, retains value, and he adds the following criteria for the process of creativity: “[…] a relevant purpose (in not being purely accidental), some degree of understanding (not using merely mechanical search procedures), a degree of judgement (in how to apply a rule, if a rule is involved) and an evaluative ability directed to the task at hand” (Gaut, 2010, p. 1040). He terms all these additional features which creativity needs to include ‘flair’. So his final def-inition reads: “[…] creativity is the capacity to produce original and valuable items by flair” (Gaut, 2010, p. 1041). We assume that creativity defined as such and imagination are compati-ble processes as we are analyzing the self-evaluative person’s capacity for purposeful behavior that involves judgement based on understanding and productive imagination (remember the rule). Now we will turn to two models of how imagination and creativity are connected. First, Vygot-sky (1967/2004) proposes that “[…] imagination, as the basis of all creative activity, is an im-portant component of absolutely all aspects of cultural life, enabling artistic, scientific, and technical creation alike” (p. 9). Imagination is the basis of all creativity. Vygotsky defines this basis as follows: “It is this ability to combine elements to produce a structure, to combine the old in new ways that is the basis of creativity.” (Vygotsky, 1967/2004, p. 12). Vygotsky thus stresses the synthetic function of imagination, and we agree that the making of connections is at the heart of imagination’s functionality. The combination of the old in new ways to generate novel structures is also in line with the Ricoeurian idea of tradition. It is noteworthy that Vygot-sky considerably expands the scope of imagination: “In this sense, absolutely everything around us that was created by the hand of man, the entire world of human culture, as distinct from the world of nature, all this is the product of human imagination and of creation based on this imagination.” (Vygotsky, 1967/2004, pp. 9-10) As a consequence, imagination and creativity are essential conditions for the cultural existence of humans as they make poiesis possible (Vygotsky, 1967/2004, p. 11). Whereas Vygotsky puts forward a ‘source-theory’ that suggests creativity is developed from imagination, Gaut (2003) advances a ‘vehicle-theory’ that has a methodological focus.15 In his view, it is decisive how imagination is employed. As it can also be applied in an uncreative way, he rejects the ‘source-theory’ as unsatisfactory (Gaut, 2003, p. 158). In his search model, Gaut links the workings of imagination to active creativity (Gaut, 2003, p. 156).16 By active creativity, Gaut understands a “sustained conscious process” (Gaut, 2003) in which there is an active search for a solution. The creative idea is the result of “having worked through various possibilities ordered in logical space” (Gaut, 2003, p. 157). Imagination enables us to try out relevant possibilities and to select among these possibilities. To sum up, imagination being the vehicle of creativity means that imagination is the “mental capacity which is used in being actively creative” (Gaut, 2003, p. 159). 15 Beaney (2005, pp. 200-203) also advocates a vehicular hypothesis in his connection model of creative imagi-nation. 16 Gaut’s (2003) display model that addresses the link of imagination to passive creativity in which the creator is initially unaware of the creative process, however, is irrelevant to our work because “imagination operates as a way of displaying the results of creativity to the creative person, but […] creativity itself operates through some other mental capacity […]” (p. 275). Here, imagination is “extraneous to the creative process” (Gaut, 2003), and therefore the model does not explain the role of imagination during the creative process. Gaut (2003, p. 160) reveals why imagination is suitable as a vehicle for active creativity. Unlike belief (commitment to truth) and intention (commitment to action), imagination has no intrinsic end: “Creative uses of imagining are thus identified, not by their aims, but by their results […]” (Gaut, 2003, p. 160). This is in line with Kant’s postulation that the purpose of creative imagi-nation is a determinate concept that is connected to creative imagination’s product, the aesthetic idea (see below). The absence of the commitment, i.e., the freedom of playfulness, is the con-dition of possibility of creativity. As the end is extrinsic, Gaut concludes that imagination can be applied for many purposes. He summarizes: “It is the nature of imagination as an intentional state, being free of commitments to truth and action, that allows it to be the vehicle of active creativity […]” (Gaut, 2003, p. 161). This vehicle function is, according to Gaut, the “constitu-tive connection between imagination and creativity” (Gaut, 2003, p. 161). To sum up, both Vygotsky and Gaut regard imagination and creativity as fundamentally inter-connected. Whereas Vygotsky regards imagination as the basis of creativity and hereby empha-sizes the source from which creativity develops, Gaut considers imagination the vehicle of cre-ativity, thus stressing the methodological aspect. In fact, both agree on how imagination might be creative: the making of connections in the realm of possibility. Vygotsky taught us that the combing of elements to produce a novel structure is the apt method. Gaut (2010) agrees that the creative product is brought about through the synthetic function of imagination: “creativity con-sists in making connections by the use of imagination between disparate domains, e.g. in met-aphor making […]” (p. 1044). As stated above, Vygotsky complements the synthetic function with the temporal aspect of tradition, and Gaut recognizes the synthesis according to the meta-phorical principle as a paradigmatic case of creative imagination’s modus operandi. Gaut holds that synthesis is one way how imagination functions in creative activity, but it is not the sole method: “Making connections is one way to be creative, but it is not the only way” (Gaut, 2010, p. 1044), and he illustrates this be referring to the creativity of disconnecting things. At this point we will hypothesize that imaginative variation and thought experiments, which will turn out relevant in the course of our endeavor, are instances of creative imagination. Thought experiments which aim at creative discovery (Stokes, 2016, p. 256) adhere to the basic operating principles of creative imagination outlined above: synthetic creation of variants of the given in the realm of possibility. Imaginative variation takes up the methodological aspect of creative imagination that Vygotsky termed the combination of the old in new ways, thus performing the dialectic of freedom and constraint. Now that we have established the link between imagination and creativity, let us return to ‘free play’ and the rule and stay with synthesis. In Kantian creative imagination, the synthesis is not governed by the category via the schemata, but it is “free to explore or play with putting the manifold together in a multitude of different ways” (Matherne, 2016, p. 62). Kant terms the interplay of imagination and understanding “free lawfulness” (KU 5: 240). Imaginative free play must “accord with the understanding’s demand that there be ‘unity’ in what the imagination synthesizes” (KU 5:287). It follows that the dialectic of freedom and constraint has unity as its pivot. Johnson (1987, p. 161) rightly holds that Kantian creative imagination is not entirely rule-gov-erned, but that there are rules involved in making art. We would like to remind the reader of productive imagination’s schema that manifests a normative principle. Below we will hypoth-esize, based on Ricoeur’s (1984) notion of tradition as dialectic of sedimentation and innova-tion, that the writing and reading of the story enact the interplay of productive (the rule of nar-rative) and creative imagination (the play with the rule of narrative), thus accepting Johnson’s basic assumption. In our view, the free play of imagination that is not governed by binding concepts nevertheless works on concepts that are indispensable for the synthetic function that imagination also needs to fulfil in order to make understanding possible. Where we disagree with Kant is that rationality without algorithmic rules is deficient. A mode of thinking that is different from pure logic is needed so that we can explain the creative function of aesthetic judgement and artistic activity. Henceforth we will call this mode poietic play. Analogies between the aesthetic judgement and artistic activity with regard to the workings of imagination can be detected in Kant. Unlike in reproductive and productive imagination, but in accord with the operating principles of aesthetic judgement, creative imagination relates to the understanding in a free way during artistic activity: […] in the use of the imagination for cognition, the imagination is under the constraint of the understanding and is subject to being adequate to its concept; in an aesthetic re-spect, however, the imagination is free to provide, beyond the concord with the concept, unsought extensive undeveloped material for the understanding” (KU 5:316f.). The nonhierarchical relation of imagination and understanding in creative imagination makes poietic play possible. At this point, the role of imagination in the creative process needs to be clarified. Here is what Kant says: The imagination (as a productive cognitive faculty) is, namely, very powerful in creat-ing, as it were, another nature, out of the material which the real one gives it. We enter-tain ourselves with it when experience seems too mundane to us; we transform the latter, no doubt always in accordance with analogous laws, but also in accordance with prin-ciples that lie higher in reason […]; in this we feel our freedom from the law of associ-ation (which applies to the empirical use of that faculty), in accordance with which ma-terial can certainly be lent to us by nature, but the latter can be transformed by us into something entirely different, namely into that which steps beyond nature. (KU 5: 314) With creative imagination, freedom from empirical laws that control reproductive imagination becomes possible. Creative imagination breaks the stranglehold of the rule without disconnect-ing itself from the rule (Cf. aesthetic judgement above). Remember our proposed dialectic of freedom and constraint. The effect of this dialectic of imagination is the transformation of ex-perience (“creating […] another nature”), nature might be transcended. This imagination’s po-tential to transform reality will be taken up when we think about semantic innovation in Ricoeur (1984) and education as transformative practice in Illeris (2017). § 49 of the 3rd Critique which deals with artistic activity tackles two questions that matter in the field of education: (a) Who is capable of exercising creative imagination? (b) How does this capable person exercise creative imagination? As there is no category that determines cognition in creative imagination, Kant resorts to ‘taste’ if one is to judge beautiful objects and to ‘genius’ if one is to produce beautiful object. Both taste and genius are conceptualized as capacities or talents of distinguished individuals, and genius is explicitly not learnable or teachable according to Kant. Before we return to the issue of teachability of the capacities of judging and producing art, we will address the question of how creative imagination is performed. Kant’s reasoning starts with the notion of spirit which is characterized as an animating principle (KU 5: 313). This animating principle is the “faculty for the presentation of aesthetic ideas” (KU 5: 314), and the aesthetic idea is in turn defined as “representation of the imagination that occasions much thinking though without it being possible for any determinate thought, i.e., concept, to be adequate to it, which, consequently, no language fully attains or can make it intelligible“ (KU 5: 314). Therefore, the aesthetic idea can be regarded as the counterpart of the ideas of reason. Whereas the idea of reason has no intuition, the aesthetic idea has no concept. This having no concept limits its understandability. In analogy with reflective judgement, there is no pre-given concept that is automatically applicable to experience. Artistic activity, by con-trast, represents an attempt to generate new concepts and novel ways of structuring, i.e., aes-thetic ideas. Kant summarizes: In a word, the aesthetic idea is a representation of the imagination, associated with a given concept, which is combined with such a manifold of partial representations in the free use of the imagination that no expression designating a determinate concept can be found for it, which therefore allows the addition to a concept of much that is unnamea-ble, the feeling of which animates the cognitive faculties and combines spirit with the mere letter of language. (KU 5: 316) Aesthetic ideas are the product of the dialectic of imagination, they are novel due to the work-ings of creative imagination and still associated with existing concepts that are schematized in productive imagination. Matherne (2016, p. 63) regards imagination’s work on the original con-cept as simultaneous presentation and expansion of the original concept, what gives further evidence for the hypothesized dialectic of freedom and constraint that is operative in imagina-tion. Kant describes the effect of poietic play on the given concepts as follows: Now if we add to a concept a representation of the imagination that belongs to its presen-tation, but which by itself stimulates so much thinking that it can never be grasped in a determinate concept, hence which aesthetically enlarges the concept itself in an un-bounded way, then in this case the imagination is creative, and sets the faculty of intel-lectual ideas (reason) into motion, that is, at the instigation of a representation it gives more to think about than can be grasped and made distinct in it (although it does, to be sure, belong to the concept of the object). (KU 5: 315) The aesthetic idea enlarges the determinate concept. The attribute ‘aesthetic’ denotes the method of enlargement, and additionally the method is “unbounded” which refers to the free-dom pole in our postulated dialectic. Johnson (1987) interprets the enlargement by the aesthetic ideas as follows: “They [the aesthetical ideas] thus create new meaning, new significance, by going beyond the confines of our established conceptual system.” (p. 162) In conclusion, the aesthetic idea has a connection to the concept, but the concept does not fully capture it. There is an added value to the aesthetic idea, it is capable of expressing the hitherto unspeakable. If we consider Sartre’s ideas on creative imagination in Being and Nothingness (1948), we need to add two effects that poietic play brings about. Stokes (2016, p. 252) detects an existential role of imagination in Sartre. Creative imagination is vital in (a) the creation of the self, and (b) the changing of the world. On the one hand, “imagination seems essential to how we become, how we create and identify as, individual selves” (Stokes, 2016, p. 252) and is thus a remedy for self-deception, a state in which the individual avoids responsibility that comes with free will. On the other hand, imagination is involved in changing the world. This is how Webber (2004) interprets the transformative effect of creative imagination on the world in his introduc-tion to Sartre’s The Imaginary: We can imagine the world or any part of it being different from the way it in fact is. This ability is necessary to motivate changing the world. We can imagine it, moreover, as being different in any number of ways, and so can present ourselves with any number of ways that we might try to mould it. We are therefore not compelled to live in the world as we find it. We can and do act to change it, and this involves imagination. (p. xxvi) Through creative imagination, we obtain the freedom to conceive of the world in different ways, we leave necessity and enter possibility. In other words, we produce imaginative variations of the world. From these variants produced by creative imagination, we can select an option for our future world. By choosing a variant that is different from our current perception of the world, we are provided with a goal which our actions aspire to. In this way, creative imagination is a prerequisite for change. To sum up, poietic imagination is capable of creating future images of ourselves and our worlds. Possibilities are opened up that we may explore. These explorations have the potential to transform our identities, they may change our relations to ourselves and to our worlds. This transformative potential might be cultivated in learning. We will return to this soon. We have discussed the links of the aesthetic idea and concepts above. In a teleological sense, the aesthetic idea is also connected to the concept because creative imagination is guided by a “determinate concept of the product, as an end” (KU 5:317). Closure can be classified as such a determinate concept that is the purpose of creative imagination in writing and reading the story. In sum, creation does not occur ex nihilo, the creative process is linked to the given con-cepts. Either the given concepts are played upon, or they serve as a purpose for the play. Thus, the mode of poietic play is set in a conceptual tradition that works, as outlined above, on the principle of Ricoeurian sedimentation and innovation. In our field, the poietic play of writing and reading the story and its products, the aesthetic ideas, are necessarily tied to the schema of mythos (Ricoeur, 1984). We can establish with Kant that aesthetic ideas are connected to concepts and their schemata, and Ricoeur taught us that these connections are traditional in nature. But aesthetic ideas are not only tied to concepts, they also effectuate connections among intuitions. We have briefly addressed the synthetic function of creative imagination above. Let us now hypothesize that (a) creative imagination produces metaphors and similes by means of analogy according to the criterion of similarity, (b) Kantian aesthetic ideas are in fact metaphorical in nature (Gaut, 2003). Johnson (1987) holds that, according to Kant, metaphor and analogy are significant for creative imagination: “It is important to see that Kant is actually talking about metaphorical and analogical thought processes as basic to creative imaginative activity.” (p. 164) Above we adopted Gaut ‘s (2003, pp. 162-168) hypothesis which equates Kant’s aesthetic ideas with metaphoricity. He argues that all examples of aesthetic ideas are in fact metaphors because they “involve attributing something that Kant thinks of as the referent of a rational idea (invis-ible beings, God, death, virtue) a property which it does not literally possess, but which can be fruitfully attributed to it […]” (Gaut, 2003, p. 163). And he continues that this “[m]etaphor-making […] is a paradigm17 of creative imagination.” (Gaut, 2003, p. 163) He specifies his understanding of the relationship of metaphor and imagination by stating that the metaphor-making is an “instance of creative imagination” and metaphor an “expression of imagination” (Gaut, 2003, p. 164). The “instance” denotes an entity that can be subsumed under the faculty 17 By paradigm, Gaut (2003) understands “an aspect of the phenomenon” (p. 163) in question. of imagination, i.e., metaphor-making is an exemplary case of the workings of creative imagi-nation. Metaphor itself is the product, the “expression” of this faculty. Gaut (2003) summarizes: Metaphor-making, then, is a paradigm of creative imagination, for in good metaphors an imaginative act brings together two otherwise disparate domains, and in so doing invites us to look at some object in an original yet apt fashion. As such it displays par-ticularly clearly a central way in which active creativity operates. (p. 165) Metaphor-making shows how creative imagination works. It “brings together two otherwise disparate domains”, which is highly reminiscent of Ricoeur’s (1984) formula for the mythos: the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. In metaphor-making, imagination fulfills its synthetic function. In reception, the metaphor invites the reader to look differently at the object. More specifically, the reader is asked to imagine x as y (Gaut, 2003, p. 164). Here, the “as” sets the perspective, meaning that x is perceived as if it were y. And he adds that “[t]he perspective we are invited to take up on the object is the perspective of imagination […]” (Gaut, 2003, p. 164). At this point, we find it worthwhile to draw analogies between metaphor and narrative, some-thing we adopt from Ricoeur who moves from metaphor (Rule of Metaphor) to narrative (Time and Narrative) by pointing out similarities between these two linguistic phenomena. We will assume that story-making (i.e., the process of mythos-mimesis) is one more instance of the workings of imagination and that the story is one more expression of imagination. Adapting Gaut’s (2003) postulation, we maintain that story-making is also a paradigm of creative imagi-nation. Therefore, the writing and reading of a story is a writing and reading of the story as narrative which is the perspective of imagination. This implies a modification of our former tentative understanding of narrative: Narrative is not only an instance of productive imagination in the sense that it represents a schema of synthesis, it is also an instance of creative imagination. Writing and reading the story as narrative, i.e., from the perspective of creative-productive im-agination, means that we operate in the dialectic of freedom and constraint, not only under the given schematic rule. In sum, Kantian spirit - the animating principle - is the faculty for making metaphors and – we would like to add – similes. So we can readily agree to the first part of Aristotle’s quote from his Poetics that “the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars” (1459a5-8). We can also consent to his definition of metaphor-making as the “perception of the similarity in dissimilars”, just think of the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. But to accept that metaphor-making (Aristotle) as instance of creative imagination and creative imagination (Kant) generally cannot be learnt would mean that they were irrelevant in education. According to Kant, creative imagination is neither teachable nor learnable: […] thus genius really consist in the happy relation, which no science can teach and no diligence learn, of finding ideas for a given concept on the one hand and on the other hitting upon the expression for these, through which the subjective disposition of the mind that is thereby produced, as an accompaniment of a concept, can be communicated to others. (KU 5: 317) Genius is defined as the double capability of finding ideas for a given concept and of expressing these ideas so that they become generally communicable. These expressions of aesthetic ideas, especially linguistic expressions, are our future subject matter when we turn to the exploration of the story. In addition, the interplay of imagination and understanding is integral to genius: “The mental powers, then, whose union (in a certain relation) constitutes genius, are imagina-tion and understanding.” (KU 5:316) The ideal of harmony that characterizes the relationship of the capabilities of genius (“happy relation”) as well as the relationship of the mental powers constitutive of genius (“union”) is conspicuous. Kant decides axiomatically that genius is not teachable: “[…] the unsought and unintentional subjective purposiveness in the free corre-spondence of the imagination to the lawfulness of the understanding presupposes a proportion and disposition of this faculty that cannot be produced by any following of rules, […] but that only the nature of the subject can produce.” (KU 5: 317f.) Kant ascribes the capability of the genius to the nature of the individual subject. The talent for finding the aesthetic idea and saying the unsayable is only given to the favorites of nature: The latter talent is really that which is called spirit, for to express what is unnameable in the mental state in the case of a certain representation and to make it universally communicable, whether the expression consist in language, or painting, or in plastic art – that requires a faculty for apprehending the rapidly passing play of the imagination and unifying it into a concept (which for that very reason is original and at the same time discloses a new rule, which could not have been deduced from any antecedent principles or examples), which can be communicated without the constraint of rules. (KU 5:317) What it takes to produce an aesthetic idea is the capacity to capture and synthesize the transient connections that poietic play generates so that the product of the synthesis can constitute a novel and original rule. In the Kantian faculty, this capability is an innate faculty of the distinguished individual, and therefore it is neither teachable nor learnable. With Gaut (2004), we will defy Kant and hold that we can teach and learn creative imagination, at least to some degree. Vygotsky (1967/2004, p. 10) rejects the idea that creativity is limited to the deeds of the genius. Nickerson (1999) adds that creativity can be partly learned. Egan and Judson (2016) also hold that “everyone is imaginative in varying degrees” (p. 4), therefore creativity is teachable. Fi-nally, Stokes (2016) detects in Sartre’s interpretation of narrative identity formation – a process to be enhanced by literature education - a general human faculty for creativity: “[…] on his [Sartre’s] theory, we are regular creators of the original narratives that frame our lives and de-termine how we self identify” (p. 257). In the field of the writing/reading the story, Oatley (2011) holds: “The first misleading idea is that creativity is open only to a few geniuses in touch with the muses. This is not true. Creativity is open to us all. It is open in many ways, one of which […] is what we do when we engage with fiction, as readers, watchers, or writers.” (p. 53) In contrast to Kant, he considers learning a prerequisite for creativity. On this basis, we will attempt at substantiating the claim that creativity is teachable and learn-able and, subsequently, we will ask ourselves how the transformative potential of creative im-agination can be cultivated. According to Gaut (2014), the teachability claim contradicts the opinion that ”creativity is an innate capacity that cannot be learned” (p. 265). Initially, Gaut counters Kant’s two arguments against the teachability of creativity: (a) All learning is a form of imitation. Kant maintains that genius is innate and cannot be imitated. This implies that ge-nius as the faculty for creativity cannot be learned. (b) All learning consists in the following of rules. According to Kant, genius does not follow the rule, but gives the rule to art. He concludes that neither taste (sensitivity to the beautiful) nor spirit (capability to present aesthetic ideas) can be learned (Gaut, 2014, pp. 266-267). As a consequence, Kant’s position here is incompat-ible with a theory of creative learning. First, Gaut, in opposition to Kant, holds that not all learning is imitation. Here, Kant‘s view on learning is based on a wrong premise; we only need to think of learning from experience (Gaut, 2014, pp. 268-269). In addition, imitation need not be equated with copying: “Rather, learning by imitation requires intelligent and flexible copying of the relevant aspects [=selection] of a behavior. […] the production of relevantly similar things […] requires judgement, skill, and bringing something of one’s own to bear” (Gaut, 2014, p. 269). Therefore, imitation is poten-tially creative. Second, learning is not tantamount to the following of rules, it is an “exercise [of] judgement in applying the rule”. (Gaut, 2014, p. 270). From this, Gaut (2014) concludes the “ineliminable role for judgement in learning” (p. 270). He agrees that algorithms are incom-patible with creativity because no individual judgements are formed when we apply them, but he holds that most rules involved in learning are not algorithmic in nature. From his countering Kant’s view, Gaut (2014) postulates the teachability of creativity through imagination: “One can teach some people to be more creative.” (p. 271). We need to be aware of Gaut’s double limitation in his claim: (a) Not all the people can be taught to be more creative. (b) Creativity is scalar, not binary. So some people can be taught to increase their level of cre-ativity, and learning how to be creative cannot be understood as the acquisition of an ability one totally lacked before learning. Gaut (2014, pp. 272-276) presents the constitutive argument for his claim in detail. He defines creativity as a kind of disposition that encompasses faculty and motivation. Motivation is easy to achieve during the learning process as creativity is highly valued in Western societies. Ac-cording to Gaut, the ability to produce saliently new and valuable things by flair18 can also be taught. Novelty is primarily achieved through the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’, the “look[ing] for similarities between disparate areas by seeking analogies” (Gaut, 2014, p. 273). Here we can instantly recognize the workings of imagination; imagination is an ability that facilitates novelty which in turn is constitutive of creativity. In addition, Gaut demands from the creator close attention to her experience as one’s own experience guarantees originality. This claim results in our inclusion of experience in the process of writing and reading the story. The making of connections is not restricted to the interior of the story, but is also takes place between the story and the writer/reader’s experience. Gaut summarizes his constitutive argu-ment for the teachability of creativity, mainly through imagination, as follows: 18 Cf. Gaut’s definition above that also includes novelty/originality, value and the exercise of choice, evaluation and judgement as criteria for creativity. So if one analyses creativity – a disposition to produce, in a certain way, new and valu-able things – into its component [sic] motivation and abilities, one can show that crea-tivity can be taught, because the motivation to be creative, the ability to produce new things, and the ability to produce valuable things can all be taught. Let’s call this the constitutive argument for the teachability of creativity. (Gaut, 2014, p. 274) The ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’ does not follow mechanical rules (Cf. algorithms above), but discovering similarities “requires detailed knowledge, experience, and judgement” (Gaut, 2014, p. 277). Gaut seems to have forgotten the main factor in his list of requirements for the synthesis that creates: the imagination. At this point, we assume with Gaut (2014, pp. 274-275) that if we can teach the components of creativity, i.e., the motivation and the faculty, we can teach the whole phenomenon as well. In contrast to stimulating or training, Gaut advocates a notion of education that aims to “get [students] to understand what she is doing” (Gaut, 2014, p. 276). Here, education requires a degree of understanding, and educating for creativity means enhancing someone’s abilities to create the saliently new and valuable, imagination being one of the crucial abilities involved. There is a further specification of creativity in Gaut that deserves our attention. Creativity is “in certain respects general and in other respects domain-specific” (Gaut, 2014, p. 283). The gen-eral criteria of novelty, value, flair have been outlined above. The capacity of imaginative cre-ativity, however, are realized differently in various domains, i.e., the heuristic rules that guide a specific activity fulfil the general criteria but are also adapted to the very activity in question. For instance, Gaut establishes rules for creative writing (Gaut, 2014, pp. 280-281) which also covers life writing, an activity we will adopt in our intervention to raise the students’ conscious-ness of their narrative identities. He holds that creative writing has to take record of a full range of sense experience, and that experience has to be defamiliarized19 with the aim to break down habitual modes of perceiving and being and thus to open up new perspectives. In addition, the writers need to combine elements of several people whom one knows in character creation, and they have to find similarities between dissimilar things. Finally, they have to show, not to tell (Gaut, 2014, pp. 280-281). The significance of intuition and the image, the connection of reality and fiction, the method of metaphorical relation, and the defamiliarizing effect are domain-specific heuristic rules of writing the story, and they are operative, as we will claim, during the reading of the story as well. All the rules are “rules of thumb” (Gaut, 2014, p. 281), which means that they are practical and based on experience, and they allow variation which is a precondition for creativity. 19 We will deal with the topic of defamiliarization extensively when we work on the process of reading the liter-ary text (Miall & Kuiken, 1994). Gaut rightly concludes that adaptive imitation and the mastery of the relevant rules are vital to creative activity (Gaut, 2014, p. 283). Therefore, students must be taught how to use, i.e., how to creatively imitate the heuristic rules underlying the activity to be learnt (Gaut, 2014, p. 285). According to Gaut, the creative application of these rules is to be understood as technique that one is supposed to be able to adopt when we perform an activity. When we transfer this under-standing of the applied rule to the context of education, we enter the field of capability learning. Holzer (2007, p. 5) suggest nine capacities that are relevant for imaginative learning: (a) Noticing Deeply: To identify and articulate layers of detail in a work of art through continuous interaction with it over time. (b) Embodying: To experience a work of art through your senses, as well as emotionally, and also to physically represent that experience. (c) Questioning: To ask questions throughout your explorations that further your own learning; to ask the question, “What if?” (d) Making Connections: To connect what you notice and the patterns you see to your prior knowledge and experiences, as well as to others’ knowledge and experiences in-cluding text and multimedia resources. (e) Identifying Patterns: To find relationships among the details you notice, group them, and recognize patterns. (f) Exhibiting Empathy: To respect the diverse perspectives of others in our community; to understand the experiences of others emotionally as well as in thought. (g) Creating Meaning: To create your own interpretations based on the previous capaci-ties, see these in the light of others in the community, create a synthesis, and express it in your own voice. (h) Taking Action: To act on the synthesis of what you have learned in your explorations through a specific project. […] (i) Reflecting/Assessing: To look back on your learning, continually assess what you have learned, assess/identify what challenges remain, and assess/identify what further learn-ing needs to happen. […] (Holzer, 2007, p. 5) To start with, Holzer’s heuristic rules seem to apply to the reading of the story. They define the abilities that are supposed to be promoted. When transferred to the field of literature education, these abilities are: (a) reading the text closely in both an analytical and experiential manner; (b) perceiving the text in its materiality and emotionality; (c) self-reflectively engaging with the text and scrutinizing our possible engagements with the text in light of the text’s possibilities, thus producing a twofold possibility space: the possible engagements with the possible fictitious worlds; (d) making intratextual, intertextual and extratextual connections; (e) identifying pat-terns within these connections by means of comparison; (f) empathizing with the characters and colleagues, (g) making meaning by interpreting the text and creating fictitious worlds out of the material text by synthesis, and (h) acting on the basis of the meaning made, and (i) reflecting as a means of meaning making. Moreover, we hypothesize that biographical writing also follows the heuristic rules proposed by Holzer. We would like to advocate a model of the biographer in which the writer is simul-taneously the reader of her own biography. Therefore, the biographical writer does not only need to develop all the genuinely poietic abilities associated with creation such as making con-nections, making meaning, and taking action, but all the other abilities outlined above must be acquired as well. As all of Holzer’s (2007) capabilities are imaginative in nature, we would like to formulate one educational objective at this point. Our endeavor aspires to the cultivation of imagination. We assume that Holzer’s capabilities can be promoted through Egan’s (2005) story-related toolkit. Egan (2005, 2016) is a major proponent of imaginative learning who fully supports this culti-vation of imagination. Learning must be emotionally contextualized: “If we want students to learn that knowledge in a manner that will make it meaningful and memorable, we need to bring it to life for them in the context of […] hopes, fears, passions, or ingenuity.” (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 3). Therefore, his planning framework (Egan, 2005, pp. 52-58) includes the task of locating emotional meaning by asking the following questions: What is emotionally engaging about the topic? How can it evoke wonder? Why should it matter to us? It is not only the stu-dents’ emotions that are covered, teachers’ emotions must also be considered: What teacher typically find so refreshing is that when we examine imagination we are also dealing with some of the central features of students’ emotional engagement with knowledge. That is, it is students’ emotional responses that we are centrally concerned with, not just their conceptual grasp of the logic of content. But the main point I make is that for this alternative approach to work in the classroom, the teacher’s own emo-tional engagement with the content must become central too. (Egan, 2005, pp. 213-214) The agent for this emotional contextualization is imagination which “is tied in complex ways to our emotional lives” (Egan, 2005, xii). To sum up, the best tool for the acquisition of knowledge in the context of emotions is the imagination. The role that imagination occupies is one of “the great workhorses of learning in all subject areas” (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 3), and therefore “engaging students’ imaginations is crucial to successful learning” (Egan, 2005, xii). The metaphor of the “workhorse” is reminiscent of Gaut’s theory of imagination (Gaut, 2003, Cf. above) which proposes that imagination is a ve-hicle for creativity. Learning and creativity are related within the domain of writing and reading the story because learning as ‘active receptivity’ is necessarily a poietic and creative process to some extent. In this sense, imagination can be a vehicle for creativity and can thus enhance learning. Creative imagination produces new connections on the basis of the schemata that are the work of productive imagination. These creative connections that are rooted in given con-nections might result in accommodative and transformative learning (Illeris, 2017) that are characterized as producing novel orders in the mind’s schemes. In this sense, imagination is both the vehicle for creativity and learning. Before exploring the question of what we can learn from Egan’s concept of imaginative learn-ing for the teaching of how to write and read the story, we will analyze what he understands by imagination. Egan and Judson (2016) define imagination as follows: “Imagination is the capac-ity to think of things as possibly being so; it is the source of invention, novelty, and generativity; it is not distinct from rationality but is rather a capacity that greatly enriches rational thinking; […]” (p. 4; my emphasis). We can conclude that Egan’s notion of imagination is compatible with views hitherto proposed as it is specified as a capacity for creative activity that explores the space of possibility and that is, in a Kantian sense, tied to the faculty of understanding, the only deviation being that Egan seems to be a supporter of the ‘source-theory’ of imagination. The basis for Egan’s concept of imaginative learning is Vygotsky’s work on “how students gain an increasingly rich understanding of the world by gradually accumulating ‘cognitive tools’” (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 5). Cultural tools are different ways of sense-making that are inter-nalized during learning and thus become cognitive tools (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 6). Following Vygotsky’s understanding of learning as the acquisition of cognitive tools, Egan holds that “ed-ucation is the process of equipping our students with the maximum number of these sense-making cognitive tools available in our society” (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 6). Analogously, Egan (2005) conceptualizes learning as a “new kind of educational development […] in which the acquisition of cognitive tools drives students’ educational progress” (p. xvii). The function of cognitive tools with respect to imagination is that they “connect imagination with the knowledge in the curriculum” (Egan, 2005, pp. 8-9), thus fulfilling a mediating func-tion that differs from the mediating function between understanding and intuition that Kantian productive imagination and its schemata fulfil. In addition, cognitive tools “influence our un-derstanding of the world” (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 7), thus being the metaphorical lens through which we see the world. Egan continues: “These lenses (cognitive tools) ‘mediate’ how and what we can see and how and what we can make sense of.“ (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 7) This second mediating function resembles the Kantian schema closely in that the cognitive tools condition the possibilities of perception and meaning-making. If we assume with Egan that cognitive tools serve these mediating functions, we need to ask the educational question of “how to stimulate, use, and develop these tools to enhance students’ learning and understanding” (Egan & Judson, 2016, p. 7). Egan (2005) suggests specific teach-ing techniques and frameworks for planning. Let us now consider Egan’s cognitive tools. They develop in sets which Egan and Judson (2016, p. 8) call cognitive toolkits. These toolkits are used selectively: “From the storehouse of cultural tools we can select and construct our individual kits of cognitive tools.” (Egan, 2005, p. 8) For our purpose, we will ask ourselves what we can learn from the story-related toolkit for the teaching of how to write and read the story. This toolkit comprises cognitive tools from the master tools of orality, literacy, and theoretic thinking. These master tools that are accumulated over time are representative of the different stages of psychological development (orality – youngest children, literacy – children in middle years, theoretic thinking – adolescents; Cf. Egan (1998)). From the master tool of orality, the cognitive tools of story and metaphor are relevant for our field. Egan (2005) holds that the story has a double function. First, stories are “very effective at communicating information in a memorable form” (p. 10). Second, the story has an exclusive function that no other linguistic form can serve: “So the kind of meaning stories deal with has to do with emotions. Stories are instruments for orienting human emotions to their contents. […] stories orient, or shape, our emotions to the events and characters in a particular way – they tell us how to feel about their contents.” (Egan, 2005, p. 10) Stories form our emotions towards events and characters: “Stories shape events into emotionally meaningful patterns.” (Egan, 2005, p. 11). According to Egan, the story can fulfil this function because of its closure: That is, in life our feelings about events are always provisional, due to be changed as future events influence how we constantly reconstruct past events. Only the story pro-vides us with the security of knowing how to feel, because stories end. It is this ‘sense of an ending’ that shapes meaning (Kermode, 1966). (Egan, 2005, p. 12) We cannot fully support this hypothesis because the discordant component in the “discordant concordance” of emplotment seriously undermines the plot’s closure in modern stories. In ad-dition, the oral life story that is constitutive of narrative identity lacks closure as the storying of one’s life is an ongoing process in which new events need to be constantly integrated, thus preventing closure. Additionally, the end of the story inevitably cannot be told by the 1st person narrator in retrospect. But this is not to say that the value of the story, “its power to engage the students’ emotions – and also, connectedly, their imaginations – in the material of the curricu-lum” (Egan, 2005, p. 12), is reduced. The story’s effects, however, are not to be solely ascribed to its closure, but to the general form of mythos as the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. We share the priority of form with Egan (2005): “The story is more a matter of the shape one gives to the content than whether it is true or not” (Egan, 2005, p. 12; my emphasis). The story’s form exercises the power, the story’s form cannot be reduced to its teleological element, and the story’s form outranks the story’s referentiality and the story’s truth claim from the angle of efficacy. Another cognitive tool from Egan’s domain of orality that is crucial for our endeavor is meta-phor. Egan defines metaphor as an activity: to “see one thing in terms of another” (Egan, 2005, p. 13). This is highly reminiscent of the figure of thought of ‘seeing as’ that we have addressed extensively above. Metaphor is vital for our understanding of the structure of the connections established by the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. We regard these connections as metaphor-ical in nature. By connecting divergent entities, metaphor possibly stimulates creative activity. Egan rightly considers metaphor an educational priority. Therefore, education needs to “keep it [metaphor] energetic beyond the period of its usual decline and help its development” (Egan, 2005, p. 14) by “call[ing] attention to them […], discuss[ing] them, encourage[ing] students to recognize their own and reflect on how they work” (Egan, 2005, p. 15). From the tools of literacy, narrative understanding needs to be put into our story-related toolkit. Egan holds that the “story was crucial in early learning [in the phase of orality] because it was the tool that enables us to bring curriculum content and emotion together to make knowledge more fully meaningful to the student” (Egan, 2005, p. 99). This is largely true for older students [in the phase of literacy], but the basic story form is extended to a structure of greater variety and openness. The story’s basic function, however, its “importance of shaping events and facts to affect emotions” (Egan, 2005, p. 99), is preserved. At this point, Egan’s narrative understand-ing obviously follows the tradition of Aristotelean catharsis, i.e., the shaping of the affective effect through the plot. The effects of narrative understanding are not restricted to emotions. Egan continues that “we make sense of our experience and the world in narratives, […] we recall items in narratives better that in logically ordered lists, […] we organize our memories more profoundly and reli-ably according to emotional rather than logical associations” (Egan, 2005, pp. 99-100; my em-phasis). During the phase of literacy, the functions of the cognitive tool of narrative are multi-plied. The story no longer just shapes emotions, it also provides the student with meaning, structure, and memory. Followability is a prerequisite for narrative to fulfil these functions. This ability to follow a narrative must be learned before narrative can develop its potential: “Being able to follow a narrative is crucial for efficient learning and understanding of almost any topic in the curricu-lum. It also enhances our manipulation of possibilities – which is what enables students to apply something learned in one context to another.” (Egan, 2005, p. 100) Only if followability is acquired, efficient learning and transfer through narrative are possible. Besides, the “manipula-tion of possibilities” (Egan, 2005, p. 100) again points to imagination being in play when nar-rative is at work. Finally, sense of agency and meta-narrative understanding from the master tool of theoretic thinking go into the toolkit. The main purpose of this set of tools is the “generation of an abstract world of ideas” (Egan, 2005, p. 168). Egan describes the value of theoretic thinking as follows: […] it [theoretic thinking] enhances thinking ability enormously, enabling them to put the diversity of what they have learned into a new kind of order. It also generates flexibility, encourages them to search out patterns, look for essences, and, most typi-cally, construct theories. This set of tools gives its holders more pragmatic control over the world. (Egan, 2005, p. 168) At this stage, cognitive tools allow theorizing at an abstract level, thus increasing agency (Cf. “more pragmatic control”). To foster theoretic thinking, students need to be involved in activi-ties that will help stimulate their sense of agency, they shall “recognize that they can play roles of value or pleasure” (Egan, 2005, p. 158). For instance, the students’ sense of agency can be encouraged by exercising empathy and cognitive perspective-taking when they read literature: “One of the uses of literature is to expand our experience, to take on others’ experience as though it is our own and learn from it.” (Egan, 2005, p. 199). By developing our sense of agency through the understanding of self-other relations, insight into the self and others becomes pos-sible. As a consequence, the understanding of the world through abstract ideas contributes to the development of the sense of self, students improve their “understanding of oneself as having a role to play in those [abstract] processes” (Egan, 2005, p. 158). Like all other story-related cognitive tools, meta-narrative understanding serves the function of shaping emotions. Egan (2005) elaborates on this function by stating that meta-narrative under-standing “orient[s] moral or aesthetic or social or other emotions” (p. 165). By storying our ideas and theories, we commit ourselves emotionally to our conceptions of society, ethics and art. By fostering meta-narrative understanding, students are given the opportunity to grasp the personal significance of abstract ideas, which enhances both their emotional and cognitive in-tellectual development (Egan, 2005, p. 167). In conclusion, we would like to emphasize that imaginative learning places meaning-making at the heart of the learning process. In line with this, Egan (2005) coins his motto for his approach: “The soul of teaching has to do with meaning.” (p. 211) As a consequence, the task of education is to “tie the facts and skills to their deeper meaning in human experience” (Egan, 2005, p. 211). His approach that “teaching is about communicating meanings more than it is about attaining objectives” (Egan, 2005, p. 214) is compatible with the faculties that are to be taught in litera-ture education – the teaching of how to write/read the story is all about how to develop the ability to make meaning. What remains to be said is that imagination, according to Egan and Nadaner (1988), is indis-pensable for learning: “Stimulating the imagination is not an alternative educational activity to be argued for in competition with other claims; it is a prerequisite to making any educational activity” (p. ix; my emphasis). The ‘imaginative’ in imaginative learning is not an embellish-ment, but a sine qua non of learning. However, for its functionality it is dependent on its interplay with knowledge: “for the imagination to develop adequately and to work effectively the student needs to know a lot. Ignorance is not a condition that favors the development of imagination.” (Egan, 2005, p. 169) Egan’s approach, in his own assessment, is “much better attuned to how we make sense of our everyday world and to how we learn about what really interests us and matters to us, that are the typical models currently on offer in textbooks about planning teaching” (Egan, 2005, p. 216). What is to be tested in the empirical part is whether an intervention based on the story-related toolkit fosters meaning-making and enhances the personal significance students attach to the writing/reading of the story. In essence, “imagination gives us image-schematic structures and metaphoric and metonymic patterns by which we can extend and elaborate those schemata” (Johnson, 1987, p. 169). This quote illustrates the interplay of productive and creative imagination. The “image-schematic structures” are the outcome of the productive imagination whereas the extension and elabora-tion of these structures by way of metaphoric and metonymic connections can be attributed to creative imagination. Let us return to the poietic play on/with the schema that is our major concern here. Poietic play is directed at the structures of imagination, i.e., the rules of productive imagination that are cultural, not individual in nature. These structures are “a massive, embodied complex of mean-ing upon which conceptualization and propositional judgement depend” (Johnson, 1987, p. 170) which are established by imagination: “Imagination is a pervasive structuring activity by means of which we achieve coherent, patterned, unified representations.” (Johnson, 1987, p. 168; my emphasis). Structures of imagination are communal, not individual (Johnson, 1987, p. 172). As creativity is rooted in these imaginative structures that organize our experience, it is not irrational. Johnson includes narrative structure as a major component of his theory of im-aginative structures. This is in line with our understanding of Aristotelean mythos as a cultural form that constitutes an imaginative structure. It is notable that poietic play on, in our view, is not directed only at the narrative schematic forms. Poietic play has another play mode, the playing with the intuitive material on, i.e., ac-cording to the narrative schemata that are themselves the target of the poietic play on. In con-clusion, poietic play on has two different manifestations: (a) the play on/with the schema on the level of imagination which possibly results in a variation of the respective schema, and (b) the play on the intuition according to the imaginative schemata which possibly results in textual variation. The poietic play on/with the schema is the condition of possibility of semantic inno-vation whereas the poietic play on/according to the schema performs semantic innovation. The basic narrative structures can be developed by means of metaphor and metonymy “by which we project structure across categories to establish new connections and organizations of meaning and to extend and develop image schemata” (Johnson, 1987, p. 171). Poietic play does not follow a formal logic, it is a “process of generating new connections among ideas” (John-son, 1987, p. 169) that is not rule-governed. This does not mean that creation is ex nihilo, the “novel connections come out of our experience” (Johnson, 1987, p. 169). Creative activity is not conditioned by rules, but it refers to rules, and it is set in a tradition. This interplay of Kantian productive and creative imagination in creative activity can be seen as a performance of the dialectic of freedom and constraint, i.e., as a performance of Kantian ‘free lawfulness’. Poietic play in creative imagination is constrained by the conditions of pos-sibilities set out by productive imagination. At this point, we hypothesize that writing/reading the story encompasses all functions of Kantian imagination: (a) image formation by reproduc-tive imagination, (b) conditions of possibility of experience by productive imagination, and (c) creation on the basis of these conditions by creative imagination. The interplay of all types of Kantian imagination potentially leads to semantic innovation, the projection of new possible worlds, and the expansion of agency. Creativity is not restricted to the work of the genius, but it is learnable and teachable. The edu-cational aim is the acquisition of a twofold capacity: (a) the application of the schematic mythos as a rule, and (b) the poietic play with this narrative rule. Holzer’s (2007) imaginative capabil-ities are to be enhanced by applying the rule (reading as narrative on the basis of schematic connections) and by playing with the rule (reading as creative discovery of metaphorical/met-onymic connections on the basis of schematic connections). The rule functions as an organon during learning. This organon is Egan’s (2005) cognitive tool, in this case the story. The narra-tive is an instrument not only for understanding of the literary text, but also for gaining insight into the self and the other. We will close our deliberations on imagination with two stimuli from the cognitive sciences. What we are trying to endorse here is a pedagogy that supports students in making connections20 beyond the empirical laws that are generated by Kantian reproductive imagination. In our ap-proach, the double synthesis of productive and creative imagination is essential for learning 20 There is literature on the making of connections in education, e.g. Ambrose et al. (2010), Lang (2016). But there is a desideratum to ground this synthetic activity in imagination. how to write/read the story. We aim at teaching students how to establish schematic and meta-phorical/metonymic connections on the intratextual, intertextual (Baßler, 2005), and extratex-tual levels (Kuiken & Douglas, 201721). 21 The connections with one’s own life and conceptions of the world in the verisimilitude constructs are relevant for the extratextual level. The conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002) confirms that the synthetic activ-ity that is vital for our approach to pedagogy is rooted in imagination. Similarly, Richardson (2015, p. 228) holds that the fundamental cognitive operation of conceptual blending is at the heart of imagination, and Bruhn (2009) agrees that “blending is the prime operation of the im-agination” (p. 548). This profound significance of imagination’s synthesis that is substantiated by findings from the cognitive sciences reverberates in Ricoeur’s (1992) double integrative function of the narrative that is constitutive of narrative identity. Second, imagination is related to memory, prospection, and theory of mind because of its being a prominent component of the brain’s default network (Richardson, 2015, p. 226). Narrative has the chief function of interconnecting the default network’s mental capacities of imagining, recalling the past, envisioning the future, and perspective-taking: “Narrative has been described as forming a common thread among various default mode activities – and neural areas involved in narrative overlap significantly with the areas known to be involved in the default network.” (Richardson, 2015, p. 231, Cf. also Spreng et al., 2008) This “multiple overlapping and the restless oscillation among the mental capacities” (Richardson, 2015, p. 238) is structured nar-ratively. This narrative order of the brain’s default network is reminiscent of Bruner’s (1986, 1990) narrative mode of thinking and the concept of the ‘poetic’ or ‘literary’ mind (Gibbs, 1994; Turner, 1996). What is important for our work is that cognitive sciences have biologically proven the philosophical theory of a narrative logic (we call it the mythos) that organizes time structures (memory, prospection) and self-other relations (theory of mind) in a complex imag-ination system. This narrative logic – a neural network that is an instance of Johnson’s (1987) structures of imagination – and the playing on this narrative logic are to be taught and learned. Writing/reading of the story is a privileged activity during this kind of narrative learning. 2.3 Ricoeurian imagination Ricoeur elaborates his theory of imagination in the The Rule of Metaphor (1978b). There he draws upon the Kantian productive imagination to show how innovation in meaning – and advances in understanding – are produced through the capacity of imagination to mediate and syn-thesize heterogeneous aspects of discourse […]. Similarly, Ricoeur places the synthetic powers of imagination at the heart of the narrative processes through which self-under-standing and identity are articulated. (Atkins, 2004, p. 343) The power of imagination is analogously operative in metaphor and narrative and produces semantic innovation via mediation and synthesis. By this means, it is potentially transformative and advances self-understanding. Let us start with the Ricoeurian “grasping together” which denotes one basic faculty of the Kantian imagination. Ricoeur’s (1984) basic idea is the “synthesis of the heterogeneous” (p. 7) that he ascribes to the power of imagination and its narrative schema, i.e., the emplotment. In “Life in quest of a narrative”, Ricoeur (1991a) expounds his theory of synthesis as brought about by emplotment: I shall broadly define the operation of emplotment as a synthesis of heterogeneous ele-ments. Synthesis between what elements? First of all, a synthesis between the events or incidents which are multiple and the story which is unified and complete; […] the re-counted story is always more than the enumeration, in an order that would be merely serial or successive, of the incidents or events that it organizes into an intelligible whole. The plot, however is also a synthesis from a second point of view; it organizes together components that are as heterogeneous as unintended circumstances, discoveries, those who perform actions and those who suffer them, chance or planned encounters, interac-tions between actors ranging from conflict to collaboration, means that are well or poorly adjusted to ends, and finally unintended results, gathering all these factors into a single story makes the plot a totality which can be said to be at once concordant and discordant. […] Finally, emplotment is a synthesis of the heterogeneous in a more pro-found sense […] We could say that they are two sorts of time in every story told: on the one hand, a discrete succession that is open and theoretically indefinite, a series of inci-dents […]; on the other hand, the story told presents another temporal aspect character-ized by the integration, culmination and closure owing to which the story receives a particular configuration. In this sense, composing a story is, from the temporal point of view, drawing a configuration out of a succession.” (pp. 21-22) Ricoeur summarizes the three features of the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’: “the mediation performed by the plot between the multiple incidents and unified story; the primacy of concord-ance over discordance; and, finally, the competition between succession and configuration” (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 22). From this it follows that the narrative schema effectuates two different forms of ‘grasping together’: (a) practical synthesis (unification of multiplicity, discordant con-cordance), and (b) temporal synthesis (configuration out of succession; or, discontinuous con-tinuity (Greisch, 2009, p. 121)). These forms of narrative synthesis establish a paradigm of practical and temporal order. It must be noted that Ricoeurian emplotment, in analogy with Kantian creative imagination, is a poietic act (Meuter, 1995, p. 125) bound to the given. It makes “the intelligible spring from the accidental, the universal from the singular, the necessary or the probable from the episodic” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 41), thus transforming irrational contingency into intelligible contingency (Meuter, 1995, p. 130). In synthesizing the heterogeneous, the ‘grasping together’ is necessarily selective (Meuter, 1995, p. 133). By reducing complexity, intelligibility is further enhanced. In addition, emplotment contextualizes elements by relating these formerly multiple, discordant, and successive elements. By means of synthesis, meaning is generated. Synthesis in Ricoeur is the faculty of the productive-creative imagination which is primarily verbal, not visual (Kearney, 1988, p. 2). In writing/reading the story, images are spoken before they are seen. Kearney considers Ricoeurian imagination as “inherently symbolizing-metapho-rizing-narrativizing activity” (Kearney, 1988, p. 4). The nature of the symbol is its double in-tentionality. One meaning is transgressed or transcended by another. Thus, double intentionality that is characteristic of the symbolizing activity of imagination enables signification and inter-pretation of the world (Kearney, 1988, p. 8). Ricoeur (1970) summarizes that the “expressivity of the world comes to language through the symbol as double meaning” (pp. 23-24). Kearney holds that signification and imagination “are not two separate sui generis modes of intentionality but are inextricably related” (Kearney, 1988, p. 9). We would like to add that interpretation is intrinsically linked to both imagination and signification. In both signification and interpretation, it is the writer’s/reader’s task to “recover language in its symbolic fullness”, and to “rediscover language’s creative powers of symbolization” (Kearney 1988, p. 10). Through this recovering/rediscovering effort in which imaginative activity plays a central part, the “depth language of double meaning” (Kearney, 1988, p. 11) according to which not only dreams, but also stories operate, shall be revealed. Following Ricoeur (1967), this endeavor is inspired by the “hope for the re-creation of language” (p. 19). It is noteworthy that this recov-ering/rediscovering effort is not necessarily revealing, the danger of dissimulation arises (Kearney, 1988, p. 10). Imagination can disclose, but it can also mask meaning. Therefore, a critical stance towards the symbol is inevitable as the double image reveals and conceals mean-ing. In imagination, a further function of the symbol can be detected. This function can be under-stood “in terms of an intentional projection of possible meanings (the phenomenological-her-meneutic model)” (Kearney, 1988, p. 5). The writer/reader is liberated into the realm of possibility when exercising imagination. The ostensive reference is suspended, and new ways of being in the world are disclosed. Verbal imagination’s power is here the “capacity of language to open up new worlds” (Kearney, 1978, p. 44), thus producing “ontological novelty” by the “second-order reference to a horizon of possible worlds” (Kearney, 1988, p. 5). A theory of writing based on verbal imagination is omitted in Kearney. In line with the herme-neutic tradition, he presents a theory of imaginative reading in which the “primary concern is with the worlds” (Kearney, 1988, p. 6) opened up through the transaction with the text. The reading yields a world-disclosure that possibly leads to self-understanding. Here, Kearney an-ticipates what Ricoeur (1992) is to term the “detour by way of objectification” (p. 313) which means that insight into the self is possible only by means of engagement with cultural objects; any “short cut to immediate self-understanding” (Kearney, 1988, p. 6) is precluded. Imaginative reading does not only have an effect on the understanding of the world of the text and on self-understanding, it also impacts the realm of praxis: “The possible worlds of imagi-nation can be made real by action.” (Kearney, 1988, p. 6) The interrelationship of imagination and action in reading can be clarified with reference to Ricoeur’s (1988) dialectic of stasis and impetus: A final dialectic […] concerns the two, if not antithetical at least divergent, roles as-sumed by reading. Reading appears by turns as an interruption in the course of action and as a new impetus to action. These two perspectives on reading result directly from its functions of confrontation and connection between the imaginary world of the text and the actual world of readers. To the extent that readers subordinate their expectations to those developed by the text, they themselves become unreal to a degree comparable to the unreality of the fictive world toward which they emigrate. Reading then becomes a place, itself unreal, where reflection takes a pause. On the other hand, inasmuch as readers incorporate - little matter whether consciously or unconsciously - into their vi-sion of the world the lessons of their readings, in order to increase the prior readability of this vision, then reading is for them something other than a place where they come to rest; it is a medium they cross through. This twofold status of reading makes the confrontation between the world of the text and the world of the reader at once a stasis and an impetus. The ideal type of reading, figured by the fusion but not confusion of the horizons of expectation of the text and those of the reader, unites these two moments of refiguration in the fragile unity of stasis and impetus. This fragile union can be expressed in the following paradox: the more readers become unreal in their reading, the more profound and far-reaching will be the work's influence on social reality. Is it not the least figurative style of painting that has the greatest chance of changing our vision of the world? (p. 179) In stasis, the readers suspend their actions in the real world and – in Ricoeurian words – “emi-grate” to the world of the text that was projected by imagination, i.e., the interplay of productive and creative imagination. From an attitudinal perspective, stasis is an instance of Kantian dis-interestedness (KU 5: 205, KU 5: 210). Empirically, this attentional shift to the world of the text has been researched through the constructs of transportation (Green et al., 2004), narrative presence (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009), absorption (Kuijpers et al., 2014), and immersion (Ja-cobs & Lüdtke, 2017). Adopting a disinterested stance, the readers become “unreal”, i.e., they are included in the workings of imagination as they are transported into the world of the text. The transaction between the fictitious world of the text and the fictionalized readers might result in narrative understanding and insight into the self, which Ricoeur calls “the lessons of their readings”. If these “lessons” are incorporated into the reader’s worldview, thus possibly in-creasing the understanding of the world, i.e., its metaphorical “readability”, the detour (“the medium they cross through”) through the objects of culture might also provide the reader with an impetus to action. Surprisingly, Ricoeur holds that the degree of the attentional shift to the world of the text and the intensity of effect on action in the world of the reader are directly proportional: the stronger the shift to the world of the text, the stronger the effect on the world of the reader. In conclusion, we can hold that the union of stasis and impetus influences psy-chological reality (understanding) and practical reality (action). This union of two divergent reading modes is made possible by the symbolizing activity of imagination. The symbol’s dou-ble intentionality allows the signification and understanding of both the world of the text and the world of the reader. As stated above, Ricoeurian imagination is also a metaphorizing activity. According to Kearney (1988), verbal imagination “generates and regenerates meaning through the living powers of metaphoricity” (p. 14). Metaphorical imagination is defined as the “ability to establish similar-ity in dissimilarity” (Kearney, 1988, p. 14) on the syntactical plane, as opposed to the creative tension between meanings that the symbol generates on the level of words. As regards meta-phor, imagination again acts as an intermediary between similarity and dissimilarity: “It seems to me, it is in the moment of the emergence of a new meaning from the ruins of literal predica-tion that imagination offers its specific mediation.” (Ricoeur, 1979, p. 130). As we have learned above, Ricoeur (1978b) draws on Kantian productive, not reproductive imagination when he establishes his theory of verbal imagination: The only way to approach the problem of imagination from the perspective of a semantic theory, that is to say on a verbal plane, is to begin with productive imagination in the Kantian sense, and to put off reproductive imagination or imagery as long as possible. Treated as a schema, the image presents a verbal dimension; before being the gathering-point of faded perceptions, it is that of emerging meanings. In the same way, therefore, that the schema is the matrix of the category, the icon is the matrix of the new semantic pertinence that is born out of the dismantling of semantic networks caused by the shock of contradiction. (p. 235) Ricoeur transfers Kantian schema to the image, thus attributing the mediating function to the image. The schema is the set of generative conditions that leads to the emergence of new mean-ing. Kearney (1988, p. 15) rightly holds that Ricoeur regards the metaphor as schema that ac-complishes the “apprehension of an identity within the difference between two terms” (Ricoeur, 1978b, p. 28) and that grasps “the relatedness of terms that are far apart” (Ricoeur, 1978b, p. 236): […] metaphor is established as the schematism in which the metaphorical attribution is produced. This schematism turns imagination into the place where the figurative mean-ing emerges in the interplay of identity and difference. And metaphor is that place in discourse where this schematism is visible, because the identity and the difference do not melt together but confront each other. (Ricoeur, 1978b, p. 236) Metaphor as schema allows the “interplay of identity and difference” which results in meta-phoric meaning. Therefore, productive imagination is the condition of possibility of emergent metaphoric meaning, it makes the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’ that we know from sche-matic narrative possible. As difference is not merged in identity, the functionality of the schema is evident in the metaphor. Ricoeur addresses the need of a sensible moment in metaphoric imagination. Therefore, he complements his theory of verbal imagination with the concept of ‘seeing as’ which he transfers from Wittgenstein (1958, p. 197) to metaphor. ‘Seeing as’ is the sensible aspect of poetic language. Half thought, half experience, ‘seeing as’ is the intuitive relationship that holds sense and image together. How? Essentially through its selective character: ‘Seeing as is an intuitive experience-act by which one selects from the quasi-sensory mass of imagery one has on reading metaphor the relevant aspects of such imagery’ […]. This definition contains the essential points. ‘Seeing as’ is an expe-rience and an act at one and the same time. On the one hand, the mass of images is beyond all voluntary control; the image arises, occurs, and there is no rule to be learned for ‘having images.’ One sees, or one does not see. The intuitive talent for ‘seeing as’ […] cannot be taught; at most, it can be assisted, as when one is helped to see the rabbit’s eye in the ambiguous figure. On the other hand, ‘seeing as’ is an act. To understand is to do something. As we said earlier, the image is not free but tied; and, in effect, ‘seeing as’ orders the flux and governs iconic deployment. In this way, the experience-act of ‘seeing as’ ensures that imagery is implicated in metaphorical signification: ‘The same imagery which occurs also means’. (Wittgenstein, 1958, p. 252) ‘Seeing as’ is both receptive (perception) and active (signification), the “experience-act” is an expression of the agentic mode of ‘active receptivity’. It is a conceptual-experiential hybrid, hereby retaining a fundamental property of the Kantian schema. This feature allows ‘seeing as’ to link understanding and intuition. The connection between image and meaning is corroborated by ‘seeing as’: Thus, the ‘seeing as’ activated in reading ensures the joining of verbal meaning with imagistic fullness. And this conjunction is no longer something outside language, since it can be reflected as a relationship. ‘Seeing as’ contains a ground, a foundation, that is, precisely, resemblance – no longer the resemblance between two ideas, but that very resemblance the ‘seeing as’ establishes. Hester claims emphatically that similarity is what results from the experience-act of ‘seeing as.’ ‘Seeing as’ defines the resemblance, and not the reverse. This priority of ‘seeing as’ over the resemblance relationship is proper to the language-game in which meaning functions in an iconic manner. […] Thus, ‘seeing as’ quite precisely plays the role of the schema that unites the empty con-cept and the blind impression; thanks to its character as half thought and half experience, it joins the light of sense with the fullness of the image. In this way, the non-verbal and the verbal are firmly united at the core of the image-ing function of language.” (Ricoeur, 1978b, pp. 252-253) ‘Seeing as’ establishes resemblance, i.e., it is a mode of organization and not of reproduction. As stated above, it serves the schematic function of mediation between image and meaning, and this mediation potentially brings about the unity of image and meaning that is, according to Ricoeur, central to the “image-ing function”, i.e., the metaphorical function of language. To sum up, concept and intuition are mediated by ‘seeing as’ in the Kantian vein. In the Rule of Metaphor (1978b), Ricoeur connects figuring to the concept of ‘seeing as’: “To figure is always to see as.” (p. 61) In consequence, figuration has to be considered in its alliance with imagination: “[…] with the expression ‘to provide ourselves with a figure of,’ we touch upon an activity of the imagination” (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 184). In Time and Narrative. Volume 1 (Ricoeur, 1984), the notion of figuration is applied to the level of the text, and there it appears as the threefold mimesis of prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration (Ricoeur, 1984). In analogy with the Kantian schema, figuration has a mediating function. The productive im-agination eliminates the reference to some original in external reality, thus allowing a produc-tive-metaphorical reference (Taylor, 2018, p. 158). This form of reference is renamed figuration by Ricoeur, and, it “allows, as the empirical reference does not, an interplay between the ‘real’ and the ‘unreal’ that lies at the heart of productive imagination’s creativity” (Taylor, 2018, p. 165). Taylor’s main hypothesizes is that “figuration may be the common root of the imaginative me-diation between impression and the concept” (Taylor, 2018, p. 164). In analogy with the schema, figuration is capable of mediating because it has both an experiential and a conceptual aspect: “Figuration on this impressional, experiential side of the schema […] shows how the productive imagination can arise and allow for emergent and potentially transfigurative, classi-fication-transforming meaning. […] The second side of figuration as schema exemplifies its function as figuring or structuring, its ‘conceptual’ side, its creation of figures. (Taylor, 2018, pp. 169-170). From an intuitive angle, figuration’s creativity and efficacy originate from sym-bolized praxis. From a conceptual perspective, figuration offers figure, i.e., form. To figure is to see as, to figure is to see according to a form, to figure is to see according to the mythos. In short, figuration = formation according to the “figure of ‘discordant concordance’” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 73). From this it follows that figuration does not only have a representational-schematic, but also a structural and a temporal function. This is most apparent in configuring writing (mimesis2) dur-ing which “narrative extracts a figure from succession” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 66). Figuration’s structural and temporal functions are also operative in the symbolically pre-figured world of experience and actions (mimesis1), and in refiguring reading (mimesis3). Eventually, Ricoeur (1988) transfers figuration to the self and speaks of the “figured self” (p. 199). For our endeavor, Taylor’s (2018) insights that (a) figuration is rooted in the world of experi-ence and action, and (b) figuration offers form during configuration and refiguration are vital. To fully grasp the meaning of figuration, extratextual experience and action need to be included in the teaching of literature. In addition, the fact that we see the text as mythos during writing and reading underscores the importance of the narrative principle for literature education. Let us now return from the figuration as metaphorical ‘seeing as’ to metaphor itself. The sche-matic metaphor has both a poietic and an epistemological function. It creates reality, and while creating reality, we understand reality: But also because through this recovery of the capacity of language to create and re-create, we discover reality itself in the process of being created. So we are connected with this dimension of reality which is itself unfinished, which is ... and then, once more I should like to use the vocabulary of Aristotle when he speaks of the entelecheia, the potentiality to see things in terms of potentialities and not in terms of actualities. There is a place in my book on metaphor when I say that when language is itself in the process of becoming once more potential it is attuned to this dimension of reality which itself is unfinished and in the making. Language in the making celebrates reality in the making. (Ricoeur, 1991d, p. 462) Discovery in creation reveals the potentiality of the being in statu nascendi. Metaphor, and likewise narrative as we will see soon, are privileged media for this discovery in creation. By referring to entelecheia, Ricoeur adopts a procedural view of reality and its form. This means that form is formation, and that the end of formation is included in the form (entelecheia). In this sense, metaphor is formation than encompasses its end, the identity within difference. With regard to a second aspect of Aristotelean form, metaphor is not a mere possibility (dynamis), but the performance of possibility (energeia). In conclusion, metaphor explores the potentialities of being by performing the potentialities of language with the aim of the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. In Time and Narrative. Volume 1 (1984), Ricoeur transfers the schematism of imagination from the metaphorical act to the narrative text, thus moving from the syntactical plane to the text level (Kearney, 1988, p. 18). According to Kearney (1988), narrative serves the schematizing function of the productive imagination: “The narrative act of emplotment, which configures a manifold into a synthesis, enacts what Kant defined as the productive power of transcendental imagination.” (Kearney, 1988, p. 18) This narrative act brings about the temporal synthesis of the heterogeneous. We have argued above that Kantian productive imagination is comple-mented with the creative imagination’s poietic play on the principles as generated by the pro-ductive imagination, and that the narrative schema synthesizes the heterogeneous not only on the temporal level, but also on the practical plane. 2.3.1 Traditionality and the intertextual archive: imagination and memory According to Mattern (1996, p. 131), Ricoeur complements his version of Kantian schematism with a notion of traditionality, thus introducing time to the discussion of how to link intuition and concepts: This schematism, in turn, is constituted within a history that has all the characteristics of a tradition. Let us understand by this term not the inert transmission of some already dead deposit of material but the living transmission of an innovation always capable of being reactivated by a return to the most creative moments of poetic activity. So under-stood, traditionality enriches the relationship between plot and time with a new feature. In fact, a tradition is constituted by the interplay of innovation and sedimentation. To sedimentation must be referred the paradigms that constitute the typology of emplot-ment. These paradigms have issued from a sedimented history whose genesis has been covered over. (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 68) The tradition is constituted by the “interplay of innovation and sedimentation”. Ricoeurian tra-dition is not static, but a “living transmission” that is generated by the interaction of innovation and sedimentation. Ricoeur’s referentiality on the sedimented rule is, according to Pfister’s (1985) typology of intertextuality, a ‘system reference’ on the normative textual code: Die am weitesten gefaßte Systemreferenz in unserem Sinn ist der Bezug auf die sprach-lichen Codes und das Normensystem der Textualität. Jeder sprachliche Text ist als sprachliches Konstrukt und als textuelle Einheit prinzipiell auf alle anderen zu beziehen, steht er doch mit ihnen in der, wenn hier auch sehr abstrakten und allgemeinen, Simila-ritätsrelation gleicher oder ähnlicher textkonstitutiver sprachlicher Normsysteme. Frei-lich befinden wir uns mit diesem globalen Bezug in der äußersten Randzone der Inter-textualität […] (p. 53)22 22 “The broadest system reference in our sense is that of the linguistic codes and system of norms of textuality. Every linguistic text is to be related to all others as a linguistic construct and as a textual unit, since it stands with them in the similarity relation, albeit here very abstract and general, of the same or similar text-constitutive lin-guistic norm systems. Admittedly, with this global reference we find ourselves in the outermost marginal zone of intertextuality.” [our translation] 23 In analogy to this theory of writing, we assert that (a) reading on, (b) reading against, and (c) re-reading (in the sense of reading it differently) constitute intertextual relations in mimesis3. It is not the code of the normative generative schema itself that is handed down in tradition. The matrix materializes in its output, the cultural text. From cultural texts which are in a relation of similarity, the respective generative matrix can only be abstracted analytically. In principle, the relation between the schematic narrative and the cultural text is formative: the schema serves the function of a generative matrix for the text. As the narrative schema is a textual code, the relation between the schema and the text is also intertextual as outlined above in reference to Pfister (1985). Lachmann (2008) presents three models of intertextual relations: (a) participation, (b) troping, and (c) transformation: Participation is the dialogical sharing in the texts of a culture that occurs in writing. I understand troping in the sense of Harold Bloom’s concept of the trope, as a turning away from the precursor text, a tragic struggle against those other texts that necessarily write themselves into the author’s own text, and an attempt to surpass, defend against, and eradicate traces of a precursor’s text. In contrast, I take transformation to involve the appropriation of other texts through a process of distancing them, through a sover-eign and indeed usurpatory exertion of control over them.” (pp. 304-305, my emphasis) The three types of intertextual relations are established by the activities of (a) writing on, (b) writing against, and (c) rewriting (Lachmann, 1997, p. 65).23 Three gestures of intertextuality correspond to the models of intertextual relations: (a) sharing, (b) turning away, (c) appropriat-ing through distancing. Transformation and its gesture of distancing appropriation are compat-ible with Ricoeur’s shifting reading attitude that is characteristic of the interplay of sedimenta-tion and innovation. The adequate reading attitude is a prerequisite for the interplay of sedimentation and innovation to take place. Hall (2007) discerns in Ricoeur’s theory of reading a shifting between the appro-priating and distancing stance: Deeper understanding is won through the back and forth movement between appropri-ation, suspicion, and reappropriation. Traditions, therefore, are never static entities; they change and evolve through a process of sedimentation and innovation. If sedimented tradition is the inherited context of meaning which lends itself to understanding, that is, the receptive dimension of understanding, critical engagement with those sedimented meanings produces an innovation within tradition itself. I actively affect tradition in the process of critically appropriating it. As always, understanding is structured by active receptivity. (p. 51) Distancing appropriation is performed in ‘active receptivity’. The dialectic of distancing and appropriating is an expression of the agentive movement between the poles of activity and re-ceptivity. This dialectic is inevitable for creative-productive imagination to stimulate innova-tion rooted in sedimentation. As we claim that reading is necessarily intertextual and that (in-ter)-textuality depends on their actualization through reading for coming into existence24, the dialectic of distancing and appropriating is inevitably operative during intertextual reading. 24 Cf. Lachmann’s (1997) “Angewiesenheit auf das Verstehen lesender Subjekte“ for our second claim. 25 At this point a brief remark on logic should be made. Ricoeur’s sedimentation and Lachmann’s interpretation are processes which result in Lachmann’s memory and in Ricour’s innovation. The formula reads: sedimentation : memory = interpretation : innovation. Lachmann (2008) adopts the idea of the interplay of sedimentation and innovation in her notion of writing: “Writing is both an act of memory and a new interpretation, by which every new text it etched into memory space.” (p. 301). Sedimentation fulfils a mnemonic function, and innovation results from the new interpretation of the memory. In addition, the nexus of sedi-mentation/memory on the one hand and of innovation/new interpretation on the other hand is valid for reading the story as well.25 The sedimented rule is a formal texture of cultural memory, and its being interconnected with cultural texts by means of distancing appropriation makes it intertextual in nature. By analogy with Lachmann’s (1997) argumentation, the intertextual texture of the narrative schema and the memory architecture need to be considered in their interrelationship: “Intertextuality and memory architecture should therefore be conceived in relation to each other”. (p. 16) Before we scrutinize the connection that Lachmann (1997) establishes between intertextuality and cultural memory, we will briefly discuss how imagination – the source of the intertextual texture of narrative schema – and memory are related. First and foremost, there is no incompatibility between the cognitive faculties of memory and imagination. Neuroscience has proven a close relationship between imagination and memory. Schacter et al. (2012) discovered the “striking similarities between remembering the past and imagining or simulating the future, including the finding that a common brain network underlies both memory and imagination” (p. 677). For instance, episodic memory, which is a paradig-matic form of temporal remembering by the personal agent in contrast to the cybernetic model of the cultural memory and which enables us to remember personal experiences, allows future imaginative projections (Schacter & Addis, 2007, p. 27). Episodic memory is constructive, therefore it is dependent on the synthesis of elements of the past executed by the imagination: But future events are not exact replicas of past events, and a memory system that simply stored rote records would not be well-suited to stimulating future events. A system built according to constructive principles may be a better tool for the job. It can draw on the elements and gist of the past, and extract, recombine and reassemble them into imagi-nary events that never occurred in that exact form. Such a system will occasionally pro-duce memory errors, but it also provides considerable flexibility. (Schacter & Addis, 2007, p. 27; my emphasis) This imaginative episodic memory in turn facilitates imaginative projection into the future, prompting Schacter et al. (2007) to frame the concept of the prospective brain which uses stored configured information to simulate possible future events by means of imagination. They sum-marize their findings in the episodic simulation hypothesis (Schacter et al., p. 659) that says that the imagination of future events requires a memory system that is itself imaginative as it makes use of the imagination’s synthetic function. It is the core brain system that mediates past and future thinking, i.e., remembering and imagining as it allows “one to shift from perceiving the immediate environment to an alternative, imagined perspective that is based largely on memories of the past.” (Schacter et al., p. 660) In this sense, the brain is prospective as it gen-erates simulations of the future based on synthesized information from the past. Moreover, the humanities have postulated a reciprocity of imagination and memory. On the one hand, productive-creative imagination supports memory by providing it with a narrative form. Derived from the mnemotechnical system of loci and imagines as introduced by classical rhet-oric, the narrative form, i.e., the productive imagination’s schema, offers memory its imagina-tive syntax (organisation) and semantics (representation) that it needs for its efficient function-ing. The affectivity that is characteristic of the text being activated by the poietic play on the narrative form in writing/reading the story especially assists memorization. On the other hand, cultural memory holds narrative forms and the procedural skills that actualize these narrative forms in latency so that writing/reading as narrative becomes possible. The sedimented generative textual schema does not have a mediating and structuring function only for the individual literary text, but also for the cultural memory conceptualized as an in-tertextual archive26. The product of the imagination, the schema, is intertextual, and in its inter-textuality it is interconnected with the cultural memory. By reading Lachmann (1997, 2008), 26 Cf. Baßler (2005, pp. 176-205) for an archive that is exclusively textual. In contrast to our conception, the texts constituting the archive are strictly coordinate, Baßler’s archive is not organized by any matrix. the connections between intertextuality and memory are explored in order to understand how imagination and memory are intertwined in the writing/reading the story. Lachmann (2008) detects a fundamental relationship between memory and intertextuality: “The mnemonic function of literature provokes intertextual procedures, or, the other way round, in-tertextuality produces and sustains literature’s memory” (p. 309). The task of literature is to memorize, and this task demands intertextuality, and if this task is accomplished by intertextu-ality, memory is constructed. Following the culture-as-text hypothesis (Bachmann-Medick, 1996), Lachmann even equates literature with memory: “Literature is culture’s memory, not as a simple recording device but as a body of commemorative actions that include the knowledge stored by a culture, and virtually all texts a culture has produced and by which a culture is constituted.” (p. 301, my emphasis). The dynamic view of literature that we know from Ric-oeurian mythos is reflected in the reciprocal demiurgic relationship of culture and text: culture produces texts, texts constitute culture. Literature consists in poietic actions, and doing texts means commemorating, thus ensuring the sedimentation of culture that can in turn be modified in the intertextual doing of texts. Doing texts is especially congenial to commemorating as it is capable of serving the following mnemonic functions: When literature is considered, in what follows, in the light of memory, it appears as the mnemonic art par excellence. Literature supplies the memory for a culture and records such a memory. It is itself an act of memory. Literature inscribes itself in a memory space made up of texts, and it sketches out a memory space into which earlier texts are gradually absorbed and transformed. Texts represent an exteriorized and materialized memory – that is, a memory that has been materialized in manifest signs, in “exterior” writing. Intertextuality demonstrates the process by which a culture continually rewrites and retranscribes itself, where “culture” is a book culture, a semiotic culture, constantly redefining itself through its signs. Writing is both an act of memory and a new interpre-tation of (book) culture. (Lachmann, 1997, p. 15) Literature (a) constitutes cultural memory, (b) records cultural memory, (c) does memory, (d) writes itself into the text-external memory space that consists of texts, and (e) creates a text-internal memory space in which prior texts are incorporated via gradual transformation. Func-tions (d) and (e) are performed in the reciprocal intertextual processes – the (c) doing memory of participating, troping, and transforming - between the individual text and the textual cultural memory. These intertextual processes result in the individual text being integrated into the cul-tural memory (a) and the cultural memory being integrated into the individual text (b). Memory materializes in signs through the act of writing, and, in a similar manner, through reading. Again, Lachmann advocates the idea of the coincidence of memorizing and reinterpreting in writing that parallels the Ricoeurian interplay of sedimentation and innovation. Lachmann (1997) here develops a depersonalized cybernetic text model of memory: Cultural semiotics assumes that culture, as the non-inheritable memory of a people, has at its disposal a mechanism for the storage and transformation of cultural information. On the one hand, this mechanism guarantees semantic invariance, preserving the iden-tity of a culture, by means of certain constant texts and constant codes, by means of a certain law-like regularity in the transformation of cultural information. On the other hand, however, this same mechanism also allows for a generative apparatus that calls attention to new mechanisms of transformation. In this context of cultural semiotics, the rivalry between texts functioning as accumulators and texts functioning as generators presents a central problem of cultural description. (p. 22) This model of cultural memory encompasses mechanisms of storage and transformation. In Ricoeurian sedimentation, meaning invariance is guaranteed by canonical texts and constant codes, i.e., schemata, and processes of transformation that follow a set pattern. Innovation, on the other hand, is brought about by a generative apparatus that invents new mechanism of trans-formation. The text acts as an accumulator or as a generator, depending on the mechanism that it applies. Lachmann (1997) contrasts two models of memory: (a) a temporal linear model of memory, and (b) a depersonalized model of cultural memory that is organized spatially and that is char-acterized as ‘creative memory’ because it allows the resignification of designified, i.e., forgot-ten texts: […] cultural semiotics distinguishes informational memory – which functions in linear terms and has a temporal dimension – from creative memory, which is conceived as panchronic and spatially continuous, and in which the entire textual body of a culture is potentially active. Creative memory resists time. If it can be said that every culture de-velops a specific mechanism for storing and forgetting, a mechanism that is itself subject to change, then creative memory is characterized by a negative storage of the forgotten, the repressed, and that which has lost its semiotic quality. This means that there is no erasure in cultural memory; what is forgotten can be culturally reactivated and can take on its own (or a different) semiotic value. If, at this juncture, we replace the cultural agent with the text, disregarding the question of whether a culture decodes that text as an “old” text or generates it anew, then we will be close to a conception of automatic storage (in other words, the cybernetic model as prefigured in Leonardo’s Profezie). The text as nonpersonal bearer of memory appears as an element of the grammar of memory that all participants in a culture must learn if they wish to act in that culture or prepare themselves for the ben morire. By learning the rules of a culture, they become capable of refiguring old texts, filling out their ellipses with commentaries (textual readings and interpretations), and generating new texts. (Lachmann, 1997, pp. 22-23) In the sedimented cultural memory, all the texts of the given culture are potentially active. There is no erasing, new meaning can be attributed to the forgotten. The mnemonic transaction of the text and the reader is an instance of ‘active receptivity’. Assuming that the autobiographical remembering is constructive and therefore results in a storied remembrance, there is an inter-textual mnemonic confluence of the text’s memory, which is in turn embedded in the cultural memory, and the personal remembrance of the writer/reader. In order to render this confluence possible, the cultural agent needs to be capable of autobiographical remembering and has to learn the grammar of cultural memory that structures the textual archive. The narrative schema is a vital element of this grammar. On the one hand, the narrative schema structures autobio-graphical remembering, thus increasing the efficiency of memorizing and enabling imaginative projections of future events. On the other hand, the narrative schema enters cultural memory through its sedimentation and is stored there, and it allows for innovation by means of trans-formative creative imagination. Finally, the narrative schema makes the intertextual linking of cultural memory and autobiographical remembering possible. Ricoeur (1984) integrates the interplay of sedimentation and innovation into a theory of writing (configuration) and reading (refiguration): Nothing bears witness to this better than the two features by means of which I charac-terized plot at the stage of mimesis2, namely, schematization and traditionality. These features contribute particularly to breaking down the prejudice that opposes an "inside" and an "outside" of a text. Indeed, this opposition is closely knit to a static and closed conception of the structure of any text. The notion of a structuring activity, visible in the operation of emplotment, transcends this opposition. Schematization and traditionality are thus from the start categories of the interaction between the operations [operativité] of writing and of reading. (p. 76) According to the simulation theory (Mar & Oatley, 2008), the reading of fictional works is primarily executed by the imagination. Extending this premise to writing, writing/reading is the task of imagination and memory. The schematized rules of the productive imagination that sed-iment are modified by means of the creative imagination, thus introducing an innovation. This temporal process that is brought about by the imagination transgresses two boundaries: (a) the boundary between the inside and the outside of the text, and (b) the boundary between writing and reading. First, the text only comes into being when written or read, which demands an actualization by the writer/reader. As a consequence, there is no pure inside of the text as soon as it is written/read. Second, the writing of the story is necessarily bound to the reading of the sedimented cultural material, including the paradigms of mythos, and the reading of the story is necessarily bound to the writing of the cultural material that is rooted in the paradigms of mythos and that is to be actualized by the reader according to sedimented paradigms that guide the reading process, thus ensuring followability.27 Writing and reading the story are analogical inasmuch productive and creative imagination collaborate to perform the poietic play on the rule, thus keeping the interplay of sedimentation and innovation running. Ricoeur describes this process in his theory of reading: 27 Writing/reading the story is further complicated as the writers/readers do not only bring in their knowledge of cultural norms and cultural material and their capabilities, but also their own temporal, practical, and emotional worlds. For our work, these worlds of the writer/reader will be conceptualized as narrative-practical identities (Ricoeur, 1992). And if emplotment can be described as an act of judgement and of the productive imag-ination, it is insofar as this act is the joint work of the text and reader […]. Furthermore, it is the act of reading that accompanies the interplay of the innovation and sedimenta-tion of paradigms that schematizes emplotment. In the act of reading, the receiver plays with the narrative constraints, brings about gaps, takes part in the combat between the novel and the antinovel, and enjoys the pleasure that Roland Barthes calls the pleasure of the text. (Ricoeur, 1984, pp. 76-77) Ricoeur’s main points are that the emplotment, i.e., the mythos, is the “joint work of text and reader” and that reading is a play with constraints. We fully approve of the fact that the reader returns to the theory of reading, the transactional process is a prerequisite for the theory to be applicable within student-centered education. Moreover, the poietic play on the rule tries to strongly emphasize the playful manner of reading. At this point, we will venture on the assump-tion that one of these Ricoeurian findings is transferable to a theory of writing the story. Writing is also a poietic play on the sedimented constraints. Reading the text is understanding of the text by the reader as collaboration. Whether the writer’s expression as text resembles this reader’s understanding of text, will be clarified when we attempt to formulate a theory of imaginative writing below. Hall (2007, p. 49) rightly asserts that all understanding of text is historical when we follow Ricoeur’s (1988) theory of reading. The creative imagination does not create ex nihilo, and there is no understanding of text ex nihilo that can be separated from the cultural paradigms of order and the cultural textual archive – and, we would like to add – understanding cannot be divorced from the temporality of the embodied consciousness of the reader either. Imagination is inextricably bound to memory in writing/reading the story. Ricoeur understands the sedimentation as a conservation of the schematic rules. In the interplay of sedimentation and innovation, [i]nnovation remains a form of behavior governed by rules. The labor of imagination is not born from nothing. It is bound in one way or another to the tradition's paradigms. But the range of solutions is vast. It is deployed between the two poles of servile application and calculated deviation, passing through every degree of ‘rule-governed deformation.’ (Ricoeur, 1984, 61; my emphasis) Deviation from the paradigm introduces innovation. In analogy to the “unusual linguistic vari-ation” (Miall & Kuiken, 1994, p. 391), the unusual formal variation of the schema constitutes a foregrounding text features. Jacobs (2015) proposes a dialectic of foregrounding and back-grounding effects of text features on the reader. In Rosenblatt’s (1978) text-reader transaction, the congruence of the reader’s memorized schemata and of the schemata as performed by the text is assessed. The text schemata that are similar to the reader’s schemata exert a background-ing effect, resulting in the reinforcement of the reader’s schemata. Text schemata that deviate from the reader’s schemata, however, produce a foregrounding or defamiliarizing (Miall & Kuiken, 1994) effect. This incongruence leads to schema restructuring or schema creation in the reader (Cook, 1994; Semino, 1997). The deviation from the existing sedimented schema brings about innovation. Miall (2006) summarizes as follows: One effect of defamiliarisation is to require the creation of a new schema adequate to the material presented by the poem or story. The initial schemata are likely to contradict each other in subtle ways, providing the reader with signal of their inadequacy and im-pelling her to recognize that they have only provisional status. The primary work of the reader is thus to interpret the unfolding sentences of the text for clues to a more adequate schema. It is the reader’s feelings that appear to guide this process. (p. 53) The creation of the new schema highlights that reading is not exclusively passive on the part of the reader. The restructuring of the schema supports our assumption that the creation of the schema in response to the text schema does not take place ex nihilo. This restructuring process blends in well with Ricoeur’s (1988) theory of reading as refiguration because the figure of that we classified as schema above is redesigned. From an educational stance, the restructuring of the schema is an instance of transformative learning (Illeris, 2017). In addition, the interplay of sedimentation and innovation can be associated with Bruner’s (1997) dialectic of the ordinary and the exceptional. The canonical cultural pattern, in our case the narrative schema, represents the pole of the ordinary. Literary texts are signified by gaining an understanding of the exceptional, i.e., the deviation from the canonical rule, in its relation to the ordinary: “Another crucial feature of narrative […] is that it specializes in the forging of links between the exceptional and the ordinary. […] Stories achieve their meanings by expli-cating deviations from the ordinary in a comprehensible form […].” (Bruner, 1997, p. 47) By fulfilling the function of acquiring understanding about the deviation, the story displays its quality of being seemingly real: “The function of the story is to find an intentional state that mitigates or at least makes comprehensible a deviation from a canonical cultural pattern. It is this achievement that gives a story verisimilitude.” (Bruner, 1997, pp. 49-50). As a consequence, the semiotization of the deviance that possibly results in innovation is vital for the constitution of the world of the text in the subjunctive mode of as if. Although the diegesis is fictitious, it seems real. 2.3.2 Innovation and self-understanding Let us summarize the issue of innovation with Ricoeur (1984): In both cases, the new thing, the as yet unsaid, the unwritten springs up in language. Here a living metaphor, that is, a new pertinence in the predication, there a feigned plot, that is, a new congruence in the organization of the events. In both cases the semantic innovation can be carried back to the productive imagination and, more precisely, to the schematism that is its signifying matrix. In new metaphors the birth of a new semantic pertinence marvelously demonstrates what an imagination can be that produces things according to rules: ‘being good at making metaphors,’ said Aristotle, ‘is equivalent to being perceptive of resemblances.’ But what is it to be perceptive of resemblance if not to inaugurate the similarity by bringing together terms that at first seem ‘distant,’ then suddenly ‘close’? It is this change of distance in logical space that is the work of the productive imagination. This consists of schematizing the synthetic operation, of figur-ing the predicative assimilation from whence results the semantic innovation. (pp. ix-x) The linguistic innovation is a new syntactical (living metaphor) or textual (feigned plot) con-gruence that is made possible by the synthesis of the heterogeneous which Ricoeur ascribes to the productive imaginations’ schematism. Creativity based on the rule, the process that we termed poietic play on the principle, works metaphorically according to the criterion of simi-larity, thus converging the distant through the synthesis that is schematized in the figure of narrative form. Referring to our distinction of the two play modes of poietic play on as outlined above, the intuition is played on according to the productive imagination’s schemata (poietic play on/according to). We held that the productive imagination makes innovation possible by providing us with the mechanism of schematism that is itself the target of poietic play on (poi-etic play on/with), and that it is the creative imagination that performs innovation by playing on intuition according to the schemata provided by the productive imagination. Innovation is twofold: (a) semantic innovation, and (b) ontological innovation. This means that the interplay of the productive and the creative imagination does not only produce new mean-ing, but also new worlds of text. Let us dwell with Ricoeur and Kearney (1978) for a while on the projection of possible worlds through the recreation of the permanent spirit of language: By the spirit of language we intend not just some decorative excess or effusion of sub-jectivity, but the capacity of language to open up possible worlds. Poetry and myth are not just nostalgia for some forgotten world. They constitute a disclosure of new and unprecedented worlds, an opening onto other possible worlds. This is what I mean by the re-creation of language. […] (Ricoeur & Kearney, 1978, pp. 117-118) Language’s capacity to create possible worlds by non-ostensive reference shall be restored by the re-creation of language. For this reason, there is need of the “mytho-poetic” dimension of language: “Therefore, we need a third dimension of language which is directed neither towards scientific verification nor ordinary communication but the disclosure of possible worlds. This third dimension of language I call the mytho-poetic.” (Ricoeur & Kearney, 1978, p. 118) Texts are capable of world-disclosure, and by hermeneutically understanding these possible worlds, self-understanding is achievable: And here we return to my conviction that the decisive feature of hermeneutics is the capacity of world-disclosure yielded by texts. Hermeneutics is not confined to texts nor to the authors of texts; its primary concern is with the worlds which these authors and texts open up. It is by an understanding of the worlds, actual and possible, opened up by language that we may arrive at a better understanding of ourselves. (Ricoeur & Kearney, 1978, p. 118) Hermeneutic narrative understanding, i.e., the understanding of the world of the text, makes insight into oneself possible. This interpretive exercise is reflective of the Ricoeurian self-un-derstanding via the detour of the construal of the cultural signs. The literary text “allows humans to interpret their lives and introduce a form of self-understanding or reflexivity to life” (Levy, 2014, p. 52), therefore “narrative fiction is an irreducible dimension of self-understanding” (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 30) Ricoeur draws on imaginative variation to explain the function of literature in obtaining self-understanding. Literary texts are “imaginative variations on an invariant, our corporeal condi-tion experienced as the existential mediation between the self and the world” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 150). Ricoeur explains that “the imaginative variations around the corporeal condition are variations on the self and its selfhood” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 150). Literary variation by means of the imagination is mirrored in the domain of the self when the autobiographical stories are regarded as “imaginative variations of our own ego” (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 33). The imaginative variations are reminiscent of the poietic play on the principle, the difference being that the sed-imented rule is not invariant as it is subject to the poietic play on/with itself. As stated above, literature creates imaginative variations on the self and its selfhood. In the world of the text, the characters’ identities are submitted to imaginative variations: This mediating function performed by the narrative identity of the character between the poles of sameness and selfhood is attested to primarily by the imaginative variations to which the narrative submits this identity. In truth, the narrative does not merely tol-erate these variations, it engenders them, seeks them out. In this sense, literature proves to consist in a vast laboratory for thought experiments in which the resources of variation encompassed by narrative identity are put to the test of narration. The benefit of these thought experiments lies in the fact that they make the difference between the two mean-ings of permanence in time evident, by varying the relation between them. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 148) The relations between idem and ipse are imaginatively modified, thus revealing the difference between these modes of identity. The text creates the imaginative variations, and then it tests them. In this sense, literature is a laboratory. During the process of reading, these imaginative variations created and tested in the literary text are transacted between the narrative and the reader’s identity. The self can process the text’s imaginative propositions both during the reading of the literary text and during the writing of its own life stories which are, as we learnt above, themselves “imaginative variations of [its] own ego”. This transaction of imaginative variations between the text and the self potentially triggers learning: “It is the function of poetry in its narrative and dramatic form, to propose to the imagination and to its mediation various figures that constitute so many thought experiments by which we learn to link together the aspects of human conduct and happiness and misfortune.” (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 23) To begin with, thought experiments triggered by the reading of the story have an ethical dimension: “The thought experiments we conduct in the great laboratory of the imaginary are also explorations in the realm of good and evil.” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 164) This ethical dimension does not only encompass insight into the moral norms, but also insight into how to achieve Aristotelean eudaimonic well-being. The thought experiments offer trajectories to a happy life. In addition, practical learning may take place. The practical field is broadened by the thought experiments: “[…] novel types of life are explored in the mode of fiction” (Ric-oeur, 1992, p. 288). The emergence into new Wittgensteinean ‘types of life’ (Lebensformen), i.e., the practical patterns according to which life is performed and meaning is created, enlarges the reader’s agency and provides her with new forms (schemata) of living. The narrative schema does not only have an indirect effect on the self via the interpretation of the cultural signs, it is also operative in writing/reading the self (Levy, 2014, p. 58): Before we ever use narrative imagination to configure our lives into meaningful stories, we have already used it to prefigure our lives in terms of symbolically structured and temporally schematized action. The completion of the hermeneutic circle with the re-figuring of time by narrative (writing and reading) is, according to Ricoeur, a ‘whole-some’ one. (Kearney, 1995, p. 183) We can conclude from this that the narrative imagination is formative for the life story. Ricoeur contends that we create life stories out of multiple incidents in an analogous way to the manner in which we extract a plot out of the diverse elements in a text. The self is articulated in terms of narrative (Levy, 2014, p. 57). Levy describes the process of writing the self as follows: There is a dialectical relation between the self and occurrences from which its life is made; concrete episodes are situated in the history of the self or weaved into it by the force of imagination, thus gaining meaning, but as these episodes are added up to the story as a whole, the terrain of the self is being modified” (Levy, 2014, pp. 58-59) The understanding of the self is gained through the imagination’s schematized synthesis of the intuitive episodes. The working of imagination in the writing of the self is potentially self-modifying. From this it follows that self-understanding is possibly gained by both reading the literary story and by writing the autobiographical story. The temporal synthesis is a prerequisite for Ricoeurian self-constancy (Kearney, 1995, p. 181). Ipseity relies on the imagination to synthesize the different horizons of past, present and future. In Kearney’s interpretation of Ricoeur’s narrative identity, “self-constancy refers to a self in-structed by the works of culture that it has applied to itself.” (Kearney, 1995, p. 182). Identity is considered as an examined life “clarified by the cathartic effects of narrative […] conveyed by our culture” (Kearney, 1995, p. 182). In the Aristotelean tradition, narrative evokes the emo-tion of eleos an phobos and thus purifies the reader. Eventually, this may result in deepened self-understanding: “Subjects […] come to imagine and know themselves in the stories they tell about themselves.” (Kearney, 1995, p. 182) We can summarize that self-understanding through fiction is not only conceptual-cognitive. Emotionality is essential in producing the insight, and self-understanding through the Ricoeurian detour encompasses both knowing oneself and im-agining possible selves. The fact that narrative identity is inextricably bound to the workings of narrative imagination implies that the identity is in flux: “ The recognition that self-identity presupposes narrative imagination requires, accord-ingly, the corollary recognition that narrative identity is something which perpetually makes and unmakes itself. […] There is a fundamental fluidity built into the principle of narrative identity by virtue of the fact that it is founded on narrative imagination. (Kearney, 1995, p. 183). Identity based on the narrative imagination is a continuous creative process of making and un-making. In Ricoeur’s formulation, the agent of this process is identity itself. In our view, this part requires correction in order to be in line with the concept of ‘active receptivity’ that is constitutive of the writing/reading the story. The narrative interpretation of the self is certainly based on sedimented narrative forms which actively influence the process of doing identity, but it is not solely the cultural form that wields power, but also the personal agent who transacts with the cultural forms. As a consequence, narrative identity “makes and unmakes itself”, and narrative identity is made and unmade. Narrative imagination, however, does not only structure identity by means of the narrative form, it might also have a destabilizing effect on identity: “narrative imagination does indeed provide the subject with a structure of self-constancy, its fictional power also exposes the subject to imaginative variations of self and other that can easily destabilize narrative identity.” (Kearney, 1995, p. 183). According to Klepper (2013, pp. 9-15), fictional characters might be marked by decomposition and multiplication. In the empathic/identifying shift to the fictional character, this could threaten the reader’s identity as a unified whole. So far, we have discovered that the narrative imagination allows self-understanding through the reading and the writing of the story, and that it also has the potential of self-decomposition and self-multiplication. In addition, Kearney (1995) realizes with Ricoeur that narrative imagination facilitates insight into the other: “[…] it could be said that narrative imagination opens us to the foreign world of others by enabling to tell or hear other stories, but it can never be sure of escaping the herme-neutic circle of interpretation, which ultimately strives to translate the foreign into the familiar, the discordant into the concordant, the different into the analogous, the other into the self […]” (p. 185) In line with the formula of the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’, the dialectics listed above lean towards the pole of the self without ignoring the other. The translation into has a direction (self) and an aim (unity) that is prescribed by the narrative imagination. In the ethical domain, the function of the narrative imagination is to (a) provide a base for a responsible self, and (b) transcend the self towards the other (Kearney, 1995, p. 186). The tendency to the self is a nec-essary condition for function (a), and the fact that the element of the other is not deleted but synthesized is a prerequisite for function (b). According to Kearney (Kearney, 1995, pp. 185-186), a moral norm needs to limit the powers of the narrative imagination: the ethical self must not reduce otherness to selfhood. The self is not only responsible for oneself, but also to the other as other-than-self (Hall, 2007, p. 87). In conclusion, imagination serves two fundamental functions: (a) function of representation, and (b) function of organization. First, imagination allows the emergence of new meaning and the projection of new worlds by mediating between intuition and understanding. Second, the productive imagination organizes intuition by the practical and temporal syntheses, thus creat-ing a unified meaningful whole. If the narrative form is transferred to the self, the productive imagination’s narrative schema allows the unification of the identity. According to Hallet (2008, p. 37), the specific model of the text must be explicated if we use the text metaphor in a different domain. We understand the self as text, we must know what we understand by text first.28 The language activity within the language game (Wittgenstein, 1958) of the narrative follows certain rules that constitute the model of the text. Mythos is the first principle. 28 For example, the text metaphor was used to explain culture (Bachmann-Medick, 2004). Here, we also need to know what a text is before the text can be used as a heuristic tool to understand culture. 3 The principle of mythos Ricoeur (1984) abstracts the notion of mythos from the theory of tragedy in Aristotle’s Poetics, Chapter 6, and the principle of mythos is tested against canonical texts by both Aristotle and Ricoeur. Mythos is regarded as a paradigm of order (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 38) and denotes the process of structuring without reference to experience (human acting and suffering) which is accomplished by mimesis. Ricoeur’ s aim in Time and Narrative. Volume 1 (1984) is to extend the application of the organizing principle to the whole narrative field (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 35). In the following, we will further modify Ricoeur’s treatment of the Aristotelean model of my-thos on both the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis in the light of Hallet’s (2009) multitextual and multimodal model, and simultaneously we will maintain the kernel of the syntax of the model, i.e., the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’ (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 66). Our modification will involve a reinforcement of the component of discordance in the discordant concordance (Ric-oeur, 1984, p. 42) of mythos. However, the same structural telos will be pursued: unity. This end will ultimately be transferred to the domain of the self. 3.1 The texturing principle The starting point is Aristotle’s Poetics. In 1450b, 1451a and 1451b he expounds on how the mythos is properly constructed. Four characteristics of concordance are enumerated: (a) com-pleteness: the representation of action is whole, i.e., it has a beginning, middle and end; (b) scale: the representation has an appropriate length; (c) unity: the plot is built around a single action, (d) universality and necessity: the representation is about what is possible in terms of the phronetic logic of probability and necessity, i.e., the events are organized one thing because of another (logical configuration) and not one thing after the other (chronological configuration) (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 41). From these characteristics we can deduce the organizational principle of the mythos that designates the making of a plot. Plotting aims at a representation of a whole (a), single (c) and possible (d) action of an appropriate length (b). Representation of action is addressed in the notion of mimesis. The characteristics of the action to be productively mim-icked in narrative point to the operations of mythos. For Ricoeur, unity and probability/neces-sity are the prime constituents of mythos (Ricoeur, 1984, pp. 38-42). We can conclude: unity . narrative synthesis; probability/necessity . narrative sequencing. Aristotle ascribes primacy to the process of emplotment, i.e., the mythos: The most important element is the construction of the plot. Tragedy is a representation not of persons but of action and life, and happiness and unhappiness consist in action. The point is action, not character: it is their moral status that gives people the character they have, but it is their actions that make them happy or unhappy. (2013, 1450a) So Ricoeur rightfully holds that narrative logic is not reconstructed from characters, but from “abstract segments of action” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 37). The ethical aim of happiness (Cf. below) is also dependent on action, not on character. Following Aristotle’s primacy of the mythos, Ricoeur defines narrative in terms of emplotment: “[…] I am calling narrative exactly what Aristotle calls muthos, the organization of the events.” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 36). As a consequence, narrative is conceived as “the ‘what’ of the mimetic activity” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 36). For our purpose of transferring narrative to the self, narrative is not solely defined by the structuring principle of mythos, but also by the distinct referentiality of the mimetic activity itself that has mythos as its object. The self is narratively structured, but it is also prefigured in mimesis1, configured in mimesis2 and refigured in mimesis3. In the same line, Meuter (1995, p. 122) understands narrativity as a fundamental organization principle of human experience and action. He even thinks, in a system theory tradition, that “a narrative is a self-organizing structure that mediates meaning and time” (Meuter 2013, p. 34). Self-organization of the system, however, is in contrast with Ricoeur’s (1984) definition of the self’s agency as ‘active receptivity’. In Meuter’s (2013) extreme position on narration as self-organizing structure, there is an uncontrollable intrinsic logic of narration which is non-inten-tional on the part of the self. The subject is reduced to total passivity. We will be advocating Ricoeur’s middle view here: the self is both receptive and agentive. What is important in the field of pedagogy is that the central term of “poiesis puts the imprint of its dynamism on all the concepts in the Poetics and makes them concepts about operations” (Ricoeur 1984, p. 48). Mythos is not a static structure, but a process of creative structuring, an act of configuration. Mimesis is not a realistic still life, but a productive activity on real actions. The principles of the text model fall within the scope of doing, not within the scope of the done. Ricoeur (1984) summarizes: “I shall be defending the primacy of the activity that produces plots in relation to every sort of static structure, achronological paradigm, or temporal invari-ant.” (p. 33) It must be added that the principles of structuring and representing do not only mold the act of writing, but also the act of reading: “Structuration is an oriented activity that is only completed in the spectator or the reader” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 48). This is true for representation as well, and that is the reason why Ricoeur (1984) added a theory of reading (mimesis3) to his theory of writing (mimesis2). Why then is the procedural nature of the principles vital in the field of pedagogy? What does the dynamic nature of emplotment and representation mean for the teaching of how to write life stories and how to read literary stories? Under the condition of the dynamism of the principles, the process of generating meaning can be at the center of learning, not the Kantian reproductive imitation of the given structure. The teaching of productive operations which enable the student to write and read stories complies with the theoretical rationale of activity- and competence-based approaches to learning. The application of dynamic principles promotes the student’s activity, it allows individualization of the learning process by having the student constitute per-sonal meanings in his actualization of the text model, and it empowers the student in the sense of offering insight into the self and the other by transferring the dynamic text model to the self. That insight in turn potentially increases the student’s agency. Moreover, the text model that travels to the self as an epistemological and generative tool and the self, the target area of learn-ing in our project, are compatible because these constructs are both dynamic in nature. The static self cannot learn. The imitation of the static rule cannot transform the imitator. The dy-namic self can learn. The production according to the dynamic rule can transform the producer. Therefore, the text and the self being compatible in their dynamic nature is a precondition for self-modifying learning. Let us return to our “first principle” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 34), the model of emplotment. The configurative act of mythos marks the “passage from the paradigmatic to the syntagmatic [that] constitutes the transition from mimesis1 to mimesis2” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 66). The dialectic of synthesis into concordance and reversal into discordance (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 42), which charac-terizes the process of mythos, shapes the syntagma. As we learned above, the act of configuration is compared to the workings of Kant’s productive imagination: “Remaining in a Kantian vein, we ought not to hesitate in comparing the produc-tion of the configurational act to the work of the productive imagination.” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 68) We will add to this the assumption that in writing/reading the story the creative imagination plays on the schematic narrative, i.e., the mythos, which is the corollary of productive imagi-nation. 3.2 The integrating principle Difference in identity (text/self), discontinuity in continuity (time), discordance in concordance (structure), and dissimilitude in similarity (representation) are integrated by mythos in accord-ance with plurality in unity (category of quantity). We will argue that this mediation is depend-ent on the narrative schema, the mythos. Hallet (2008) raises the question whether emplotment is an undue totalization: If at all, identity is represented as a permanent self-reflexive process of assembling minds and voices and representing them as a polyphonous, multitextual collage. Not only is there no desire to subject them to a totalizing plot, but […] such a concept of autobiography is declined as being inadequate for a life that others have invaded so forcefully. The multiplied autobiography can therefore also be regarded as a cultural template that matches a diversified, disjunctive and fragmented biography. ‘Plural iden-tity’ is not a metaphor here, but the self’s only way of imagining him- or herself. (p. 45) The argument for the rejection of the sedimented plot is situated on the social plane, not on the temporal level at which emplotment is primarily directed. The invasion of the other requires a new schema: the multiplied story. This schema no longer follows Kant’s category of unity, but plurality. The criterion for matching life and art is verisimilitude: The text model must fit the perceived social reality. On the condition of verisimilitude, the plural identity is a necessity. We will see below that verisimilitude must always be connected to some criterion for the com-position of the text. Here, we need to ask ourselves whether polyphony (Bakhtin, 1981) can be integrated in the narrative schema. In other words: Is the narrative schema capable of mediating between the plural social reality and the category of unity? Ricoeur advocates the idea that the principle of identity in difference is valid both for the nar-rative plot and narrative identity: From this simple reminder of the notion of emplotment, and before any consideration of the dialectic of characters which is its corollary, it results that the narrative operation has developed an entirely original concept of dynamic identity which reconciles the same categories that Locke took as contraries: identity and diversity. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 143) Following Ricoeur, heterogeneity is not annihilated, but configured. Therefore, the Ricoeurian model cannot be regarded as a totalization, but as a synthesis of difference. Heterogeneity is subordinated to unity. This is in stark contrast to Derrida’s (1981) view on identity and differ-ence: At the point at which the concept of differance, and the chain attached to it, intervenes, all the conceptual oppositions of metaphysics (signifier/signified; sensible/intelligible; writing/speech; passivity/activity; etc.) - to the extent that they ultimately refer to the presence of something present (for example, in the form of the identity of the subject who is present for all his operations, present beneath every accident or event, self-pre-sent in its "living speech," in its enunciations, in the present objects and acts of its lan-guage, etc.) - become non pertinent. They all amount, at one moment or another, to a subordination of the movement of differance in favor of the presence of a value or a meaning supposedly antecedent to differance, more original than it, exceeding and gov-erning it in the last analysis. This is still the presence of what we called above the "tran-scendental signified." (p. 29) According to Derrida, différance as difference and deferral must not be subordinated to the transcendental signified representing identity. Words do not produce identity, they do not un-ambiguously represent objects, but they produce difference in their play with all the other signs. There is no ending to this play of signs, meaning is necessarily deferred. Derrida’s elements of the play of signs and deferral are adopted for our model, but we go along with Ricoeur’s inver-sion of the hierarchy of identity and difference in the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. Identity as discordant concordance integrates difference within identity, thus taming difference under the category of unity. To achieve the superordination of identity in ‘identity in difference’, the conditions of the Aristotelean plot must be met. We aspire to unity, coherence, necessity, and completeness in spite of the discordant elements in writing/reading the story. If these conditions are met, “the configuration wins out over the episodic form, concordance overcomes discord-ance” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 20). Why do we endorse a text model based on unity? The main reason for this is that there is a psychological need for personal unity (McAdams & McLean, 2013; McAdams et al., 2006). Synthesizing the life into a unified life story responds to this need. This synthesis of the life story can be achieved by means of a text model that aims at unity. In addition, it seems tenable to use a model of unity for the teaching of adolescents who shall be supported in their integra-tion of social and temporal complexities. Let us now turn to Ricoeur’s (1984) ideas about discordance. Three elements of discordance are detected: (a) The fearful and pitiable events threaten the plot’s coherence. The feelings of fear and pity are considered “generators of discordance” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 43). (b) Surprising events represent the second element of discordance. Surprise must be seen in its relation to the condition of necessity (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 44). Events arrive unexpectedly for the characters, but the plot itself is plausible and therefore necessary (Aristotle, 52a4). (c) Reversal (metabole), i.e., “a change from one state of affairs to its exact opposite” (Aristotle, 52a22), is at the “heart of discordant concordance” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 43). Reversals characteristic of the complex plot are peripeteia, anagnorisis, and pathos. These discordant elements are interconnected in the tragic model: “[…] the model becomes stronger, inasmuch reversal, recognition, and suffering – particularly when they are joined to-gether in one work, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus – bring to their highest degree of tension the fusion of the ‘paradoxical’ and the ‘causal’ sequence, of surprise and necessity.” (Ricoeur, 1984, pp. 43-44; my emphasis). The forms of plot reversal interact, plot reversal maximizes the suspense between surprise and necessity, and further emotional effects of reversal are fear and pity. The primarily cognitive model of narrative schema is complemented with emotionality through discordance. Emotionality is dependent on the text-reader transaction; it is not solely located in the text structure. During reading, the emotions evoked by the text structure are actualized in the reader. Therefore, emotionality is a concern for a theory of reading the literary text. The following emotional elements are relevant in a theory of reading based on Aristotle and his reading by Ricoeur (1984, p. 44). Emplotment’s closure is tied to happiness, thus linking poetics to a theory of ethics based on eudemonia. In addition, catharsis is an emotional learning effect (RIC, 1984, p. 240) on the reader. This catharsis is brought about by the feelings of éleos and phóbos as evoked by the plot’s reversals. Pity and fear by means of mimesis praxeos is also the source of pleasure: “[…] the pleasure which the poet should afford is that which comes from pity and fear through imitation” (Aristotle, 53b12f.). The discernment of the hamartia of the protagonist is facilitated by pity and fear. The plot purifies discordant incidents by making nec-essary and probable what is surprising for the characters. This attests to the profound im-portance of feeling in discordance. Ricoeur (1984) ascertains a circular relation between the tragic emotions and the plot: “It is the composition of the plot that purges the emotions, by bringing to representation the pitiable and fearful incidents, and it is these purged emotions that govern our discernment of the tragic.” (p. 45). The reciprocity of emotions and plot reads: The plot purges the emotions by evoking emo-tions mimetically, the emotions guide the reading of the (tragic) plot. What does this reciprocity mean for hierarchy of the emotional and the cognitive? Following Ricoeur’s ideas on mimesis2, the cognitive schema executes the synthesis that is vital for con-cordance, i.e., the schema emplots, and the emotionality of discordance that is subordinated to concordance is subject to this synthetic activity of concordance: “the effect [=pleasure from pity and fear] must be embodied [empoieteon] in [en] the events of the plot” (Aristotle, 53b14f.). In conclusion, the emotional is integrated into the cognitive schema; the discordant is synthesized according to the unifying principle of concordance. The subordination of the emotional to the cognitive in this conception of writing is problematic, but it is reversed during the process of reading in which the emotions are superordinate to the processing of the narrative schema, they guide the comprehension of the plot (Ricoeur, 1984; Miall, 2006). In conclusion, it is notable that difference is indispensable in the concept of discordant con-cordance: “The art of composition consists in making this discordance appear concordant” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 43; my emphasis). The discordant elements are given the figure of narrative schema in the mode of as if. In order to fulfil the conditions of unity, completeness, necessity, and coherence, the discordant is synthesized by the schema. Integration of difference does not equal the deletion of difference. We now must address the questions of the scope and the adequacy of the narrative model. Ric-oeur (1984) grounds the possibility of universalization in the semiotic effect of reversal: “[…] if reversal is essential to every story or history where meaninglessness threatens the meaningful, does not the conjunction of reversal and recognition preserve a universality that goes beyond the case of tragedy?” (p. 44). Ricoeur transfers the tragic form of Aristotelean emplotment that produces meaning from the meaningless by the synthesis of the schema to all narrative texts. That way, the original scope is significantly extended. As far as adequacy is concerned, we must ask ourselves whether the theory of the plot is still appropriate for contemporary cultural practice (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 7). Conventions of plot have been constantly defied in literary history, and contemporary textual configurations “contest the very principle of order that is the root of the idea of plot. What is in question today is the very idea of a relationship between an individual work and every received paradigm.” (Ricoeur, 1985, p.7) In the following, we will test the capacity of the given narrative model to adequately capture contemporary literary and life texts. In other words, does the formal definition of my-thos capture today’s writing/reading the story. Ricoeur (1985) holds that the modern novel tends to reject any set of sedimented rules, therefore the pertinence of the narrative model must be questioned. Although Ricoeur’s assessment of contemporary literature is assuredly a generalization, it is a useful one because it triggers re-flection on the adequacy of the text model which is to be applied on the literary texts subsumed under it. Let us briefly summarize with Ricoeur (1985) the evolution of the novel in order to be able to assess the appropriateness of the model for the various stages of the development of prose writing. We must start by clarifying the relation of plot and character: “Whereas Aristotle had subordi-nated characters to plot, taken as the encompassing concept in relation to the incidents, characters, and thoughts, in the modern novel we see the notion of character overtake that of plot, becoming equal with it, then finally surpass it entirely.” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 9) In spite of these modifications of the narrative form, plot remains the primary principle of literature for Ricoeur (1984, 1992). In the evolution of the novel, three major expansions of character can be detected (Ricoeur, 1985, pp. 9-10). First, the social sphere is extended to ordinary people in the picaresque novel. A tendency towards the episodic is discernible in this paradigm. Second, the social and psycho-logical domains are connected during the self-awakening of the protagonist in the Bildungsro-man. A new formula of the reciprocal relation of plot and character reads as follows: “deepening a character by narrating more and drawing from the richness of a character the exigency of a greater episodic complexity. In this sense, character and plot mutually influence each other.” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 9). Third, the stream-of-consciousness novel addresses the incompleteness of personality and focuses on the character’s feelings. Despite these social and psychological modifications that impact the relationship of plot and character Ricoeur concludes that the ideas of the narrative schema and metaphorical reference in mimetic representation are valid through-out the history of the novel: “Yet nothing in these successive expansion of character at the expense of the plot escapes the formal principle of configuration and therefore the concept of emplotment. I will even dare to say that nothing in them takes us beyond the Aristotelean defi-nition of muthos as the imitation of action.” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 10) To accommodate psycho-logical processes within the concept of emplotment, mimesis praxeos is extended to internal actions to the moral transformation of characters, their growth and education, and their initiation into the complexity of moral and emotional existence [Cf. Bildungsroman]. It also in-cludes, in a still more subtle sense, purely internal changes affecting the temporal course of sensations and emotions, moving ultimately to the least organized, least conscious level of introspection can reach [Cf. stream-of-consciousness novel] (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 10) Therefore, Ricoeur can conclude that “[t]he history of the genre ‘novel’ does not require us […] to give up the term ‘plot’ as designating the correlate of narrative understanding.“ (Ricoeur, 1985, p.10) The schema prevails, it is the condition of the possibility of cognition. The sedi-mented plot makes text understanding possible. Throughout the history of epic writing, the problem of configuration is tied to the problem of verisimilitude (Ricoeur, 1985, pp. 10-11). Therefore, we have to bring the ideas of structure as dealt with in this chapter and representation that is to be addressed in the next chapter together. From a historical perspective, the problem of configuration was superimposed by the problem of verisimilitude in the realist literature of the 19th century in which representational issues covered over compositional ones: the “novelistic procedures used to satisfy the requirement to depict life in its everyday truth” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 11). In short, configuration was subordinated to the depiction of life. For the realists, being true to life meant equating art and life.29 By this, the Aristotelean concept of mimesis was reduced to the function of the copy. In an un-Aristo-telian sense, the realist writers’ aim was to “establish the most exact correspondence possible between the literary work and the reality it imitates” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 12). The congruence between life and the self on the one hand and art and the text on the other was supposed to be total. 29 We will address the relationship of life and art when we take up the debate between Mink (1970) and Mac-Intyre (1981) which Ricoeur (1988) tried to resolve in his theory of reading. Paradoxically, the focus on verisimilitude provoked reflections about the composition: […] perhaps it was necessary to overthrow the conventions in the name of the probable in order to discover that the price to be paid for doing so is an increase in the refinement of composition, hence the invention of ever more complex plots, and, in this sense, ones more and more distant from reality and from life. Whatever may be said about this al-leged cunning of reason in the history of the genre of the novel, the paradox remains that it was refinement in narrative technique, called for by the concern for faithfulness to everyday reality, that brought attention to what Aristotle called, in the broad sense, the ‘imitation of an action’ in terms of ‘the organization of the events’ in a plot. (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 12) The aspiration to verisimilitude caused a rise in the degree of complexity of the composition, which in turn undermined this aspiration. What we learn from this Ricoeurian analysis of the realist era is that structure and representation, mythos and mimesis, are necessarily related to each other. This has a consequence for the representational concept of verisimilitude: Everything happened as though only ever more complex conventions could approach what was natural and true, as if the growing complexity of these conventions made this very reality recede into an inaccessible horizon that art wanted to equal and to ‘render.’ This is why the call for verisimilitude could not long hide the fact that verisimilitude is not just resemblance to truth but also a semblance of truth. (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 13) The interaction of mythos and mimesis teaches us that verisimilitude is truth-like, it is seem-ingly true. Although the diegesis bears a likeness to reality through the metaphorical reference established by mimesis, i.e., the diegesis is like reality according to the correspondence theory of truth, representational truth is unobtainable by fiction that is bound to the mode of as if. According to Ricoeur’s assessment, the realist literature achieved a “precarious equilibrium” of configuration and representation: Indeed, insofar as the novel was recognized as the art of fiction, reflection on the formal conditions for the production of this fiction entered into open competition with the ‘re-alistic’ motivation behind which these conditions first lay concealed. The golden age of the novel in the nineteenth century may be characterized by a precarious equilibrium between the always more strongly affirmed aim of faithfulness to reality and the ever sharper awareness of the artifice behind a successful composition. (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 13) The competing claims of representation and structure were temporarily balanced out. As soon as this balance was lost, it turned out that the prose text could not represent reality and life genuinely. The insight into the representational nature of fiction undermined the realist en-deavor of copying nature. Art is an illusion, and therefore mimesis is not a reproductive, but productive-poietic process. Neumann (2008) confirms the productive-poietic nature of mimesis in self-narrations. By her concept of ‘mimesis of narration’, she understands a “set of literary strategies employed to de-pict, question and challenge the autobiographical process” (p. 54; my emphasis). She keeps the idea of the picture of the world, but she also demonstrates that self-narrations produce and de-termine the reality of self, they do not only describe it. Self-narrations are creative within the constraints of the schema, they serve a poietic, not a mimetic (in Plato’s sense) function. The effect is the illusion of mimesis (Neumann, 2008, p. 58), which is in line with Ricoeur’s con-ception of verisimilitude. The finding that mimesis is productive-poietic is valid not only for the realist literature of the 19th century, but also for the ‘inner realism’ which aims at being true to the psychological reality of the self. What the epic cannot achieve is the copy of the human mind. The text might ap-proximate the mind, it might be like the mind by applying new novelistic techniques, but it never is the mind. To sum up, neither nature nor the mind can be duplicated in art: Today it is said that only a novel without a plot or characters or any discernible temporal organization is more genuinely faithful to experience, which is itself fragmented and inconsistent, than was the traditional novel of the nineteenth century. But this plea for a fragmented, inconsistent fiction is not justified any differently than was the plea for naturalistic literature. The argument for verisimilitude has merely been displaced. For-merly, it was social complexity that called for abandoning the classical paradigm; today, it is the presumed incoherence of reality that requires abandoning every paradigm (Ric-oeur, 1985, pp. 13-14). Ricoeurian mimesis does not aim at copying the hypothesized fragmentation and inconsistency of the society and the mind, the copy is the “weakest function of mimesis” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 14). Irrespective of the dominant episteme, the world of action and experience (mimesis1) is configured (mimesis2) in writing the story and refigured (mimesis3) in reading the story so that the representational activity is necessarily doubly creative. What Ricoeur rejects is seeking verisimilitude to the detriment of form. He summarizes the significance of the narrative schema as follows: First, it is because cultures have produced works that may be related to one another in terms of family resemblances, which operate, in the case of the narrative modes, on the very level of emplotment, that a search for some order is possible. Next, this order may be assigned to the productive imagination for which it constitutes the schematism. Fi-nally, as an order of the imaginary, it includes an irreducible temporal dimension, that of traditionality. Each of these three points allows us to see in emplotment the correlate of a genuine narrative understanding that precedes, both in fact and by right, every re-construction of narrating in terms of a second-order rationality. (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 19) Wittgensteinean (1958) family resemblances that work on the level of emplotment in the lan-guage game of narrative allow the quest for order. As we have outlined above, this order is established by the Kantian schema that is embedded in tradition. The sedimented schema em-plots, and the schema is potentially modified during the emplotment. Let us repeat the main point: The schema is the condition of possibility of narrative understanding which is not to be confused with narrative analysis within a given theoretic framework, i.e., the “second-order rationality”. Accepting the central part of the schematism, we need to ask ourselves with Ricoeur whether narrative schema “differ[s] from itself to such an extent that its identity is no longer recogniza-ble” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 20). In other words, is the schema perennial or do variationns threaten the paradigm “to the point of announcing its death” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 20)? Ricoeur illustrates the problem of the possible death of the paradigm via closure that belongs to the categorical realms of completeness and unity that are characteristic of the principle of concordance. Closure denotes the directionality of the plot towards its end, attributing to the plot a teleologi-cal nature. Polkinghorne (2004) also highlights the plot’s orientation towards its ending: “Em-plotment relates the elements of a story to a result by noting their contributions to achieving or failing to achieve an outcome” (p. 30). The possibility of closure, however, is questioned, especially in the field of the life story. De Man (1979, p. 922) holds that the autobiographical process can never attain completeness. Hal-let (2008, p. 40) also abandons the idea of closure. In the following, we will investigate the crisis of closure as a symptom of the potentially fatal illness of the narrative form and Ricoeur’s triumph over the crisis by means of the reader’s concordant expectations. Ricoeur addresses the difficulty of the closure in contemporary prose writing: In the tradition of the realistic novel, the end of the work tended to be confused with the end of the represented action. […] But this is no longer the case once the literary artifice, by virtue of the reflexivity I spoke of above, turns back upon its fictive aspect. The ending of the work is then the ending of the fictive operation itself. This reversal of perspective characterizes contemporary literature. Here the criterion of a good closure is much more difficult to manage, especially when it has to agree with the tone of irres-olution of the work as a whole. (Ricoeur, 1985, pp. 21-22) As long as verisimilitude was the dominant principle, the end of work was associated with the end of action itself. By cutting the reproductive connection to reality, ending the story is a matter of configuration and refiguration, the assistance of praxis being considerably reduced. Ricoeur (1985) detects a double crisis of closure and concordance: “And this crisis takes place on the two levels of the closure of a work and of the wearing out of the paradigm of concord-ance.” (p. 23). The synthetic integration of the heterogeneous and the configuration of the plot towards an ending have become problematic. Ricoeur notices a shift from the concept of immi-nent crisis (the Apocalypse) to immanent crisis (Elizabethan tragedy): This transition from Apocalypse to the Elizabethan tragedy points the way toward one part of the situation of contemporary culture and literature, the one where crisis replaces the end, where crisis becomes an endless transition. The impossibility of concluding thus becomes a symptom of the invalidation of the paradigm itself. It is in the contem-porary novel that we may best see the combination of these two themes: the decline of paradigms - hence the end of fiction; the impossibility of ending a poem - hence the ruin of the fiction of the end. (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 24) Ricoeur emphasizes that the problem of closure points to the problem of the narrative schema in general on which the taxonomy of paradigms is based. Finding an ending means preserving the schema. But both closure and schema are in a crisis. By crisis, Ricoeur understands an invalidation of the schema, but not the discrediting of the schema. The form is changed, but not destroyed: The fiction of the end, we have said, has continually been invalidated, and yet it has never been discredited. Is this also the fate of literary paradigms? Does crisis equally signify for us catastrophe and renovation? This is Kermode's [1966] deep conviction and it is one that I fully share. Crisis does not indicate the absence of every end but the conversion of the imminent end into an immanent end. We may not, according to Ker-mode, stretch the strategy of invalidation and of peripeteia to the point where the ques-tion of closure would lose all meaning. But, we may ask, what is an immanent end when the end is no longer an ending? (Ricoeur, 1985) Following Kermode and Ricoeur, the crisis is not necessarily the end to the end, it might be the end’s renovation. The crisis as an “endless transition” might result in catastrophe or renovation. The renovation option is reminiscent of the interplay of sedimentation and innovation. The im-manent end as crisis is peripeteia in the original sense of krisis, i.e., the turning point in an illness. With the reversal, the principle of discordance assumes control. As long as the peripe-teia, i.e., the discordant modification, of the ending can be synthesized by the schema, the catastrophe does not happen. The schema does not die. But the crisis is still inherent in it; dis-cordance lies in ambush. In order to control discordance, Ricoeur (1985) makes a questionable assumption that is in need of empirical evidence: Readers expect closure and concordance: “Here is where the paradigm of consonance takes refuge because here is where it originates. What seems unsurpassable in the last analysis is the reader’s expectation that some form of consonance will finally prevail.” (Ricoeur, 1985, pp. 23-24). Here we enter the domain of mimesis3 which deals with a theory of reading. The overly dis-cordant plot is regarded as a plea to the reader for transaction: “the dissolution of the plot has to be understood as a signal to us to cooperate with the work, to shape the plot ourselves.” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 25). The reader is writerly in Barthes’ (1974) sense: Why is the writerly our value? Because the goal of literary work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text. Our literature is characterized by the pitiless divorce which the literary institution maintains between the producer of the text and its user, between its owner and its customer, between its author and its reader. This reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness - he is intransitive; he is, in short, serious: instead of functioning himself, instead of gaining access to the magic of the signifier, to the pleasure of writing, he is left with no more than the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text: reading is nothing more than a referendum. Opposite the writerly text, then, is its countervalue, its negative, reactive value: what can be read, but not written: the readerly. We call any readerly text a classic text. (p. 4) Ricoeur (1985) hypothesizes that the writerly reader is a stabilizer of the narrative schema: And yet . . . and yet. Perhaps, in spite of everything, it is necessary to have confidence in the call for concordance that today still structures the expectations of readers and to believe that new narrative forms, which we do not yet know how to name, are already being born, which will bear witness to the fact that the narrative function can still be metamorphosed, but not so as to die. For we have no idea of what a culture would be where no one any longer knew what it meant to narrate things. (p. 28) The “and yet” denotes that concordance prevails in spite of the transformations the schema constantly undergoes. Ricoeur substantiates his assumption by referring to the central organi-sational function the narrative serves for culture. In line with Bruner (1990), the narrative mode is indispensable for the creation and understanding of culture. According to Ricoeur (1984) and Kerby (1991), even the praxis is pre-narratively structured and symbolized. Therefore, the nar-rative schema will not die: In this way the most audacious blows to our paradigmatic expectations do not get be-yond the interplay of "rule-governed deformations" by means of which innovation has always been the reply to sedimentation. A leap beyond every paradigmatic expectation is impossible. […] It is not conceivable that the narrative should have moved beyond all configuration. The time of a novel may break away from real time. In fact, this is the law for the beginning of any fiction. But it cannot help but be configured in terms of new norms of temporal organization that are still perceived as temporal by the reader, by means of new expectations regarding the time of fiction […] (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 25). Following Kermode’s (1966) dictum that “the absolutely New is simply unintelligible, even as novelty” (p. 116), the basic principles of narrative are potentially modified in the interplay of sedimentation and innovation, but the modifications do not transcend the fundamental narrative schema with its double function of synthesizing the practical and the temporal, the sedimented past being the source of order. Let us return to the interconnectedness of representation and order for the last time: A divorce is thus established between truthfulness and consolation. The result is that Kermode's book ceaselessly oscillates between the inescapable suspicion that fictions lie and deceive, to the extent that they console us, and the equally invincible conviction that fictions are not simply arbitrary, inasmuch as they respond to a need over which we are not the masters, the need to impress the stamp of order upon the chaos of existence, of sense upon nonsense, of concordance upon discordance. (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 27; my emphasis) In Kermode’s view, fictions have a twofold representational function between which they fluc-tuate: (a) Fictions console the reader in the face of death which “in one way or another makes fiction a form of trickery” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 26), and (b) fictions satisfy the reader’s need of meaning through synthesizing the heterogeneous. Ricoeur leans toward the latter as the quest for meaning through order justifies the superordination of concordance over discordance. In addition, he proposes alternative forms of verisimilitude to lying: It seems legitimate to me, at this stage of our meditation, to hold in reserve other possible relationships between the fiction and the reality of human acting and suffering than that of consolation reduced to a vital lie. Transfiguration, as well as defiguration; transfor-mation, as well as revelation, also have their right to be preserved. (Ricoeur, 1985, pp. 27-28) Transfiguration and transformation denote the variation of the ‘figure’ or ‘form’ as provided by the schema. In addition, they also emphasize the potential effect of this variation on the point of reference, i.e., the change to the world of the reader in its figure and form.30 The prefix trans- added to the figuration/formation of the text and the self again alludes to the potential for inno-vation that Ricoeurian traditionality has. 30 This presupposes a formal homology between the world of the text and the world of the reader. Both are orga-nized, in our view, according to the narrative schema. A modification of the narrative schema that is actualized during reading the literary text potentially affects the organization and meaning of the world of the reader. Returning to the formal level, Ricoeur concludes that the disruption of structure must be equated with the “death of narrative”: “Having said this, one may always refuse the possibility of coherent discourse. This too we can read in Weil's work. Applied to the sphere of narrative, this refusal signifies the death of every narrative paradigm, the death of narrative.” (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 28) Conditions are vital for the schema. If it manages to stabilize unity, identity, continuity, and concordance, the schema has served its integrating function. Thus, it can stand the test of time. Even if the schema is still valid, we have to once more face the question whether we are in need of a change to the text model. Do we, according to the principle of verisimilitude, have to alter the configurational syntax of the story so that it matches our plural world. Hallet (2008) answers in the affirmative. He proposes the multitextual multimodal model to represent contemporary personal life and social reality. But what does it mean for the narrative schema that it is sup-posed to mirror plural life and reality? And which implications does the new structure in turn have on the meaning of life and reality? When meditating on these questions, we must take the Ricoeurian reciprocity of order (structure) and verisimilitude (representation) into considera-tion. Before we think about possible modifications to the text model and, consequently, to the model of the self, we need to clarify our conception developed so far. Let us take stock. Figure 1 summarizes our conception from a synchronic point of view. Figure 1: Synchronic perspective on the relationships between text, self, and their respective models In the act of reading, a transaction between the self and the text takes place (Rosenblatt, 1978). The text model is transferred to the domain of the self, and there it functions as an identity model. The relationship between text and text model on the one hand and self and identity model on the other hand is both generative and interpretive. By generation, we understand the poiesis of the text/self according to the narrative schema that underlies the text/identity model. By interpretation, we understand the construal of the text/self according to the narrative schema that underlies the text/identity model. In analogy with Bruner’s (1996, p. 133) generic plurality, the relationship between the text and the text model could be described as schematic plurality, denoting the fact that the particular story is generated and construed as falling into the narrative schema. As far as the transfer is concerned, Neumann (2008) holds that the possibility of identity is related to the notion of narrative: “Our experience, knowledge and memories, which constitute our identities, are not simply given, naturally and positively meaningful, rather they must be articulated and interpreted to become meaningful. This process of interpretation necessarily utilizes narrative.” (p. 54) Although we agree with the assumption that narrative serves an in-terpretive function in the formation of identity, we would like to put a constraint on it. Narrative is one means of identity constitution, but the self exceeds its narrative interpretation. Therefore, the “necessarily” in Neumann’s quote needs to be deleted. With regard to Holland (1975), we can add “abstract principles” (p. 815) to our conception. We would like to adapt Holland’s terminology to our theoretical framework. Text and identity mod-els are regarded as abstract principles that mediate between the category, i.e., unity/identity, and experience. So Holland’s abstract principles represent the Kantian category of quantity in our framework, and the narrative schema constituting the text and identity models are our ab-stract principles. Holland’s formula reads: “Unity is to text as identity is to self.” (Holland, 1975, p. 815). In other words: “Identity is the unity I find in a self if I look at it as though it were a text.” (Holland, 1975, p. 815) Here, the transfer from text to self happens on the level of the Kantian category, not its corresponding schema. In the following, we need to clarify whether the narrative schema can emancipate itself from the category of unity, or whether the close relationship between category and schema that Kant established shall be maintained. At least two more aspects must complement our synchronic conception of the relationships of text, self, and their respective models: (a) temporality, and (b) verisimilitude. We have dealt in great detail with the traditionality of the schema above. In addition, the text enters temporality as soon as it is actualized in the act writing and reading despite its atemporal character as cul-tural material when saved latently in the cultural memory. Finally, Heidegger (1927/1996) con-vincingly makes his case for the ineluctable temporality of the Dasein of the self. We can con-clude that all elements of our conception are temporal in nature although temporality manifests itself differently with the given elements. From the highly complex referential context within which the story is written and told, we will select two relations that are of the utmost importance: (a) the reference of the text/identity model to the text/self, and (b) the reference of the text/self to the world as mediated by the text/identity model. We have proposed above that the relationship between the text/self and the text model/identity model is generative and interpretive. Both generation and interpretation are governed by the formal rule of schema and are enactments of the poietic play on/according to. Following Ricoeur (1984), we will address the problem of verisimilitude in the context of a theory of writing (mimesis2) and reading (mimesis3). Writing is rooted in the proto-narrative praxis (mimesis1), and the world of the text which is projected through writing reenters praxis through reading during which the world of the text and the practical world of the reader fuse. In this conception, the world-text reference is circular. In Kearney’s (1995) words, “[i]t [narrative identity] recognizes that life is in quest of narrative just as narrative is in quest of life”. (p. 183) text world Both writing and reading encompass generative and interpretive processes that are guided by the narrative schema. Neither interpretation nor generation can be characterized as mimetic in the Platonic sense; the text is not a copy of the world. The configurational activity on the praxis and the refigurational activity within the horizon of praxis constitute the text’s poietic reference to the world which Ricoeur (1978b) regarded as metaphorical. Verisimilitude does not assess the accuracy of the reproduction of the world, but the plausibility of the products of the imagi-native variation on the condition of the narrative schema. In contrast to Meuter (2013, p. 38), we do not consider narration as a self-organizing autopoietic cultural system which has an uncontrollable intrinsic logic. In the next chapter, we will propose a theory of writing and reading in which the writer/reader is attributed a central role in tying the text to the praxis. On the other hand, we also reject a concept in which the text is supposed to be a replication of the praxis. In our view, culture provides us with models for the generation and construal of the text and the self. As these models interact with praxis (mimesis1, mimesis3), we need to assess whether changes in the praxis might have implications for these models. Hallet (2008), however adopts a purely reproductive stance at the relationship of text and praxis. In his view, the text model that is to be transferred to the domain of the self must fit the self’s experiences of the world, thus subscribing to the copy metaphor. As a consequence, the self that understands itself as pluralized due to the plural social positions it needs to take must nec-essarily result in the model of the multiple story. He holds that these multiple stories lack overall coherence (Hallet, 2008, pp. 47-48) and that the degree of complexity even increases because there are different versions of these multiple stories. As a result, Hallet offers an alternative to the well-formed narrative aiming at unity which con-stitutes the normative cultural ideal (Hallet, 2008, p. 39): the non-coherent, discontinuous form of (self)-narration. In addition, Hallet takes account of other modes (description, e.g. ekphrasis) and media (e.g. visual media) in his text model (Hallet, 2008, p. 42). This multitextual multi-modal model rejects linearity and closure. Although Hallet concedes that configuration, i.e., the making of connections, and integration are relevant in the newly proposed model (Hallet, 2008, pp. 42-43), the category of unity is replaced with plurality. Configuration is no longer directed at unification, and the “permanent selection and integration of other narratives into one’s own self-narration” (Hallet, 2008, p. 43) is not a synthetic activity in the Ricoeurian sense. Following the Kantian logic, the narrative schema must necessarily be modified due to the change in the category of quantity. In conclusion, Hallet demands an intertextual and intermedial text model because the text model has to mirror the pluralized praxis. Neumann (2008, pp. 64-65) investigates the relationship of identity and narrative in fictions of identity. On the level of the literary text, she detects that the self-understanding of the modern being denies unequivocal order. This is where Hallet and Neumann agree. The narrative is lay-ered and inconclusive, and it does not follow any linear, logical pattern. The plurality and frag-mentation of the self destabilize the authority of the narrative voice. Moreover, the disjointed and multi-layered narrative captures the impossibility of obtaining a unified picture of a life. Neumann acknowledges that the multitextual model relativizes any truth claim. The multi-lay-ered complexity of the self cannot be integrated into a completed story and the constant need for narrating and re-narrating of one’s experiences prevent the closure of the text, Neumann demands that ambiguity and openness must be captured by the narrative model (Neumann, 2008, p. 65). Despite the ambiguity and openness, she contends that the story is the “condition for the construction of a meaningful life” (Neumann, 2008, p. 66). We agree that the narrative schema in the strictly Kantian sense is the condition of possibility of meaning, and we would add that the poietic play on that schema is the means by which intuition can be made meaning-ful. Neumann summarizes that fictions of identity “figure as imaginative (re)constructions which are always in flux and open to negotiation” (Neumann, 2008, p. 66). The idea of the open mean-ing is in line with Ricoeur’s imaginative variations of life experiences, and ambiguity is central to the metaphorical reference. So Neumann’s claims on the semantic plane are compatible with the narrative schema as presented above. The “imaginative (re)constructions” highlight the cen-tral role of imagination, and the work of imagination is, as laid out above, both productive-poietic (constructive) and reproductive (reconstructive). Two more analogies are evident be-tween Neumann’s approach and the Ricoeurian theory: (a) Neumann regards narrative fiction as the “laboratory in which we can experiment with the possibilities for culturally admissible constructions of identity” (Neumann, 2008, p. 66). This is highly reminiscent of the Ricoeurian moral laboratory. (b) According to Neumann, “novels provide powerful models for our own self-narrations” (Neumann, 2008, p. 66), which is in line with the Ricoeurian idea of narrative identity as guided by literature. Although Neumann agrees with Hallet on the necessity for a text model founded on plurality, she does not resort to the ‘mimesis as copy’ argument to sub-stantiate her claim. She recognizes the potential of the transfer of text models to the domain of the self. In the light of Hallet’s and Neumann’s findings, we need to return to the question whether changes to the Ricoeurian text model are necessary. As we advocate a productive-poietic rela-tionship of the narrative schema towards praxis, Hallet’s ‘mimesis as copy’ argument is not conclusive. We must concede that the episodic (Strawson, 2004, 2009; Bamberg, 2011) and multitextual-multimodal nature of material texts – both literary stories and life stories – that lack closure and whose configuration is less necessary/probable, is evident. Does this mean that a new cultural template must be established for the generation and interpretation of text and self that renders the Ricoeurian narrative schema irrelevant? Or can changes to the structure be integrated within the narrative schema, thus increasing the degree of discordance within the plot as ‘discordant concordance’? First, we have stated that we do not think that the narrative schema is an autopoietic system, nor that the narrative schema is a copy of praxis. Thus, change is not inherent in the system of the schema, and change in social structures and processes does not trigger a corresponding change in the narrative schema. To argue for a change to the model by referring to the evident change in the experience of text would simply be a reiteration of Hallet’s ‘mimesis of copy’ argument in field of text reception: The text model must mirror the text. However, we main-tained that it is the text model that generates the text and guides the interpretation of the text; the text does not generate the text model, and the text does not guide the interpretation of the text model. This is the task of the category. From the interplay of sedimentation and innovation we learned that changes of the schema occur during the acts of writing and reading. These changes are the effects of the transactional processes between the text and the writer/reader that are both anchored structurally, symboli-cally and temporally in praxis. From this it follows that the relationship between praxis and text model is more complex than the copy theory suggests. When does innovation take place? Ricoeur does not answer the question of what causes inno-vation, he discovers innovation’s dependence on sedimentation. Let us resort to a functional explanation. We conjecture that innovation to the schema might be stimulated if the schematic generation of the text/self out of experience or the schematic understanding of the experience of the text/self fail. This means that the writer/reader cannot produce meaning, she is confronted with meaninglessness in the experience of text/self. As a result, adaptation to the model might be triggered so that the meaningless experience can be made meaningful again. The structural amendment shall guarantee that the experience that due to its intuitive nature is necessarily plural can be synthesized by the modified schema. It is notable that, in the Kantian sense, praxis and experience are by definition plural, they have not turned plural because of social and cul-tural change. We do not need a categorical change to capture a social reality that is perceived as more heterogeneous than in the past because unity is schematized in order to synthesize the heterogeneous, irrespective of the intensity of heterogeneity. Nevertheless, in the face of meaninglessness, we suggest a modification to the schema on the paradigmatic plane. The Ricoeurian narrative schema is capable of managing changes on the syntagmatic level (tendency to multiplicity and episodicity of plots within one text). On the other hand, the text model must be modified so that the schematic activity can be extended to the paradigmatic axis of intertextuality/intermediality. Here we agree with Hallet, although for different reasons. There is one more difference between Hallet’s conception and ours. In our view, sticking to the Ricoeurian narrative schema allows the writer of the life story to aspire towards unity so that she does not surrender to plurality with its adverse effects on psycholog-ical well-being (Bauer et al., 2008), and it allows the reader of the literary story to unify the plot which is a prerequisite for narrative understanding and personal insight. As a result of the extension of the model, the schema has to cope with a higher degree of dis-cordance within ‘discordant concordance’. But by integrating the intertextual/intermedial axis, we need not abandon the schema based on the category of unity. Unity is tentative, it is imper-iled by plurality, and it is not given - we need to aspire to it. In the following, we will give a brief overview of the discordant elements on the syntagmatic (episodicity, multiplicity) and the paradigmatic levels (intertextuality, intermediality). The tendency to episodicity is not only discernible in the literary text, but also in the life story (Bamberg, 2011). The episodic style is characterized by a shift from configuration to succession which threatens the structural and temporal unity of the plot. Regarding the self, MacIntyre’s (1981) ‘narrative unity of life’ is potentially put at risk by the episodic way of telling one’s life. Klepper (2013), however, manages to mitigate the dread of episodicity: Perhaps, Ricoeur would not even object to Galen Strawson’s notion of “episodic” self-experience, in which “[o]ne has little or no sense that the self that one is was there in the (further) past and will be there in the future, although one is perfectly well aware that one has long-term continuity considered as a whole human being” (Strawson, 2004, p. 430). It seems to me that Strawson’s “episodic” (who, if I understand Strawson cor-rectly, does not completely disown her or his past selves) bears a close resemblance to characters responding to the postmodern mode of “situationalism” […] Situationalism abounds with incoherence, discontinuity, simultaneity, ellipses, spatial arrangements, openness, and loose ends, and thus extends the gamut of modernist techniques. It privi-leges the situational condition, the episode, over any more extended, diachronic devel-opment. As long as the “episodic” or situational character feels that the “past can be alive – arguably more genuinely alive – in the present simply in so far as it has helped to shape the way one is in the present” (Strawson, 2004, p. 432), there is no categorical break with Ricoeur’s concept. The experience of sameness is reduced to opposing the experience of selfhood, the plot veers towards more episodic structures, the sense of necessity is weakened, but an awareness of some configuration (“shape”) still persists. (Klepper, 2013, p. 10) Episodicity does not mean a total loss of configuration, there is a shift towards peripeteia (“in-coherence”, “ellipses”, “openness”, and “loose ends”) in the structural dialectic of discordance and concordance and a shift towards distension (“discontinuity”) in the temporal dialectic of intentio and distentio, but as long as memory is still tied to present, thus at least partly preserv-ing St. Augustin’s threefold present, a minimal degree of configuration as executed by the nar-rative schema is retained. In some instances, this minimal plotting is assisted by mapping (“spa-tial arrangements”) in order to sustain the structure that is a prerequisite for meaningfulness. By analogy to time, place can be synthesized by the narrative schema in order to attribute meaning to it. To sum up, episodicity is a discordant element that can be synthesized by the concordant principle. Similarly, the multiple storylines that have characterized the novel since its inception are also an incongruous element within the syntagm of the text. They require a discriminative activity as well as a two-tier synthetic activity. First, the events must be assigned to their respective plots for synthesis. After the sub-plots have been unified, they need to be brought together by synthesis at a meta-level. This double synthesis is more complex, and oppositions between sub-plots may represent elements of discordance. However, we can conclude that multiple plots do not exceed the power of the narrative schema. What the Ricoeurian schema does not address is the paradigmatic axis of the text, i.e., its inter-textuality and intermediality. We hypothesize that the theory of the narrative schema can be extended to this paradigmatic axis without dismissing its major principles of mythos and mi-mesis. Its scope changes, but its nature endures. In contrast to Hallet (2008), we think that in-tertextuality and intermediality can be subsumed under the category of unity. In our view, the narrative schema is intertextual in two ways. On the one hand, the mythos is intertextual in its interconnectedness with the cultural texts which are produced and interpreted by means of the schema. We will call this external type of intertextuality, i.e., the schema’s intertextual relation to the cultural texts, the mythos’ intertextuality. On the other hand, the Ricoeurian narrative form is modified so as to incorporate the discordant elements of intertex-tuality and intermediality in the schema itself. This internal type of intertextuality, i.e., the schema’s inner intertextual form is termed the intertextual mythos. The intertextual mythos represents a threat to the concordant principle as it produces ‘semantic explosion’ (Lachmann, 1997) when intertexts intersect. Whether the narrative schema has the potential to cope with this semantic phenomenon must be empirically researched in the future. In the field of educa-tion, it must be tested whether students achieve meaningfulness in reading the literary story and writing the life story by applying the intertextual mythos. Straub imposes one more requirement on the structure of the text model to be transferred to the domain of the self. He defines identity as follows: »Identität« [bezeichnet] eine offene, in sich differenzierte und dynamische Struktur der kommunikativen Selbstbeziehung einer Person, »Totalität« dagegen eine streng ge-schlossene und »Multiplizität« eine eigentümlich strukturlose, in Zersetzung begriffene oder bereits völlig zerfallene Struktur […] (Straub, 2019a, p. 35). Identity is supposed to be an open structure of self-relation, totality however is a closed structure and multiplicity a paradoxically unstructured, decomposed structure. Straub (2019d) concludes that “Offenheit ist ein logisches, vor allem ein psycho- und sozio-logisches Implikat des hier fokussierten Konzepts ‘personale Identität‘“ (p. 39). In short, openness is an implicature of personal identity. Straub here draws on the tripartite terminology of Erikson (1959) which is highly reminiscent of the Kantian category of quantity (totality-unity-plurality). On a continuum, totality and mul-tiplicity represent the extreme poles and identity a middle position. Whereas totality means rigid adherence to the structural rule, plurality dissolves the rule. The middle position of identity allows openness and prevents either the omnipotence or the obliteration of the rule. This open-ness allows us to “possess the chance to identify the surplus meanings in our experience of life and to appropriate them for a conscious change in our self- and world-referentiality” (Alheit, 2009, p. 124). As a consequence, openness of the text model is the precondition for potential identity learning. The requirement of openness is valid for the text model as it is to be transferred to the domain of self as identity model. In our view, the poietic play on the principles fulfils the requirement of openness. On the one hand, the creative activity of poietic play wards off the danger of to-talization. On the other hand, the poietic play is necessarily based on the principle, thus pre-venting the dissolution of the rule. From this it follows that the given text model can be trans-ferred to the domain of the self because it complies with the identity condition of openness. In conclusion, we propose that the narrative schema that unifies plurality (category of quantity) is capable of integrating (a) difference within identity (self), (b) discontinuity within continuity (time), (c) discordance within concordance (structure), and (d) difference within similarity (rep-resentation) despite the challenges posed by the episodicity and multiplicity of the plot as well as intertextuality and intermediality. The musical structure of discordant concordance with-stands the attacks of dissonance, and the imaginative poietic play on the principle can eventually be transferred to the self where it exercises its practical and temporal synthesis, thus making meaningfulness possible and producing new meaning. We, however, have to relativize the power of the narrative schema over signification. Every positing of meaning on the basis of the narrative schema is tentative. The process of meaning deferral only temporarily comes to a halt. For the process of self-formation based on the narra-tive schema, this means that each identity constitution is necessarily provisional: Narrative selfing and narrative recognition of others can be understood as a play with personas and perspectives, which takes its models from existing narratives and projects possibilities of integration, even acts on them, but never arrives at a final configuration. In this sense, one never arrives at a knowledge of ‘who’ oneself or the other is, one is always in a process of ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘how’ one has arrived at this particular transitional moment. (Klepper, 2013, p. 28) Selfing is understood as an integrative synthesis of the imagination. In this sense, self-narration conforms with our concept of the poietic play on the principle, even though Klepper (2013) speaks of “models from existing narratives” and not of the schema which is generative of future narratives. The product of this selfing process, i.e., the self’s identity, is tentative. According to Klepper (2013), “[…] the need for coherence and unity must be seen in a paradoxical relation to the tendency towards contingency and diffusion” (p. 28). This means that the actual contin-gency/diffusion of intuition and the potential conceptual coherence/unity have to be mediated by the narrative schema. In other words, the narrative schema aspires towards a provisional unity that is constantly under the threat of meaning deferral. Let us now summarize the functionality of the narrative schema. The synthesis connects the heterogeneous practical and temporal intuition according to the Kantian category of quantity. By this means, it structures our experience on the basis of unity. The connection between the concept and the percept is made possible by the schema as it mediates between them. We learned that this connection might a metaphorical one when the schema serves the projective function of constituting the fictitious percept. The interplay of synthesis and schema allows the integration of difference within identity. As a consequence of the synthetic, mediating, projec-tive, and integrative functions of the narrative schema, meaningfulness is possible. In the following, we will elaborate on these functions. Synthesis unifies by making connections, thus providing structure to our experience of contingency: “Narrative forms can respond to contingent features of consciousness at a particular period” (Llyod, 1993, p. 165; my emphasis). It is notable that the structure is responsive to, not reproductive of the extratextual reality. Schema and synthesis do not only integrate difference within identity, the unfamiliar is also incorporated into the familiar (Kerby, 1991, p. 87). Synthesis organizes the practical field, and the schematic linkage to concepts makes action meaningful. It is not only directed at praxis, but also at time. Here, synthesis is capable of bridging the gap between phenomenological and cosmological time (Goldthorpe, 1991, p. 85), thus bringing about a specific kind of narrative temporalization (Straub, 2019a, p. 244) which, in the domain of the self, makes permanence across change plausible without eliminating con-tingency (Straub, 2019a, pp. 51-52) and which allows us to make sense of personal development and transformations within the limits of identity (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 159). By inte-grating St. Augustin’s three manifestations of the present, i.e., memory, attention/perception, and expectations, the temporal distentio is halted, and diachronicity under the category of unity becomes possible. As far as traditionality is concerned, Meuter (2013) holds that the narrative has a sustaining function: “structures create stabilities in the realm of potentialities” (p. 36). Neumann (2008, p. 60) contradicts that the narrative form does not necessarily yield stability, it might also unsettle, especially as far as self-narrations are concerned. Meuter’s sustaining function is akin to the Ricoeurian sedimentation. Poietic play might threaten stability until the schema restores it by making the innovation meaningful and the innovation potentially sediments. Finally, the narrative schema serves a creative function as the imagination’s poietic play is per-formed on the narrative schema. Literature can be a laboratory for thought experiments only on the basis of the schema that is the condition of the possibility of creativity which is not exercised ex nihilo. To sum up, creativity is based on the rule of narrative schema. It is noteworthy that the narrative schema also serves the synthetic, mediating, projective, and integrative functions in the writing of the story. Straub (2019a, p. 234) regards the life story on the basis of the narrative schema as a specific mode of poietic and projective self-formation. The self is articulated within the rules of the narrative schema, thus giving it form and figure. On the pragmatic plane, the schema is capable of making incongruous life episodes plausible (Straub, 2019a, pp. 272-273) as the schema integrates discordant elements into concordance by the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. On the temporal level, the schema helps to tell the life story in its totality (Straub, 2019a, p. 257). Analepsis and prolepsis enable us to story the un-known beginning and ending of life. These strategies of dissonance can be synthesized by the schema, thus fulfilling the narrative criterion of completeness. In addition to its organizational function, the schema gives meaning to the life as experienced: “Narration into some form of story gives both a structure and a degree of understanding to the ongoing content of our lives.” (Kerby, 1991, p. 33). The emplotment opens life onto the mode of possibility. According to Hall (2007), “Ricoeur claimed that the meaning of human existence in its ontological dimen-sions is precisely a dialectic between the present understanding of existence and the anticipation of future possibility, between actuality and potentiality.” (p. 53). In short, meaning construction is embedded in the dialectic of actuality and potentiality: “This implies that meaning is linked to a fundamental and (at least in the long run) ineradicable experience of contingency: whatever is actually given is given [actuality], but it could also be otherwise [potentiality].” (Meuter, 2013, p. 35) It is the schema that allows the synthesis of actuality and possibility. The schema is not only able to configure the memories of the past, it can also combine retrospectiveness with the prospective orientation towards a possible future. This prospective orientation of the schema is conspicuous in life plans and the narrative unity of life (MacIntye, 1981). Hereby, Bamberg’s (2011, p. 12) criticism of the exclusive retrospectiveness of the life story based on the narrative schema is refuted. According to McLean et al. (2020), the self-formation on the basis of the narrative schema has a vital psychological function: Constructing stories about these memorable and significant events, making meaning of them, linking them together to form a larger life story, and revising them as new infor-mation and events arise and as self-understanding develops is a powerful and dynamic mechanism of psychological functioning. (p. 924) The generation, signification, and revision of the life story potentially promote self-understand-ing. All these processes that contribute to the psychological functioning are dependent on the narrative schema. The narrative schema is a cultural pattern present in our cultural intertextual archive. As we have seen, it serves two major functions. It is a way of structuring text, action, and self. More-over, the schema is the condition of the possibility of meaning of text, action, and self. These possibilities of structuring and meaning are potentially actualized in the activities of writ-ing/reading the story. Therefore, we now turn to a theory of imaginative expression and imagi-native understanding that is based on the poietic play on/according to the available rule. 4 The mimetic principle: An imaginative theory of writing/reading the story The structural-intertextual mythos and the referential-communicative mimesis interact: the “prevalent sense of mimesis is the one instituted by its being joint to muthos”. (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 45) We hypothesize with Ricoeur that mythos and mimesis are constitutive of the acts of writing and reading. In writing/reading the story, the mythos is actualized by mimesis. Mimesis addresses the enigma of representation. Therefore, we will tackle the question of what the nature of the relationship between art (text, text model) and life (self, world) is first. Inspired by Ricoeur’s (1984) theory of the threefold mimesis, we hold the view that mimetic represen-tation is tied to a form of specific engagement (writing/reading the story) of the self with the text. Referentiality is a corollary of engagement. 4.1 Representation as engagement: Expression, interpretation, reflection, and attention Initially, we will consider various views on the relationship between art and life. Meuter (2013) detects two dominant positions: On the one hand, we find dualist positions on this subject that distinguish strictly be-tween ‘art’ and ‘life’. According to these views, there is no narrative order, no begin-ning, no middle and no end in our lives. No sequence of real life is in itself tragic, funny or full of suspense. These characterizations are nothing but retrospective representations and stylizations using structures and patterns that are only present in narrations and not in real life. On the other hand, certain scholars assume that narrative structures exist before being presented by narrators who plot events and give them an order they would not have otherwise. On the contrary, narrative structures evolve in the course of actions and in the course of life: stories are lived before being told. According to this view, the concept of narrativity describes a structural principle of experience and actions. It is not primarily a concept of aesthetics, but of practice. (p. 43) The first position that Meuter describes can be well summarized by Mink’s (1970) aphorism: “Stories are not lived but told. Life has no beginnings, middles, and ends.” (pp. 557-558) In the same vein, Kermode (1966) holds that the criteria of the story cannot be applied to reality. On the other hand, Carr (Carr et al., 1991) posits that life itself is structured narratively. He regards life as a ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’ (p. 172), therefore life is configural, not sequential: “narration is not only a mode of discourse but more essentially a mode, perhaps the mode of life” (p. 173). According to MacIntyre (1981), narratives and life are inextricably linked. Nar-rative is the innate structure of life: “We live out narratives in our lives and […] we understand our own lives in terms of the narratives that we live out […]” (p. 212). As a consequence, life is principally governed by what Bruner (1990) calls the narrative mode of thinking. According to Meuter (2013), Ricoeur (1984) mediates between these extreme positions: It is possible to take a mediating position between the two views. On the one hand, our experience and actions are surely not the crafted compositions that the elaborate narra-tions found in literature and historiography are. After all, carving out a narrative com-position is an achievement that needs to be studied and implemented. On the other hand, our experience and actions are not entirely devoid of order or structure. If we work on a project over a longer period of time, this requires very complex integrative processes that would not be possible without a certain degree of narrative structuring. In general, we do not carry out isolated actions. They are part of a larger context even at the time of execution, a context that can only be called narrative. (Meuter, 2013, pp. 43-44) Ricoeur responds to the question whether life is structured narratively or narrative imposes a foreign structure on life by proposing his theory of the threefold mimesis. The narrative act of poietic play on the principle (mimesis2) builds on experience and actions that are pre-narratively structured (mimesis1). In mimesis3, the narrative structures return to the world of praxis, poten-tially influencing it. In addition, more complex units of actions like practices, life plans and MacIntyre’s (1981) narrative unity of life (Ricoeur, 1992, pp. 152-159) contextualize single actions within a narrative, thus contributing to the quasi-narrative structure (Kerby, 1991, p. 8) of praxis. Contrary to MacIntyre (1981), Ricoeur does not consider experiential and narrative structures homologous. Negotiations are conducted between lived experience and languaged conzeptual-izations (Polkinghorne, 2004, p. 35). There is life outside language that can be referred to, but narrative is not a mirrored description of life: “the structure of the narrative text is not a replica of human existence as lived” (Polkinghorne, 2004, p. 36). Language does not copy. By inter-preting reality, language serves a revelatory function, it has a “capacity to be used artistically and figuratively to reveal structures which would have remained unrecognized without art” (Polkinghorne, 2004, p. 35). New meaning is produced by means of applying the mythos in mimesis. Writing/reading according to the narrative schema is generative. So we can conclude that the narrative does not mirror reality. But Ricoeur also distances himself from the poststruc-turalist position that language is severed from reality. Language corresponds to the objects to which it refers. But this reference is not primarily ostensive, but metaphorical in narrative. We can conclude that art is neither a description of reality nor is it detached from reality. Reality is re-described in the refigurative reading that completes the configuration of the prefigured praxis. The structures of narrative and praxis are thus compatible, they interact in the complex and dynamic relationship of mimesis, but these structures are not identical. Story and life are not essentially different, story and life are not coessential, but life is like stories, which is the condition of the possibility of the interaction between life and story. As mentioned above, Ricoeur (1984) assumes that the mimetic representation between life and art is both interpretive and generative in nature. This is only true insofar the mimetic process mediates between experience and meaning by means of the narrative schema that is the basis of the text/identity model. It is the engagement of writing/reading (mimesis2/mimesis3) in which the poietic play on the principle is performed that has a generative and interpretive effect both on art (text) and life (self). First, let us elaborate on the interpretive function of the mimetic representation with regard to Kerby’s (1991) concept of ‘creative adequation’, a notion he borrowed from Merleau-Ponty. Narrative truth “involves us in the question of the adequacy with which our explicit narrations map onto or otherwise follow from pre-narrative experience.” (Kerby, 1991, p. 84). Kerby chal-lenges the correspondence theory of truth by postulating that there is no meaning to our expe-rience outside interpretation: The truth of our narratives does not reside in their correspondence to the prior meaning of the prenarrative experience; rather, the narrative is the meaning of prenarrative ex-perience. The adequacy of the narrative cannot, therefore, be measured against the meaning of prenarrative experience but, properly speaking, only against alternate inter-pretations of that experience. (Kerby, 1991, p. 84) In Kerby’s view, the narrative produces meaning ex nihilo by providing an interpretation of pre-narrative experience that is itself meaningless. Adopting a consensus theory of truth, vari-ous narrative interpretations are negotiated in an attempt to coordinate perspectives and even-tually arrive at a communal verity. As a consequence, “[n]arrative truth is thus more a matter of facilitating understanding and integration than of generating strict historical verisimilitude” (Kerby, 1991, pp. 89-90). Thus, empirical exactitude is exchanged for plausibility. Straub (2019a) agrees that “»Tatsachengerichtigkeit« im Hinblick auf die sog. äußere (insbesondere die soziale) Welt nicht unbedingt das Wichtigste ist“ (p. 232), i.e., justice to facts is not neces-sarily most important because narrative serves the modeling and evaluative appropriation of experience. Kerby is in accordance with Ricoeur on the narration’s interpretive activity that results in new meaning, and they concur that empirical exactitude is not an appropriate criterion for poetic truth. However, they differ in their views on the relation between pre-narrative expe-rience and narration. Ricoeur attributes a symbolic quality to experience that signifies it before it is being narrated in the story. This pre-narrative symbolization makes experience compatible with narration. As a result, Ricoeur does not abandon representational verisimilitude. Truthful-ness is rooted in the symbolized praxis through the experiential activities of writing/reading the story, it is thus also a matter of referentiality to the (projected) experience, not exclusively the negotiation outcome between interpreters of meaningful narratives that are in a disjunctive in-teraction with meaningless experience. For our pedagogical endeavor, Ricoeur’s (1984) assumption that experience is valid in mean-ing-making is vital. Straub (2019a) also advocates a stance in which the process of signification encompasses the (re-)construction of experience: Sie [Die Psychologie] achtet den Anspruch, dass Erzählungen etwas vom ehemaligen Geschehen so in symbolische Repräsentationen (in Gestalt von Geschichten) überset-zen, dass zumindest etwas von diesem Geschehen im Sinne einer angemessenen, trag- und anschlussfähigen Stellvertretung des Geschehenen im gegenwärtig Artikulierten bewahrt bleibt. (Genau so, nämlich als Stellvertretung, soll der Begriff der »Repräsen-tation« hier bestimmt werden. Dadurch befreit man ihn vom uneinlösbaren Anspruch, ein getreues Abbild sein zu müssen, ohne ihn von der Aufgabe zu lösen, etwas vom ehemaligen Geschehen auf zustimmungsfähige Weise zu bewahren und zu vermitteln.) (p. 303)31 31 “It [psychology] respects the claim that narratives translate something of the past events into symbolic repre-sentations (in the form of stories) in such a way that at least something of this event is preserved in the sense of an appropriate, sustainable and connectable representation of what happened in the currently articulated. The concept of "representation" is to be defined here in exactly the same way, namely as a substitution. Thereby one frees it from the irredeemable claim of having to be a faithful representation, without releasing it from the task of preserv-ing and conveying something of the former events in a way that is capable of consent).” [our translation] Without representation being a copy of reality, it must fulfil the criterion of adequacy which is defined as the appropriate, acceptable and compatible preservation and communication of ex-perience by means of configuration. As far as truthfulness is concerned, Straub, similarly to Ricoeur, combines the correspondence theory of truth – he applies the model of translation from action to symbolic representation - with the consensus theory – the symbolic representation has to be agreeable. In Straub’s concept, experience is not represented in narrative in its totality, but in synecdochical form in which parts of the experience stand for, i.e., substitute the whole experience. We regard this synecdochical form as the manifestation of the mechanism of selec-tion that is operative in the performance of the narrative schema. Second, mimetic representation also creates the self and the text by means of the narrative schema. In the domain of self-formation, Neumann (2008) confirms Ricoeur’s judgement in her analysis of modern prose: “[…] these novels indicate that identities do not exist prior to the process of narrating the past, but that they are constituted by the active creation of self-narra-tions” (p. 53; my emphasis). Although we do not agree that identities are solely about narrating the past – they encompass future projections –, Neumann rightly holds that identity is, at least partly, a function of the process of writing/reading one’s life story. Müller-Funk (2012) agrees: “It is the narrative process itself that creates identity through a complex dialectic between same-ness and selfhood, otherness and alterity.” (p. 10; my emphasis) Analogously, Eakin (1999) thinks that narrative is “not merely about the self but rather in some profound way a constituent part of self” (p. 101). In conclusion, Ricoeur’s notion of ‘narrative identity’ points to the close connection of the model of narrative and the model of identity that fulfil the interpretive and generative functions of text and self. Eakin (1999) substantiates Ricoeur’s view: “[…] narrative and identity are so intimately linked that each constantly and properly gravitates into the conceptual field of the other. Thus, narrative is not merely a literary form but a mode of phenomenological and cogni-tive self-experience, while self […] does not necessarily precede its constitution in narrative.” (p. 100) Narrative is both mythos and mimesis. The narrative schema is constitutive of the self’s identity because it functions as poietic unifying identity model. Narrative as mimesis, i.e., the writ-ing/reading of the story, is a potentially revelatory experience of the self. In addition, writing the self might be formative, the self’s reading might be transformative. Klepper (2013) further elucidates how Ricoeur understands the relationship between self and narrative: In Ricoeur’s conception, selves do not become narratives, they interact with narratives; selves are not coherent, unified and without contradictions; they interact with models of coherence, unity, and concordance; selves are not plots, they interact with plots. These interactions provide them with coordinates in terms of their relation to lifetime, to others and to themselves. (Klepper, 2013, p. 12; my emphasis) During the engagement of writing/reading the story, the self is not a narrative, but it interacts with sedimented narrative models and plots. This interaction may activate the self’s poietic play on the principle. In this case, the heuristic-generative functions of the schema are performed on the self. Mimesis is connected to action in a threefold way. First, referentiality is directed towards action in mimesis praxeos. Action is understood as “the correlate of the mimetic activity governed by the organization of the events (into a system)” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 34). Writing originates from the world of action and results in the configured text, and the text returns to the world of action by means of reading. Second, poiesis confers activity on mimesis itself (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 34), mimesis as writing/reading the story is an action itself. Third, the performer of mimesis is con-ceptualized as capable/agentive self. The self can act and actually interacts with the world of the text in ‘active receptivity’. To sum up, the capable/agentive self interacts with the action- based text. This conception lends itself to an action-based pedagogy that aims at fostering the capabilities of writing/reading the story by which, we hypothesize, insight into the text, the self and the other becomes possible. The material text plays a decisive role in the concept of the threefold mimesis as it is the con-necting link between writing and reading the story. With regard to the literary story, writing and reading are generally performed by different selves, and the acts are temporally detached from each other. However, it is notable that reading the literary text is a creative act of the self and, therefore, necessarily encompasses an act of writing (Cf. Barthes’ (1974) concept of the writerly reading). On the other hand, the writing on the basis of the intertextual mythos is in-evitably readerly. No creation is ex nihilo. Therefore, reading the segmented intertexts precon-ditions writing. In addition, every act of writing is receptive in the Ricoeurian sense that it processes the pre-narratively given self situated in praxis (past experiences, expectations for the future; dispositions, habituated behavior, identifications, etc.) From this it follows that every act of writing is complemented by reading, and every act of reading is complemented by writ-ing. Writing/reading the life story is a special case. The processing of mimesis1 in mimesis2 deviates from literary writing as different cultural norms of verisimilitude are in force in autobiograph-ical writing. If the writing/reading of the life story is performed in oral soliloquy, the writing’s product is not reified and the writer and the reader are the same self. Still, this telling of the life story to oneself can be regarded as an act of ‘reading-oneself-write’32 as the writing/reading is dependent on the inner realization of meaning; there is no direct access to oneself, even in the oral soliloquy we need to take a Ricoeurian detour through the cultural sign to arrive at insight. 32 This mode of writing was termed after Derrida’s (2011) concept of ‘hearing-oneself-speak’. This topic is ex-tensively addressed when we discuss the importance of auto-affection for a theory of writing the life story below. The text that links the acts of writing and reading performs a threefold mediating function: It is a mediation between man and the world, between man and man, between man and himself; the mediation between man and the world is what we call referentiality; the mediation between men, communicability, the mediation between man and himself, self-understanding. A literary work contains these three dimensions: referentiality, com-municability and self-understanding. The hermeneutical problem begins, then, where linguistics leaves off. It attempts to discover new features of referentiality which are not descriptive, features of communicability which are not utilitarian, and features of reflex-ivity which are not narcissistic, as these are engendered by the literary work. In a word, hermeneutics is placed at the point of intersection of the (internal) configuration of the work and the (external) refiguration of life. (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 27) The mimetic circle covers reference that is generated in the writing of the story, indirect com-munication between the writer and the reader via the text, and the reader’s self-understanding that is due to the communicated reference. Mimesis2 does not only “bring a new experience to language”, the writer also has a communicative intention, she wants to “share it with someone else (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 78). Reference is therefore not only metaphorical as it projects new worlds, it is also “co-reference - dialogical or dialogal reference.” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 78) In short, metaphorical dialogical reference means that the reference opened up by configuration is communicated to the reader: “What a reader receives is not just the sense of the work, but, through its sense, its reference, that is, the experience it brings to language and, in the last analysis, the world and the temporality it unfolds in the face of this experience.” (Ricoeur, 1984, pp. 78-79) It is this reception that might trigger self-understanding. It must be added that com-munication is not limited to the writer and the reader. In the educational context, communica-tion about the dialogical metaphorical reference and its epistemological implications among student readers is vital and might in turn have a learning effect. As a result, students may gain self-understanding from both reading the text and talking about their reading experiences and interpretations. Let us finally return to the representational relation between life and art. Ricoeur (1984, p. 184) attempts to bridge the gap between fiction and life by proposing a theory that connects both writing and reading to praxis. However, the representational relation is characterized by a dia-lectic of break and connection. Mimesis2 brings about the “break that opens the space for fic-tion” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 45), it invents the fictional world. In this sense, mimesis is the “emblem of the shift […] that, to use our vocabulary today, produces the ‘literariness’ of the work of literature” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 45). Meuter (2013) describes the function of the mimetic break as follows: “Narratives systematically generate the experience of contingency. They break the power of the situational and the factual. A story is a chance to see the world in a different way and even to see a different world.” (p. 35) On the other hand, “mimesis functions not just as a break but also as a connection, one which establishes precisely the status of the ‘metaphorical’ transposition of the practical field by the muthos” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 46). Mimesis3 reconnects the story to life. As a result, “we have to conceive of mimetic activity as a connection and not just a break” (Ricoeur, p. 47; my emphasis). In conclusion, the metaphorical dialogical refer-ence that is established by Ricoeurian mimesis praxeos manages to connect art and life. How-ever, configuration temporarily breaks the connection until it is reestablished by refiguration. Luckily, the break performs a valuable function: the metaphorical projection of the literary world. In our framework, mimesis is regarded as engagement with the world and the text. The form of engagement that is relevant for our endeavor is writing/reading the story, the mode of engage-ment is ‘active receptivity’. We have already postulated that this kind of engagement relies on the poietic play on/according to the narrative schema, the mythos. Other cultural influences on mimesis are scripts (e.g. McAdams & Bowman, 2001: redemption and contamination), biog-raphy generators (Hahn, 1987), and sedimented storylines (Booker, 2004). Social acceptability also seems to be significant for writing/reading the story (Merga, 2014). Let us now have a closer look at the forms of engagement. First of all, both writing and reading the life/literary story encompass interpretive and expressive activities. In writing the life story, the self is expressed in the text while it interprets itself during expression (interpretive expres-sion). In reading the literary story, the given text is interpreted by the self which expresses itself during the interpretation (expressive interpretation). We hypothesize that expression and inter-pretation are processed simultaneously during writing/reading the story so that we can speak of the fusion of expression in interpretation in interpretive expression and expressive interpreta-tion. By sharing the quality of being expressive-interpretive, the activities of writing the life story and reading the literary story are inextricably bound to each other. In short, both activities bring about signification, they produce meaning by means of expression-interpretation in the transaction of the self and the text. However, there is also a fundamental asymmetry between writing/reading the story: In writing the life story, the self creates the objectification while in-terpreting it. In reading the literary text, the text that is to be creatively interpreted is already there. Writing the life story complies with Ricoeurian mimesis2. In writing, configuration according to the narrative schema under the category of unity takes place. Ricoeur (1984) conceptualizes the reading of the literary story as mimesis3. The configuration is refigured according to the narrative schema under the category of unity. Both writing and reading are imaginative in na-ture. As we have expounded, the productive imagination provides the writer/reader with the condition of possibility of cognition, in our case the narrative schema, and the creative imagi-nation allows us to play according to this schema. As writing/reading the story is imaginative, it is necessarily synthetic and creative. In addition, writing/reading story is tied to personal remembering and cultural memory. Per-sonal memory, which is itself emplotted (Kerby, 1991, p. 28; Santayana, 1955, p. 158), i.e., it is imaginatively reconstructed according to mythos and mimesis, as well as the cultural inter-textual archive are activated in writing/reading the story. Pellauer (2007, p. 96) rightly emphasizes the significance of anticipations for the self’s temporality which does not exhaust itself in synthesizing the past. The idea of an intention-to (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 68) highlights the importance of reference to the future. There is one further feature of writing/reading the story: engagement is reflexive (Giddens, 1991). Hallet (2008) characterizes the writing of narrative as “self-reflexive process of the self’s possibilities to imagine itself and the other that inhabit the self’s stories” (p. 45; my emphasis). McLean et al. (2020) have found that autobiographical reasoning is an integral element of the structure of life narratives. As the term autobiographical reasoning “designates a process of thinking or talking about the personal past that involves arguments that link distant elements of one’s life to each other and to the self” (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 149), the claim that writing the life story is reflexive is substantiated. Literary reading might be self-reflexive as well. Dur-ing reading, the self brings in his world that transacts with the world of the text. We can assume that the constitution of the world of the reader initially works subconsciously. Reflexivity of the self in reading can, however, be enhanced by pedagogical intervention. We attempt to make students reflect on their worlds which they bring to the reading transaction by having them actively write their life stories, thus better exploiting the potential for self-understanding by means of the detour through literature. The process of cognitive and emotional transposition, the allégorèse, is thus enhanced. Transposition denotes the translation of the text meaning in its first context into another context, thus giving it a new signification (Ricoeur, 1988, pp. 176-177). In our case, the text meaning is linked to the reader’s experiences (Meuter, 1995, pp. 169-170). By recontextualisation, novel meaning is produced. The Ricoeurian transposition might have a learning effect on the reader. Dehaene (2020) postulates that active engagement is a pillar of learning. As writing/reading the story can be regarded as a form of active engagement, we assume that mobilizing these activities “maximizes the speed and efficiency with which […] classes can learn” (p. 146). According to Dehaene (2020), “[e]fficient learning means refusing passivity, engaging, exploring, and ac-tively generating hypothesis and testing them on the outside world” (p. 178). We have already stated that writing/reading the story in the mode of ‘active receptivity’ is an exploration in the realm of possibilities. In addition, the process of proposing and testing hypotheses is inherent in interpretation. Dehaene also establishes the following condition for learning: “To learn, our brain must first form a hypothetical mental model of the outside world, which it then projects onto its environment and puts to a test by comparing its prediction to what it receives from the senses. This algorithm implies an active, engaged, and attentive posture.” (Dehaene, 2020, p. 178) In both writing and reading the story, mental models of the world are created that are tested against experience. Again, activity – the creation of the model – meets receptivity – the pro-cessing of intuition. Although, as we shall see from the results of our empirical work, some degree of distraction facilitates creativity, attention is focused on the transaction between the reader and the text in writing/reading the story. Therefore, we can assume that Dehaene’s con-dition for efficient learning is satisfied by writing/reading the story. Active engagement does not only improve efficiency, but also retention: “Without attention, effort, and in-depth reflection, the lesson fades away, without leaving much of a trace in the brain.” (Dehaene, 2020, p. 179) Dehaene provides us with a neurobiological explanation: Deeper processing leaves a stronger mark in memory because it activates areas of the prefrontal cortex that are associated with conscious word processing and because these areas form powerful loops with the hippocampus, which stores information in the form of explicit episodic memories. (Dehaene, 2020, p. 180) Again, both writing and reading the story combine conscious word processing and episodic memories. As we held above, writing/reading is tied to personal remembering. In the field of reading, Kuiken and Douglas (2017) have proven that readers connect their personal memories with the text meaning during absorbed. They call this phenomenon self-implicating givenness (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 233). So we can conclude that retention is high during writ-ing/reading the story as this type of engagement activates deeper processing in the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. What is the role of the teacher in active engagement? Active writing/reading the story does not mean that teacher does not interfere in the students learning process: “[…] explicit pedagogical guidance is essential. Teachers must provide their students with a structured learning environ-ment designed to progressively guide them to the top as quickly as possible.” (Dehaene, 2020, p. 184). As a result, one of the aims of our pedagogical endeavor is to propose a structured learning environment with which teachers can furnish their students. The NDR-model will be explicated in Part II. Dehaene summarizes the ingredients for effective learning as follows: “active engagement, pleasure, autonomy, under the guidance of an explicit teaching method and with stimulating pedagogical materials” (Dehaene, 2020, pp. 184-185). He adds that “encouraging children’s creativity by letting them know that there are still a thousand things to discover” (Dehaene, 2020, p. 197) is vital for learning success. Having students creatively write their life stories and creatively read personally relevant literary stories within the framework of the proposed model is supposed to have a revelatory effect on the students’ selves. And possibly a transformative effect, quod esset demonstrandum. The means for this is inspiring epistemic curiosity: “[…] we play and explore – not only through real movement, but also through thought experiments. Whereas other animals visit the space around them, we explore conceptual worlds. Our species also experiences specific epistemic emotions that guide our thirst for knowledge.” (Dehaene, 2020, p. 189) We learn by playing, by conducting thought experiments, by exploring conceptual worlds, and also by means of emotions. Imagination is the substratum of our whole project. 4.2 Imaginative writing/reading the life story: Mimesis2 In the following, a theory of life writing based on Ricoeur’s (1984) concept of mimesis2 will be proposed. The practice of life writing is supposed to result in a tentative life story, i.e., in a narrative identity. For our pedagogic endeavor, the world of the reader that transacts with the world of the text will be conceptualized as narrative identity. At the outset, will address pre-sentative-representative auto-hetero-affection as a possible condition of self-experience. 4.2.1 Narrative identity First, we are trying to provide the foundation of the possibility of self by hypothesizing that self-understanding is mediated by the sign. We will resort to Derrida’s Voice and Phenomenon (2011) in which he addresses the auto-hetero-affection of ‘hearing-oneself-speak’ in soliloquy. is interested in the conditions of self-experience in a Kantian sense, with one major difference: The self-experience as event is itself a condition of experience; therefore, conditions are no longer exclusively conceptual. The event is, in combination with repetition, one of the forces that composes the temporal ultra-transcendental level (Lawlor, 2014, p. 136). Whereas the event brings about singularization and autonomy, repetition effectuates reproduction and heteronomy. In contrast to Husserl who holds that the auto-affection of interior monologue is a pure event, Derrida adds iteration to the self-experience, with the result that singularity is necessarily con-taminated with repetition due to the movement of temporalization. Presence is complicated by non-presence. In the following, we will explore how ‘hearing-oneself-speak’ can ground self-experience. The starting point for Derrida’s reasoning is Husserl’s account of auto-affection. Husserl distinguishes between interior monologue and empirical speech, the former being an instance of pure expression without indication to exteriority. Auto-affection implies the “exclusion of the relation to the other in the self” (Cisney, 2014, p. 140). Husserl postulates immediate self-presence in auto-affection: “According to Husserl, since lived-experience seems to be immedi-ately self-present in the mode of certitude and absolute necessity, signs are useless […] There is no need for or purpose to indicative signs here, since there seems to be no alterity, no differ-ence in the identity of presence as self-presence” (Lawlor, 2011, xx) According to Husserl, soliloquy is pure auto-affection. Self-proximity is absolute as there is no detour from hearing to speaking. This makes the voice of hearing-oneself-speak exclusive: This unique relation between the sign, as expressed in the medium of the voice, and the phenomenological interiority of consciousness is unlike any other. Whereas all other signifiers, and more specifically written signifiers – even though they may essentially point to an ideality that is not of the world – include, as an essential component of their senses, a reference to the exteriority of the world, this not the case (at least not obviously so) with the phenomenological voice of the interior monologue.” (Cisney, 2014, p. 150) Auto-affection seems to be autonomous by “essentially subvert[ing] the necessity of an act’s going forth into the world; it is an auto-affection ‘without any detour through the agency of exteriority, of the world, or of the non-proper in general’ [Derrida, 2011, p. 67]” (Cisney, 2014, p. 151). As a consequence, hearing-oneself-speak is “lived as absolutely pure auto-affection, in a proximity to self which would be nothing other than the absolute reduction of space in gen-eral” (Derrida, 2011, p. 68). Cisney (2014) summarizes the characteristics of Husserl’s auto-affection as follows: “The auto-affection of the voice is thus absolutely pure, inasmuch as it involves the unmediated and direct contact of a non-material self with the very same non-material self, and without any necessary recourse through the materiality of the exterior world, even the materiality of the body itself.” (p. 152) Auto-affection is the unmediated spiritual soliloquy with oneself that is not tainted by the outside world. It is an exceptional experience of the self by the self: “The privilege of the voice is that it expresses ideality within the absolute proximity of self-presence […]” (Cisney, 2014, p. 156). Derrida, however, holds the position that “the self can only relate to the self as it would to an other”, and this requires “the use of signs, employed in an indicative manner similar to when we communicate with others in the world, in order for anything like ‘experience’ to take place” (Cisney, 2014, p. 140). He denies Husserlean immediate self-presence in soliloquy because of Husserlean temporalization. Derrida argues against Husserlean auto-affection by means of the Husserlean concept of the living present that is at once the point of now and thick. Thickness describes the present’s inclusion of retention and protention. Contrary to Husserl who postulates the irreducibility of ‘Gegenwärtigung’ (expressive presentation) to ‘Vergenwärtigung’ (indica-tive representation), Derrida sees no radical difference between representation and presentation because the point of now is not separated from retention. Therefore, all presentation is contam-inated with representation because of the thickness of the living present. The temporal hiatus of thickness that marks the non-simultaneity of speaking and hearing in the interior monologue places difference at the heart of auto-affection. In order to bridge this hiatus, we are in need of the repeatable sign that in turn sets différance in motion. The temporal hiatus serves an im-portant function. It allows the I’s distancing from itself which is a prerequisite for the differen-tiation of the Jamesion (1890) ‘I’ and ‘Me’-positions. There is no I as such, the hiatus marks the transition from presentation to representation. The self is not intuitively given, it needs to be mediated by the sign. Self as in our case is self as narrative. Auto-affection is thus both expression (proximity to the interior) and indication (reference to the exteriority). Temporalization is central to Derrida’s argument. He describes the workings of time as follows: As soon as we admit this continuity of the now and the non-now, of perception and non-perception in the zone of originarity that is common to originary impression and to re-tention, we welcome the other into the self-identity of the Augenblick, non-presence and non-evidentness into the blink of an eye of the instant. There is a duration to the blink of an eye and the duration closes the eye. This alterity is even the condition of presence, of presentation, and therefore of Vorstellung in general, prior to all the dissociations which could be produced there. (Derrida, 2011, p. 56) Temporalization “disrupt[s] the presumed self-presence of sense that gives the voice its privi-leged status” (Cisney, 2014, p. 157). The voice of hearing-oneself-speak seemingly reduces space, but it does not reduce time: “If we now remember that the pure interiority of phonic auto-affection assumed the purely temporal nature of the ‘expressive’ process, we see that the theme of a pure interiority of speech or of ‘hearing-oneself-speak’ is radically contradicted by ‘time’ itself.” (Derrida, 2011, p. 74) Cisney (2014) explains: […] this temporalization is such that it cannot disallow its own contamination by the spatial. In its very constitution as time, the presence of the present is structured by the movement of the trace, which is an opening of the present to its own exteriority that marks it originarily. The very nature of time, therefore, opens onto what is other to it, and this includes space […].” (p. 163) We can conclude that Husserlean expression cannot be distinguished from indication because of the nature of time as structured by trace and différance. Because of the duration of the ‘Augenblick’, i.e., Husserlean thickness of the living present, alterity enters identity. The meaningfulness of alterity as non-presence is dependent on the sign: “This intimacy of non-presence and alterity with presence cuts into, at its root, the argument for the uselessness of the sign in self-relation.” (Derrida, 2011, p. 57) According to Husserl, mean-ing is immediately present in auto-affection. Derrida, however, stresses the necessity of the sign in hearing-oneself-speak. Indication cannot be excluded as the signifiers whose function is to bridge the temporal hiatus must be repeatable. In their iterability, the signifiers are potentially not self-proximal. The iteration of the sign in soliloquy implies reference to the non-presence. In conclusion, the way the self is given to itself is mediated by signification. The interior life of oneself is never given to oneself as such. The non-presence, the other is uncircumventable even in self-experience. Derridaean auto-affection comprises Husserlean ‘Vergegenwärtigung’. The self-relation is not pure self-presence; it is a symbolic experience because of the temporalization of experience that requires both the point of now of the event and repeatability: “The conclusion is that we can have no experience that does not essentially and inseparably contain these two agencies of event and repeatability” (Lawlor, 2021). These two agencies constitute self-pres-ence (event) and self-interpretation (repeatability). Repeatability has another major implication: As I experience myself, I am experiencing some-one else at the same time. We have already stated that the temporal hiatus allows the distancing from oneself. In addition, it facilitates the perception of oneself from the perspectives of the first and third persons. This points to Ricoeur’s title of his book on personal identity: Oneself as another. Self-experience is mediated by the sign, therefore it comprises both presentation (oneself) and representation (another). We can conclude that for Derrida there is no pure intuition that is not contaminated by mediating signification. This is compatible with Ricoeur’s (1984) theory of the threefold mimesis. First, mimesis1 is not pure intuition either. Experience and action are symbolized pre-narratively. Second, the interplay of presentation and representation in auto-affection is mirrored in the experience of writing (mimesis2) that mimetically configures the pre-symbolized intuition. We can conclude that presentation is doubly represented in mimesis2: (a) symbolization in mime-sis1, (b) configuration in mimesis2. We can conclude that auto-affection is a condition of experience inasmuch it is both presenta-tion and representation: Sense must be generated as an object repeatable to infinity (a universality) and yet remain close by to the acts of repetition (proximity). In other words, sense must be simultaneously present in the sense of an object (the relation to the object as over and against), and present in the sense of the subject (the proximity to self in identity, as close as possible). In order for this to happen, a specific medium or element of expression is needed; that medium or element is the voice […]. Sense is going to be generated by means of hearing-oneself-speak, by means of this specific kind of auto-affection […]” (Lawlor, 2014, p. 134) Meaning is dependent on both the universality of repetition and the proximity and singularity of the event. The simultaneity of presentation and representation enables meaningfulness. This simultaneity is ensured by the medium of hearing-oneself-speak. For our endeavor, we will transfer the principles of oral auto-affection (hearing-oneself-speak) to written auto-affection (reading-oneself-write). The self-relation of presentation and representation in reading-oneself-write is the condition of the Ricoeurian self-experience of writing one’s narrative. In simplified terms: self-presence + self-interpretation = condition of narrative identity. Cisney (2014) summarizes the condition of the possibility of self: Auto-affection as the condition of self-presence entails first that there is a difference between the self who speaks and the self who hears, and that the self-presence of the self who speaks and the self-presence of the self who hears are essentially insecurable. Each passes into the other in the constitutive play of différance, which is to say, they are constituted by a pure difference, which makes them both possible and hence this diffé-rance, as Derrida says, does not ‘supervene upon a transcendental subject’, but ‘pro-duces the transcendental subject’ [Derrida, 2011, p. 71]. That is to say, it is only as self-relation or auto-affection, wherein the self relates to the self as to an other, that a self as such is made possible. (Cisney, 2014, pp. 157-158) In auto-affection, the self-presence of the speaker and the hearer that are separated by the miniscule temporal hiatus are in need of signification. The play of différance which mediates between speaker and hearer opens up presence to non-presence. We agree with Cisney’s claim that auto-affection as presentation is insufficient for self-formation. The self-relation as a rela-tion to oneself must be supplemented with the self-relation as relation to an other so that the self can be constituted. We accord with Derrida on the description of self-constitution by means of hearing-oneself-speak which is, in our view, accurate for reading-oneself-write as well. Where we disagree is the means by which signification is brought about. As we have stated above, the play of différance is replaced with the poietic play on/according to the principle of narrative schema which is an extended version of Ricoeur’s (1984) ‘synthesis of the heteroge-neous’. In written auto-affection, the poietic play on the principle generates the story of oneself that is an other, and this self-relation to oneself and an other that necessitates the sign, i.e. the narrative, makes self possible. This is not a self as such (Cf. Cisney’s contrary view above), but a self as narrative . According to Derrida, the need of signification in interior monologue subverts the hierarchy of the spoken and the written word: “To put this is simple terms, whenever we speak, we do so through the use of signs that point to idealities, but all the characteristics one would ascribe to these idealities (repeatability, permanence, stability, etc.) are most properly characteristics of the written, as opposed to the spoken, sign.” (Cisney, 2014, p. 164) For epistemological reasons, writing comes first: “the constitution, transmission and accumulation of knowledge requires […] the transposition into the written sign, and yet, this written sign threatens the very self-presence of sense that it aims to transmit” (Cisney, 2014, p. 157). Writing generates knowledge, and at the same time it subverts it via différance. Therefore, knowledge is necessarily deferred. This is true for self-knowledge as well. Nevertheless, we are attempting to tentatively and tem-porarily grasp an identity of the self by means of reading-oneself-write in which the narrative schema tames difference-generating différance (representation/iteration) and heterogeneous in-tuition (presentation/event). In conclusion, Derrida aims at “generalizing the sense of the non-presence of others to all ex-perience, even to my own and proper interior experience of myself” (Lawlor, 2011, xxiii). The experience of the same is the experience of the other. For Husserl, the signified is so close to the signifier that the signifier is diaphanous. But the diaphaneity of the voice is only apparent. Temporalization makes the voice ideal and repeatable, and therefore hearing-oneself speak, and reading-oneself-write, go beyond the present act of expression. As repeatable signs, phonic forms refer to non-presence. Lawlor (2014) summarizes: “In other words, the phonic forms are able to function indicatively – within the silence of expression. So, even in the auto-affection of hearing-oneself-speak, we find that we are not able to exclude impurity and impropriety. In short, temporalization results in auto-affection being always and necessarily hetero-affection.” (p. 135) Auto-affection is hetero-affection. In contrast to Husserl, self-relation is both ‘Gegenwärtigung’ und ‘Vergegenwärtigung‘. Self-relation as presentation and representation is the condition of experience. For Derrida, the sign is indispensable for self-knowledge. For us, the sign that com-plements self-presence and that is indispensable for self-interpretation is narrative; much to the dismay of Derrida who disparaged the powers of the story. In the following, we will ask ourselves how a verbal self can be conceptualized. We will start from the premise that the identity is a verbal construction-interpretation of the self (Kerby, 1991, pp. 101-108). Kerby regards being as semiosis, the self is accordingly an “implicate of language usage” (Kerby, 1991, p. 110), an effect of language usage (Kerby, 1991, p. 113). In line with Kerby, Neumann (2008, p. 55) holds that the self is the result of discursive praxis. The existence of the corporeal condition of the self is not questioned, but the self comes into being only through language: “Though we undoubtedly have a bodily existence apart from language, I am claiming here that it is in and through language that the dimension of the subject, the self, is generated.” (Kerby, 1991, p. 69) Self therefore reveals itself in a certain form of language activity (Kerby, 1991, p. 110), i.e., in self-formation (I write myself.), and self-interpretation (I read myself.). The verbal practice defines the concept of identity. In our case, the poietic play on/according to the narrative schema calls narrative identity into existence. This assumption marks the shift from the self as a pregiven substantial entity to the self as a function of the creative-interpretive act within the language game of narrative. The Kantian category of sub-stance (relation) is replaced with the category of unity (quantity). In order to establish a concept of the verbal self, we must clarify the theory of meaning under-lying this linguistic concept first. Kerby (1991) supports a “theory of meaning and ideality that takes as its basis the material signifier and its iterability” (p. 111). He defines meaning as fol-lows: “Meaning is not only a matter of signifier’s difference from other signifying units; it is especially a product of temporal and tropical relations and transformations; e.g., contiguity and juxtaposition, sequence, identity and difference, metonymy and synecdoche, metaphor, and so on.” (Kerby, 1991, p. 111) Kerby here follows the materialistic paradigm that suspends any reference to the outer world and defines meaning as product of the play with the text. Although we agree with the importance of structural-rhetorical relations and temporal transformations for the generation of meaning, we object to a purely textual theory of meaning that does not con-sider the world of praxis. The corporeal anchoring of the self in the world that Ricoeur terms the terrestrial condition (1992, p. 150) must find expression in the theory of meaning. Kerby’s theory of meaning and his concept of the verbal is rooted in Benveniste’s Problems in general linguistic (1971): It is in and through language that man constitutes himself as a subject, because language alone establishes the concept of ‘ego’ in reality, in its reality which is that of the being. The ‘subjectivity’ we are discussing here is the capacity of the speaker to posit himself as ‘subject.’ It is defined not by the feeling which everyone experiences of being himself (this feeling, to the degree that it can be taken note of, is only a reflection) but as the psychic unity that transcends the totality of the actual experiences it assembles and that makes the permanence of the consciousness. Now we hold that that ‘subjectivity,’ whether it is placed in phenomenology or in psychology, as one may wish, is only the emergence in the being of a fundamental property of language. ‘Ego’ is he who says ‘ego.’ That is where we see the foundation of ‘subjectivity,’ which is determined by the linguistic status of ‘person’. (p. 224) Kerby (1991, p. 68) hypothesizes with Benveniste that subjectivity is attained in discourse. The capacity of positing oneself verbally is the precondition for identity that is characterized, in accordance with our conception, by unity and permanence that transcend experience. The say-ing of I is the foundation of identity. From this it follows that the self-implicating speech act initiates the process of identity constitution. Kerby (1991) explains: “‘I’ has fundamentally a locutionary reality, setting up what I shall call a subject of speech […], a form of subject that exists solely in the expression.” (p. 68) The subject of speech is a product of the speech act that is attributed to the speaking subject, the “bodily site of the enunciation or the origin of inscrip-tion for written language” (Kerby, 1991, p. 68). Kerby concludes: “This form of predication can, I believe, be seen as fundamental for generating what are generally termed ‘persons’ (em-bodied subjects).” (Kerby, 1991, p. 68) The autonomy of the subject of speech from its site of production, the speaking subject, is emphasized. The subject of speech, for instance, might be reproduced in a text or might be fictitious. “The main point here is that the subject of speech does not bear a one-to-one relation to the speaking subject” (Kerby, 1991, p. 69). In analogy with the dialectic of pre-narrative, the speaking subject has only meaning through discourse: “The speaking subject […] attains selfhood via its expression – much as the prenarrative attains its expression and fulfilment in a narrative” (Kerby, 1991, p. 69). Without the subject of speech, the speaking subject is “simply a possible site of utterance, a semiotic body of potential gestures and articulations through which it will make itself known as a particular subject with particular concerns and perspectives on reality” (Kerby, 1991, p. 69). If the speaking subject lacks its signification through language, it is only a potential self, not an actual self. In other words, the speaking subject that does not speak itself is no subject, but only a possible subject. Therefore, Benveniste (1971) rightly concludes that that “the basis of subjectivity is in the exercise of language” (p. 226). Based on the theory of meaning as outlined above, Kerby (1991, pp. 101-108) formulates his model of the semiotic subject. Being is the product of the creative act of semiosis “within the play of language and social structures” (Kerby, 1991, p. 114), a form of linguistic self-implica-tion. Kerby’s concept of self is practical: I am only insofar as I do, i.e., I act linguistically. The speaking subject can attain unity which is defined as identity in difference through the activity of narrating. This activity of self-narration constitutes an implied subject, the subject of speech (Kerby, 1991, p. 109). From this it follows that the transcendental ego is replaced with the speech act of narration (Kerby, 1991, p. 110). As this act constitutes the self, Kerby speaks of self as an “implicate of language usage” (Kerby, 1991, p. 110). He defines person as “the result of ascribing selfhood […] to the site of narration, the body” (Kerby, 1991, p. 111). Through the act of narration, the self becomes an object to itself. This opens up a third person perspective on the self. We can conclude that Kerby’s self is a “meaning construct deriving from language” (Kerby, 1991, p. 112). As ‘meaning construct’, Kerby’s notion of self is compatible with the term identity which Kerby does not use and that we apply for modelling embodied consciousness. Since there is no “immediacy of self-transparent intuition” (Kerby, 1991, p. 101), we are in need of signification. Figure 2 presents Kerby’s tripartite division of the semiotic self: (a) speak-ing subject (material agent of discourse), (b) subject of speech (implied linguistic subject), and (c) spoken subject (subject produced as a result of its effect on the reader-listener). The split of the bodily agentive subject into a speaking and a spoken subject seems problematic. It seems to be a heuristic that can grasp the formation and development of the subject. It is more parsimo-nious to situate changes of mood and understanding within the speaking subject that is variable than to develop a separate concept of the spoken subject that is a modification of the speaking subject. Figure 2: Kerby (1991, p. 106) model of the self In his model, Kerby distinguishes two realms: (a) body, and (b) signification. It is the relations between these domains that constitute the semiotic self: “Through expression the embodied speaking subject enters the realm of signification. The utterance, if it is autobiographical, relates back to the embodied subject in two ways: by implication and by participation” (Kerby, 1991, p. 106). By implication we understand that the speaking subject is implied by the subject of speech in reception. Participation, on the other hand, denotes the “various forms of identifica-tion that the embodied subject has in relation to an utterance and its subject of speech” (Kerby, 1991, p. 106). According to Kerby, participation as a specific mode of reading results in the spoken subject. We think that participation has a potentially modifying effect on the speaking subject. What develops or changes in acts of participation is the “state of mind with its moods and degrees and modes of understanding” (Kerby, 1991, p. 107). Desire, the relation between the spoken and the speaking subject, “seems to capture the impetus that changing states have for the subject” (Kerby, 1991, p. 107). We situate this impetus within the speaking subject. Kerby summarizes the aim of his model as the division of the subject into different moments with no central and organizing core. Sub-jectivity is itself blind without mediation through the realm of signification, but signifi-cation is not a neutral mirroring process. Subjectivity […] is manifest as the speaking embodied subject that seeks to carry over into expression the implicit truth of itself (its implicit history or story). […] The ‘I’ then exists in its communicable form as the subject of speech.” (Kerby, 1991, pp. 107-108) Kerby’s self lacks a kernel, a core identity. In our model, this lacuna will be filled by Ricoeur’s (1992) idem-identity. Signification serves the schematic function of mediation. This significa-tion is brought about by the narrative schema. And it is tied to the embodied subject. This is what Ricoeur calls the corporeal condition (1992, p. 150). Finally, we agree that the subject of speech, i.e., the narrative identity, is not confined to the mind of the self, it is communicable due to its semantic status. By including the identification with and appropriation of the subject of speech in the model, mimesis3, the act of reading, complements the act of writing the self. Thus, Kerby corroborates our assumption that writing and reading are inextricably linked in the formation of the life story. We held that writing/reading the life story is necessarily interpretive. In line with this, Kerby (1991) argues that the “self that is to be interpreted is essentially that of a being who self-interprets” (p. 108). What is specific is that the reader interpreting the text is the same embodied self as the writer. Similar to Ricoeur (1984), the act of reading is conceptualized as constant refiguration. The “cycle of ever new signification and appropriation” (Kerby, 1991, p. 108) provides the framework for identity development of the self. In analogy with Kerby, we propose a theory of imaginative mimetic writing/reading that allows learning, i.e., for the insight into oneself and the other. The question remains whether there is meaningful thought before language. We have already indicated that Kerby’s concept of pre-narrative differs from Ricoeurian mimesis1 because ex-perience for Kerby is not symbolized and therefore lacks meaning completely. For Kerby (1991, p. 72), the idea that thoughts exist prior to linguistic expression is a misconception. Taking Damasio’s (2010, p. 172) neuroscientific insight into account that meaningful consciousness precedes language, we side with Ricoeur’s idea of symbolization that is not necessarily linguis-tic. As a result, Kerby’ claim of misconception misconceives the semantic status of experience. Kerby’s exclusion of experience from the realm of the meaningful might also be due to Der-rida’s dogma that there is no meaning outside the text. To use the terms outlined above, Kerby (1991) works with the material iterable sign “that allows meaning, and hence expression to break with the empirical.” (p. 73) We agree that iterability is an essential aspect of the sign, repetition and recognition are a prerequisite for communication, and iterability allows for the metaphorical reference that is central to the concept of the threefold mimesis. Moreover, itera-bility is the condition for the creative function of language. In spite of the indisputable signifi-cance of iterability, we must not ignore language as event. According to Derrida, meaning is linked to a basis in materiality that allows iterability. Iterability, in turn, refers to ideality, not to reality. Kerby (1991) explains: Ideality […] is a matter of the seemingly infinite repeatability of sings, their freedom from any particular utterance and any particular speaker. Ideality, therefore does not properly apply to meaning, for meaning is thoroughly contextual and syntagmatically dependent. In other words, meaning […] is a matter of interpretation, where interpreta-tion that seeks understanding is essentially an act of translating the given expression into what one sees to be an equivalent expression; it is putting the expression into one’ own words, one’s own language. (pp. 76-77; my emphasis) Ideal materiality is the potential that needs to be actualized in interpretation. There is an index-ical relationship between material and meaning, the sign is potentially meaningful. In other words, the meaning is mediated through materiality. Kerby concludes from this reasoning that there is no extralinguistic sense. This is where we object. Through interpretation, the language event is performed. Kerby also speaks of “cogito as language event” (Kerby, 1991, p. 99; my emphasis). The interpreting subject interprets, it performs an act of language. Meaning is pro-duced when by the interplay of iterability and event. In the act of reading as mimesis3, the material iterable sign is signified. In order to accommodate the linguistic event in which the individual self translates the material sign into its own language, we will resort to Boesch’s (2005) psychological theory of meaning. Straub (2019a, p. 288) maintains that no symbolic system can totally express subjectivity. Sim-ilar to Kerby, Boesch understands narrating as an act of ex-pression, i.e., it is an activity that transforms our internal experiences into external action. Boesch confirms that this exterioriza-tion by means of language results in a mediated, but not totally determined subjectivity (Boesch, 2005, p. 290). In line with Kerby, Boesch thinks that the language self is mediated by cultural-linguistic structures and practice. However, the core of creativity lies in the individuality of the unique self. Subjectivity/individuality cannot be expressed by the symbolic forms without a break, the symbolic forms are inevitably deficient in communicating experience (Boesch, 2005, p. 291). To use our own terminology, the semiotic self does not exhaust itself in the iterable narrative schema. The act of poietic play is creative, and creativity is rooted in both the schema and the player’s playing on/according to the schema. In addition, the semantic break can only be reconnected by the player’s playing, i.e., the writing/reading the text as language event. Boesch’ (2005) fundamental assumption is that narration cannot express the psychic content entirely: “[…] eine psychologische Sprachtheorie, die es jedem Sprechen, mithin auch dem Erzählen, versagt, Psychisches restlos zu artikulieren, Inneres vollkommen nach außen kehren und als solches im Medium eines allgemeinen Symbolsystems darstellen und kommunizieren zu können.“ (p. 291) As the experience cannot be equated with linguistic expression, there is a tension of individual experience and iterable language. Boesch combines a structural view of language with an action-theoretical approach to language. The structure does not determine everything, structural indeterminacy calls for language action. The linguistic event within the language game of narrative is potentially poietic, it generates subjective meaning. Event-related connotative meaning thus supplements structural denotative meaning: “Die >objektive< denotative Sprache besitzt also immer auch einen subjektiven Be-deutungshof, der einem zwar im Moment des Sprechens kaum bewusst ist, dennoch aber die Nutzung der Sprache beeinflusst.“ (Boesch, 2005, p. 173) Through the poietic play on the prin-ciple, the subjective meaning of language is potentially restored. According to Boesch (2005), engagement with language alternates between convention and creativity. In the poietic play on the principle, creativity and convention interact in trying to master the difficult translation of subjective experience to intersubjective language (Straub, 2019a, p. 297) According to Straub (2019a), narrative language is the condition of possibility of the commu-nication of the exteriorated interior because it allows individual connotations: “Er oder sie muss sich in einer narrativen Sprache bewegen, deren Wörter stets auch individuelle Konnotationen besitzen und so das Geäußerte als entäußertes Inneres vernehmbar machen. (p. 295). Straub summarizes Boesch’ theory of meaning that underlies narration as follows: Was jemand erzählt, wurzelt in seinem mitunter sehr komplexen Sinn- und Bedeutungs-gehalt demnach nicht allein in der Sprache, in Texten, intertextuellen Referenzen und intermedialen Netzwerken, sondern in einem nicht aus Symbolsystem reduzierbaren subjektiven Erleben und Leben, ohne dessen Berücksichtigung auch die sprachliche Re-präsentation dieses Lebens wie ein lebensfernes Abstraktum erschiene, das vom Wich-tigsten absieht (dem Menschen, dem Subjekt, dem Individuum). (Straub, 2019a, p. 295)33 33 “What someone narrates, with its sometimes very complex meanings of sense and reference, is not only rooted in language, texts, intertextual references, and intermedial networks alone, but in a subjective living experience that cannot be reduced to a system of symbols, without whose consideration even the linguistic representation of this life would appear like a distant abstraction far removed from life that ignores the most important things (the human being, the subject, the individual).” [our translation] Narration is rooted both in language (texts, intertextual references, intermedial networks) and in subjective life and experience that cannot be reduced to language. Neglecting the experiential aspect means to ignore what is most important, the human being, the subject, the individual. Thus, Boesch intertwines the subjectivity rooted in sociality and culturality with individuality that escapes all definite categorizations by means of a theory of meaning (Straub, 2019a, p. 296). For the difficult translation of subjective experience into intersubjective language which exposes the limits of language, narrative’s potential of connotative meaning production might be a solution. The poietic play on/according to the principle allows the expression of individu-ality within the constraints of language structure. Now that we have learned from Kerby that the self is potentially constituted verbally, we will turn to Ricoeur’s theory of narrative identity in which the imaginative narrative schema is the condition of possibility of self. Klepper (2013) rightly judges that Ricoeur’s narrative identity allows a “temporary and precar-ious management of plurality and heterogeneity” (p. 1). As the notion of narrative identity al-ready suggests, the principal means for this management is the narrative schema that is a prod-uct of imagination. Identity is a relational notion as it captures the relationship to oneself, and, as we will see most clearly with ethical identity, with the other. As far as idem-identity is concerned, it is structural. But it is also practical as it denotes the process of writing/reading the life story according to the fundamental structure of narrative schema. The mythos-mimesis, the doing of identity, brings about Ricoeur’s ipse. So, we can infer with Bruner (1996, pp. 35-36) that agency is an important dimension of identity. As we have explicated above, writing/reading the story is both interpretive and productive of the self. Mythos-mimesis is a heuristic frame and a generative matrix. In his seminal article on narrative identity, Ricoeur (1991c) expounds on the interpretive function of the narrative: It is thus plausible to endorse the following chain of assertions: self-knowledge is an interpretation; self interpretation, in its turn, finds in narrative, among other signs and symbols, a privileged mediation; this mediation draws on history as much as it does on fiction, turning the story of a life into a fictional story or a historical fiction, comparable to those biographies of great men in which history and fiction are intertwined. (p. 188) Narrative serves the mediating function of the schema when knowledge about oneself is gener-ated. Here we would like to add that, in its interaction with creative imagination’s poietic play, the narrative schema is not only generative of knowledge about oneself, but also generative of oneself. The narrative schema has an interpretive function with regard to the self, the poietic play on/according to the schema has a generative function with regard to the self. Central to the idea of the narrative identity is the transfer of the narrative schema from plot to character. The synthetic-schematic activity of emplotment is applied to the embodied self: The decisive step in the direction of a narrative conception of personal identity is taken when one passes from the action to the character. A character is the one who performs the action in the narrative. The category of character is therefore a narrative category as well, and its role in the narrative involves the same narrative understanding as the plot itself. The question is then to determine what the narrative category of character con-tributes to the discussion of personal identity. The thesis supported here will be that the identity of the character is comprehensible through the transfer to the character of the operation of emplotment, first applied to the action recounted; characters, we will say, are themselves plots. Let us recall briefly in what way narrative theory accounts for the correlation between action and character. The correlation between story told and char-acter is simply postulated by Aristotle in the Poetics. […] It is indeed in the story re-counted, with its qualities of unity, internal structure, and completeness which are con-ferred by emplotment, that the character preserves throughout the story an identity cor-relative to that of the story itself. (Ricoeur 1992, p. 143; my emphasis) The character is the narrative agent to whom the same heuristic mode of cognition applies as to the plot. Both character and plot are understood by means of the mythos-mimesis complex. From an interpretive stance, therefore, characters are themselves plots. Following Ricoeur’s argument, the model of mythos-mimesis is transferred from text to embodied consciousness in order to understand the self by means of the schema that guarantees the fulfilment of the major criteria of concordance: unity and completeness. Ricoeur (1992) transfers the narrative to the domain of the self because he considers it a suitable model for the connectedness of life: When Dilthey formed the concept of' Zusammenhang des Lebens (the connectedness of life), he spontaneously held it to be equivalent to the concept of a life history. It is this preunderstanding of the historical significance of connectedness that the narrative the-ory of personal identity attempts to articulate, at a higher level of conceptuality. Under-stood in narrative terms, identity can be called, by linguistic convention, the identity of the character. (p. 141) The identity of the character relies on the connectedness that is established by the mythos. One major function of the narrative schema is, as pointed out in our analysis of Kantian imagination, integration: the “[…] specific model of the interconnection of events constituted by emplotment allows us to integrate with permanence in time what seems to be its contrary in the domain of sameness-identity, namely diversity, variability, discontinuity, and instability.” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 140) Emplotment brings about the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’, the identity of the char-acter. Ricoeur (1992) summarizes the functionality of the principle of mythos in the domain of the self as follows: It can be described in dynamic terms by the competition between a demand for concord-ance and the admission of discordances which, up to the close of the story, threaten this identity. […] These multiple dialectics do no more, in my opinion, than make explicit the opposition, already present in the domain of tragedy according to Aristotle, between the episodic dispersal of the narrative and the power of unification unfurled by the con-figuring act constituting poiesis itself. (pp. 141-142) In addition to the function of unification, emplotment turns contingency into narrative neces-sity, thus establishing a unique narrative logic: The essential difference distinguishing the narrative model from every other model of connectedness resides in the status of events, which we have repeatedly made the touch-stone of the analysis of the self. […] The paradox of emplotment is that it inverts the effect of contingency, in the sense of that which could have happened differently or which might not have happened at all, by incorporating it in some way into the effect of necessity or probability exerted by the configuring act. The inversion of the effect of contingency into an effect of necessity is produced at the very core of the event: as a mere occurrence, the latter is confined to thwarting the expectations created by the prior course of events; it is quite simply the unexpected, the surprising. It only becomes an integral part of the story when understood after the fact, once it is transfigured by the so-to-speak retrograde necessity which proceeds from the temporal totality carried to its term. This necessity is a narrative necessity whose meaning effect comes from the con-figurating act as such; this narrative necessity transforms physical contingency, the other side of physical necessity, into narrative contingency, implied in narrative necessity. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 142) The act of configuration, i.e., the writing/reading the life story, produces retrograde narrative necessity out of the events that seem contingent during writing/reading the story. Surprise that is prospective due to its dependence on expectations is turned into retrospective probability from the point of view of totality that is established by the mimetic activity. The play of surprise and probability that is performed by configuration generates meaning. The event loses impersonal neutrality (Parfit, 1986) by relating a character to a plot. This as-cription of action to agent is termed imputation (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 7). Ricoeur maintains that the narrative solution to the problem of imputation is that stories are about agents and sufferers (Ricoeur, 1992): It has not been unavailing to recall in what way the narrative structure joins together the two processes of emplotment, that of action and that of the character. This conjunction is the true response to the aporias of ascription […]. It continues to be true that, from a paradigmatic viewpoint, the questions "who?" "what?" "why?" and so on can denote separate terms in the conceptual network of action. But from a syntagmatic viewpoint, the responses to these questions form a chain that is none other than the story chain. Telling a story is saying who did what and how, by spreading out in time the connection between these various viewpoints. It is also true that one can describe separately the mental predicates considered outside of their attribution to a person (which is the very condition for any description of the "mental"). It is in the narrative, however, that attrib-ution is reestablished. (p. 146) Narrative restores imputation by connecting the emplotment of events and the emplotment of the character. In the syntagma that is produced by the configurative mimetic act, agent and activity are inextricably linked. As stated above, the function of the narrative schema is the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’. The functionality of self’s emplotment is explicated by Ricoeur (1992): From this correlation between action and character in a narrative there results a dialectic internal to the character which is the exact corollary of the dialectic of concordance and discordance developed by the emplotment of action. The dialectic consists in the fact that, following the line of concordance, the character draws his or her singularity from the unity of a life considered a temporal totality which is itself singular and distinguished from all others. Following the line of discordance, this temporal totality is threatened by the disruptive effect of the unforeseeable events that punctuate it (encounters, accidents, etc.). Because of the concordant discordant synthesis, the contingency of the event con-tributes to the necessity, retroactive so to speak, of the history of a life, to which is equated the identity of the character. Thus chance is transmuted into fate. And the iden-tity of the character emploted, so to speak, can be understood only in terms of this dia-lectic. […] The person, understood as a character in a story, is not an entity distinct from his or her "experiences." Quite the opposite: the person shares the condition of dynamic identity peculiar to the story recounted. From this correlation between action and char-acter in a narrative there results a dialectic internal to the character which is the exact corollary of the dialectic of concordance and discordance developed by the emplotment, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character. This dialectic of discordant concordance belonging to the character must now be inscribed within the dialectic of sameness and of selfhood. The necessity of this reinscription imposes itself as soon as the discordant concordance of the character is confronted with the search for permanence in time attached to the notion of identity […] (pp. 147-148) The emplotment’s dialectic of concordance and discordance is duplicated in the internal dialec-tic of the self. The schema’s synthesis works on the heterogeneous life in order to establish an individualized temporal and practical identity. In line with Kant, the schema mediates between concepts and experience during the mimetic activity. Therefore, experience matters in identity formation, it is not a purely conceptual process. Due to the emplotment’s inherent processuality, narrative identity is dynamic, not static. The narrative model is not only an interpretive lens for the self, it is also, as explicated above, generative of the self. Identity is the result of the synthetic activity. As the synthetic activity of narrative generates and interprets a history of a life, we can conclude that narrative identity is the constructed and construed history of life. It is notable that it is not only a factual history of life, but also a fictional story of life. The structural dialectic of concordance and discordance must be linked up with the dialectic of idem and ipse that addresses the self’s temporality: […] on one side, we said, there is the sameness of character; on the other, the ipseity, or selfhood, of self-constancy. We have now to show how the dialectic of the character comes to be inscribed in the interval between these two poles of permanence in time in order to mediate between them. This mediating function performed by the narrative identity of the character between the poles of sameness and selfhood is attested to pri-marily by the imaginative variations to which the narrative submits this identity. In truth, the narrative does not merely tolerate these variations, it engenders them, seeks them out. In this sense, literature proves to consist in a vast laboratory for thought ex-periments in which the resources of variation encompassed by narrative identity are put to the test of narration. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 148) Narrative identity adopts the narrative schema’s mediating function. It mediates between idem and ipse by means of the faculty of imagination. The imagination’s products, the imaginative variations, are expressions of the poietic play on/according to the principle. Writing/reading the life story is an instance of such imaginative work. Literature has a special function as it is a “vast laboratory for thought experiments”. Writ-ing/reading the story as poietic play on the schema can produce variation. The reader can try out these variations in reading/writing the literary story. As literature is set in the realm of pos-sibilities, it is a privileged medium for experiments with variations. In its imaginative variations, literature explores the relations between the modalities of idem- and ipse-identity. The unsettling cases from literature confirm the relationship of character and plot (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 148). For example, the decomposition of the character results in a loss of narrative configuration: “We therefore find a sort of rebound effect of the character on the plot.” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 149) What the imaginative variations of literature point to is the invariant of the corporeal condition that we have already referred to: Literary fictions differ fundamentally from technological fictions in that they remain imaginative variations on an invariant, our corporeal condition experienced as the exis-tential mediation between the self and the world. Characters in plays and novels are humans like us who think, speak, act, and suffer as we do. Insofar as the body as one's own is a dimension of oneself, the imaginative variations around the corporeal condition are variations on the self and its selfhood. Furthermore, in virtue of the mediating func-tion of the body as one's own in the structure of being in the world, the feature of self-hood belonging to corporeality is extended to that of the world as it is inhabited corpo-really. This feature defines the terrestrial condition as such and gives to the Earth the existential signification attributed to it in various ways by Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger. The Earth here is something different, and something more, than a planet: it is the mythical name of our corporeal anchoring in the world. This is what is ultimately presupposed in the literary narrative as it is subjected to the constraint making it a mi-mesis of action. For the action "imitated" in and through fiction also remains subjected to the constraint of the corporeal and terrestrial condition. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 150) Ricoeur holds that real selves and fictional selves, i.e., characters, and their respective actions are compatible because the corporeal and terrestrial conditions are fulfilled by both living be-ings and narrated beings. From this it follows that the imaginative variations embodied by lit-erature’s fictional selves can be applied to real selves according to the principle of similitude (“Characters […] are humans like us.”). Literary fiction does not only produce variations on the self whose relationship to the world is mediated by the body, but also on selfhood (ipse-identity) because the corporeal-terrestrial conditions that literature, in Ricoeur’s view, necessarily fulfils encompass the mineness of the body and the Heideggerian existential of being-in-the-world. Due to this fundamental compatibility of real selves and fictional selves, we hypothesize that literature with its thought experiments on self and identity is potentially accessed during the real self’s writing/reading the life story. During reception of the literary text, reading/writing the literary text and writing/reading the life story might be connected. In short, the real reader can learn about herself by reading about the fictional self as (a) they are both dependent on the same invariants of corporeality and worldliness what makes them compatible, and (b) literature produces innovative variations on the invariant that are not experienceable in everyday life. We may understand ourselves through reading/writing the literary text. Complex forms of action are another source of narrative self-understanding. Not only simple actions, but also complex actions are ascribed to the agent. According to Ricoeur (1992, pp. 152-159), three complex units of praxis are imputed to the agent: (a) practices, (b) life plans, and (c) the narrative unity of life (MacIntyre, 1981): Ricoeur characterized action in terms of a sort of nesting of constitutive units or levels of praxis, which can be hierarchized on the basis of increasing complexity. He named these levels practices, life plans, and the narrative unity of a life. While the first two of these are inherent in action itself, the third serves as a limiting idea toward which the agent aims in intentional action. (Hall, 2007, p. 58) Narrative again is a model of interconnectedness for these complex forms of action. Each of these “complex forms can themselves be arranged in hierarchies of ‘units of praxis’ where each unit has its principle of organization and integrates a variety of logical connections and where these units in turn can be combined in many different ways up to the level of overall life plans” (Pellauer, 2007, p. 102). It is narrative that does the organization, the integration, and the com-bination of these complex forms of action. We hypothesize that inferences can be drawn from narrative organization of complex forms of action to narrative organization of self, i.e., to ipse-identity to which these complex forms of action are ascribed. In other words, we understand the self, more precisely the selfhood, by understanding the narrative organization of practices, life plans, and the narrative unity of life. The precondition for this understanding is the relationship of the agent to the different levels of praxis, i.e., imputation. In the following, we will briefly discuss the hierarchy of complex forms of action. These com-plex forms of action provide further evidence for the adequacy of the transfer of narrative to the self and its life. Practices are on the lowest level of the hierarchy. They “are composed of individual basic actions, which are configured by overarching intentions. Games, arts, and pro-fessions are examples of such practices.” (Hall, 2007, p. 57). Practices have a pre-narrative quality due to their internal organization as brought about by configuration: “This is not to say that practices as such contain ready-made narrative scenarios, but their organization gives them a prenarrative quality which in the past I placed under the heading of mimesis1 (narrative pre-figuration).” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 157) Ricoeur (1992) explains that “the unit of configuration constitutive of a practice is based upon a particular relation of meaning, that expressed by the notion of constitutive rule” (p. 154). He continues: By constitutive rule is meant those precepts whose sole function is to rule that, for in-stance, a given gesture of shifting the position of a pawn on the chessboard ‘counts as’ a move in a game of chess. The move would not exist, with the signification and the effect it has in the game, without the rule that "constitutes" the move as a step in the chess game. The rule is constitutive in the sense that it is not something added on […] The rule, all by itself, gives the gesture its meaning [...] The notion of constitutive rule can be extended from the example of games to other practices, for the simple reason that games are excellent practical models. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 154) The constitutive rule within a given context34 gives a simple action a new meaning (Hall, 2007, p. 58). These rules highlight the interactional nature of action as practice: the introduction of the notion of constitutive rule “has the further advantage of underscoring the interactive char-acter belonging to most practices […] Practices are based on actions in which an agent takes into account, as a matter of principle, the actions of others.” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 155) The inter-active nature of practice has an implication for learning: 34 We will discuss the Wittgensteinean (1958) relation of rule and game in part II. Interaction itself becomes an ‘internal’ - internalized - relation, for example, in the rela-tion of learning as it shades, little by little, into acquired competence; one can, therefore, play alone, garden alone, do research alone in a laboratory, in the library, or in one's office. These constitutive rules, however, come from much further back than from any solitary performer; it is from someone else that the practice of a skill, a profession, a game, or an art is learned. And the apprenticeship and training are based on traditions that can be violated, to be sure, but that first have to be assumed. Everything we have said elsewhere about traditionality and about the relation between tradition and innova-tion takes on meaning here in the framework of the concept of internalized interaction. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 156) Learning as practice in an ‘internalized interaction’. This Ricoeurian idea of interactive learning complies with Illeris’ (2017) learning dimension of interaction on which our pedagogical ap-proach is based. In analogy to the transactional process of writing/reading the story, learning as internalized interaction is embedded in traditionality. Due to learning, given mental schemata can be reinforced (sedimentation), or they can be changed (innovation as accommodative/trans-formative learning). Practice as interaction has implications on self-understanding. First, practices, like all other simple and complex actions, are ascribed to ipse as act. Complex forms of action that are orga-nized narratively point to the narrative dimension of the self that is dynamic and develops over time (Ricoeur, 1992). In short, practices influence the formation and understanding of ipse. This is a fundamental assumption of our didactic model. We suppose that writing/reading the life story, and reading/writing the literary story potentially affect our self-formation and self-under-standing. Second, it helps us to understand the overlapping of sameness and selfhood in char-acter (Hall, 2007, p. 59). By becoming practiced, the practice is habituated and thus becomes a trait by which the self is recognized. As character trait, the practice enters the realm of idem-identity although the practice is an act that is imputed to ipse-identity. Third, the self can un-derstand itself in interaction both as an agent in the act and a patient in experience. In short, ipse is discernible as acting and suffering through interactive practice: In truth, omitting, enduring, and suffering, are as much data of interaction as data of subjective understanding. Both terms remind us that on the level of interaction, just as on that of subjective understanding, not acting is still acting: neglecting, forgetting to do something, is also letting things be done by someone else, sometimes to the point of criminality; as for enduring, it is keeping oneself, willingly or not, under the power of the other's action; something is done to someone by someone; enduring becomes being subjected, and this borders on suffering. At this point the theory of action is extended from acting to suffering beings. […] In fact, every action has its agents and its patients. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 157). In sum, practices promote the understanding of ipse as agent and patient in its relation to idem. In addition, they do not only contribute to the interpretation of the self on the basis of the nar-rative model, they also shape the temporal self as ipse. Life plans are on level two of the hierarchy of complex forms of action: We shall term ‘life plans’ those vast practical units that make up professional life, family life, leisure time, and so forth. These life plans take shape - a shape that is mobile and, moreover, changeable - thanks to a back-and-forth movement between more or less dis-tant ideals, which must now be specified, and the weighing of advantages and disad-vantages of the choice of a particular life plan on the level of practices. (Ricoeur, 1992, pp. 157-158). Life plans represent an “intermediary zone” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 158) of interchange between concrete practices and the ideal of the ‘narrative unity of life’. In hermeneutical terms, it is life plans where the exchange between the whole and the part takes place. On the one hand, the life plan is made up of practices and directs practices (Hall, 2007, p. 59). On the other hand, the life plans specify the general ideal of the narrative unity of life, and the narrative unity of life guides the execution of life plans. In conclusion, the life plans are the hinge between concrete practices and the abstract narrative unity of life. We are familiar with this mediating figure of thought from our analysis of schema. The narrative formulation of life plans “points squarely in the direction of self-constancy” (Hall, 2007, p. 59) as they address the development of the self with the aim to integrate discontinuity within continuity. Life plans manage the engagement in specific practices that help to actualize the given life plan. MacIntyre’s (1981) narrative unity of life is on top of our hierarchy of the levels of praxis. It is “the idea of gathering together one's life in the form of a narrative [that] is destined to serve as a basis for the aim of a ‘good’ life, the cornerstone of his ethics, […]” (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 158). This idea works as a “horizon of possibility” and a “limiting idea” (Hall, 2007, p. 60). On the one hand, the narrative model opens up the possibility of a synthetic unity of life through narration that humans can aspire to. On the other hand, Ricoeur (1988) concedes that “narrative identity does not exhaust the question of self-constancy” (p. 249). Narrative identity must be complemented with an ethical identity through which the self assumes responsibility in the ‘Here I stand!’: But we added that reading also includes a moment of impetus. This is when reading becomes a provocation to be and to act differently. However this impetus is transformed into action only through a decision whereby a person says: Here I stand! So narrative identity is not equivalent to true self-constancy except through this decisive moment, which makes ethical responsibility the highest factor in self-constancy. […] It is at this point that the notion of narrative identity encounters its limit and has to link up with the non-narrative components in the formation of an acting subject. (Ricoeur, 1988. p. 249) We held that Ricoeur (1984) attempts to solve the mimetic problem by a theory of reading. The act of reading comprises a moment of stasis and of impetus, impetus being a “provocation to be and act differently”. At this point, the mimetic activity of reading enters the field of ethics as the reader becomes an agent who needs take on responsibility. As soon as the writing/reading the life story works as an impetus to “be and act differently”, the narrative model is stretched to its limits. Therefore, we will add Ricoeur’s (1992) concept of practical identity to the theory of narrative identity below in order to be able to account for both students’ life stories and their responsible acting in the world. In the end, we will discuss problems of the transfer of the narrative model from the domain of the literary text to the self. Contrary to MacIntyre, Ricoeur meticulously distinguishes between the literary story and the life story: Maclntyre is mainly considering stories told in the thick of everyday activity and does not attach any decisive importance, at least with respect to the ethical investigation he is conducting, to the split between literary fictions and the stories he says are enacted. In my own treatment of the mimetic function of narrative, the break made by the entry of narrative into the sphere of fiction is taken so seriously that it becomes a very thorny problem to reconnect literature to life by means of reading. For MacIntyre, the difficul-ties tied to the idea of a refiguration of life by fiction do not arise. However, he does not draw any benefit, as I try to do, from the double fact that it is in literary fiction that the connection between action and its agent is easiest to perceive and that literature proves to be an immense laboratory for thought experiments in which this connection is sub-mitted to an endless number of imaginative variations. (Ricoeur, 1992, pp. 158-159) Mimesis2, as we have outlined above, breaks with the world of praxis through configuration, and only refiguration can reconnect the world of the text and the world of action and experience. The mimetic activity of writing/reading allows self-understanding, but is poses the problem of how to relate the stories of fiction to the stories of life: “how do the thought experiments occa-sioned by fiction […] contribute to self-examination in real life?” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 159). Ricoeur (1992, pp. 159-163) detects five themes that are potentially problematic in the transfer of the narrative model to the self: (a) authorship, (b) completeness, (c) plot, (d) contextualiza-tion, and (e) temporality. First, the writer/reader of the life story is only the co-author of his story: “When I interpret myself in terms of a life story, am I all three at once, as in the autobi-ographical narrative? Narrator and character, perhaps, but of a life of which, unlike the creatures of fiction, I am not the author but at most, to use Aristotle's expression, the coauthor, the sunaition.” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 160) Second, the beginning and the end of the life story cannot be told from the first-person perspective. The beginning is manifest through the stories of oth-ers. The end cannot be grasped retrospectively, therefore closure that is, according to MacIntyre (1981), a precondition for the ‘good life’ is absent from the life story. From this it follows that life stories are “open-ended on both sides” (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 161) Third, life comprises a multiplicity of plots, it is a collection of stories rather than a single story. Fourth, the world of the text is a world of its own whereas life is intertextually entangled in the stories of others (Schapp, 1953/2012). Fifth, in self-understanding, mimesis praxeos appears able to cover only the past phase of life and to have to be joined to anticipations and projects following a schema similar to that proposed by R. Koselleck in Futures Past, where the dialectic of "the space of experi-ences" and the "horizon of expectation" relates the selection of narrated events to the anticipations belonging to what Sartre called the existential project of each. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 161) The literary text is only retrospective whereas life is both retrospective and prospective. Ricoeur concludes that all the arguments against the transfer of the narrative model to the self are ac-ceptable, but “they do not seem […] to be such as to abolish the very notion of the application of fiction to life. The objections are valid only in opposition to a naive conception of mimesis […]” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 161). Therefore, he aims to overcome these objections by incorporating the mimesis into “a more subtle, more dialectical comprehension of appropriation. It is within the framework of the struggle, mentioned earlier, between the text and the reader that the pre-ceding objections are to be reintroduced.” (Ricoeur, 1992, pp. 161-162) The following solutions are provided. First, the exchange between multiple senses of ‘author’ and ‘authorship’ “contribute to the wealth of meaning of the very notion of agency” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 162). Second, literature serves the function of organizing the beginning and the ending the life story: It is precisely because of the elusive character of real life that we need the help of fiction to organize life retrospectively, after the fact, prepared to take as provisional and open to revision any figure of emplotment borrowed from fiction or from history. In this way, with the help of the narrative beginnings which our reading has made familiar to us, straining this feature somewhat, we stabilize the real beginnings formed by the initia-tives (in the strong sense of the term) we take. And we also have the experience, however incomplete, of what is meant by ending a course of action, a slice of life. Literature helps us in a sense to fix the outline of these provisional ends. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 162) We can conclude that fiction teaches how to make a fresh start by means of initiative, thus giving birth to a new life, and it “has a role to play in the apprenticeship of dying” (Ricouer, 1992, 162). Ricoeur, surprisingly, does not address the third objection. Fourth, literary intertex-tuality, the intertextual schema, and interaction among fictional characters might be a model of intelligibility for the entanglement of the self in the history of others. Fifth, literature is only retrospective from the perspective of the narrator, not from the point of view of the characters: The literary narrative is retrospective only in a very particular sense: it is simply in the eyes of the narrator that the events recounted appear to have occurred in the past. The past of narration is but the quasi past of the narrative voice. Now among the facts re-counted in the past tense we find projects, expectations, and anticipations by means of which the protagonists in the narrative are oriented toward their mortal future […] In other words, the narrative also recounts care. In a sense, it only recounts care. This is why there is nothing absurd in speaking about the narrative unity of a life, under the sign of narratives that teach us how to articulate narratively retrospection and prospec-tion. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 163) As both the literary story and the life are retrospective and prospective, the narrative model can be transferred to the self. Ricoeur (1992) concludes: […] literary narratives and life histories, far from being mutually exclusive, are com-plementary, despite, or even because of, their contrast. This dialectic reminds us that the narrative is part of life before being exiled from life in writing; it returns to life along the multiple paths of appropriation and at the price of the unavoidable tensions just men-tioned. (p. 163) The literary text and the lived life are compatible in spite of their differences. Narrative is part of life in mimesis1, it is appropriated in mimesis3 and thus returns to life after being exiled from life through objectification in mimesis2. We assume that the narrative model can be transferred from literature to the self because of the compatibility of literary fiction and life. In addition, the compatibility and the ensuing transfer are the prerequisites for self-formation and self-un-derstanding by means of the detour through literature. First, the narrative model of mythos-mimesis allows the formation (mimesis2) and understanding (mimesis3) of the text as schema. Second, the narrative model of mythos-mimesis allows the formation (mimesis2) and under-standing (mimesis3) of the self as schema. We hypothesize that the isomorphy of the processes, i.e., the identical narrative structure of writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story, makes circulation processes (Sarasin, 2011) between text and self possible. In contrast to Ricoeur, we do not think that only narrative text-understanding influences narrative self-understanding, but we also assume that narrative self-understanding affects narrative text-understanding. We will end our deliberations about the transfer of narrative to the domain of the self with a neuroscientific excursus, attempting to substantiate our claim of the importance of narrative for identity formation. Roth (2001, p. 326) has detected various I-states: (a) the I of body and mine-ness, (b) the I of situatedness, (c) the I of perspective, (d), the I of imputation, (e) the agentive I of agency, (f) the autobiographical I, and (g) the self-reflexive I. The I is a “Bündel” (Roth, 2001, p. 325), a bundle, of these I-states that are experienced as coherent. Roth calls this expe-rience of unity the ‘stream of I-sensation’ (Roth, 2001, p. 327). The I is perceived as the center of reality that is conceptualized as virtual mental world of experience (Roth, 2001, p. 339). According to Roth, the coherent I is an illusion which nevertheless fulfills vital functions: First, imputation generates the temporal unity of experience with the support of autobiographical memory and is the foundation for the discrimination of self and other. Second, imputation ad-ditionally allows agency and intentionality. Third, interpretation and legitimation unify the ac-tions of the self in its social environment in a plausible way and justify this unification process (pp. 340-341). The question inevitably arises what is capable of upholding the multifunctional illusion (temporal and practical synthesis, facilitation of agency and intentionality) of the uni-fied I. From a theoretical perspective, we have argued that narrative can accomplish this task. There is some support from neurobiology. Damasio (2010) postulates that the self is conducted by narrative: “The conductor is cobbled together by feelings and by a narrative brain device, alt-hough this fact does not make the conductor any less real. The conductor undeniably exists in our minds, and nothing is gained by dismissing it as an illusion.” (p. 28) The major function of the narrative brain device is synthesis: “[…] the brain tends to organize this profusion of mate-rial much as a film editor would, by giving it some kind of coherent narrative structure in which certain actions are said to cause certain effects. This calls for selecting the right images and ordering them in a procession of time units and space frames.” (Damasio, 2010, p. 134). Nar-rative organizes, it creates temporal (plotting) and spatial (mapping) order, and it selects. All of Damasio’s narrative functions are compatible with what we have learned about the Kantian-Ricoeurian schema. There is some empirical evidence that the narrative brain device can syn-thesize the temporally and spatially-socially heterogeneous into unity. In conclusion, we can hold that the Ricoeurian transfer of the narrative model to the self is justifiable. In the domain of the self, the narrative functions as generative and interpretive model. As the “genuine nature of narrative identity discloses itself […] only in the dialectic of selfhood and sameness” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 140), we will now turn to the basic modalities of identity. Ricoeur’s (1992) dialectic of idem and ipse attempts to theoretically explain how the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’ is brought about in the domain of the self. In the following, we will investigate what narrative theory contributes to the constitution and the understanding of the self by closely reading Study 5 from Ricoeur’s Oneself as another. In order to account for the temporal dimension of the self, Ricoeur aims at a concept of identity that can grasp permanence across change (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 113). If we define learning with Illeris (2017) as ‘capacity change’, the target area of learning, in this case the self’s identity, must be variable. In other words, if identity is static, identity learning is impossible. In this sense, there can be accommodative or transformative learning with regard to Ricoeur’s ipse. As we have outlined above, Ricoeur’s epistemological interest shifts from textual temporality to self in Oneself as another (1992): “I propose to reconstruct here a theory of narrative, no longer considered from the perspective of its relation to the constitution of human time, as I did in Time and Narrative, but from that of its contribution to the constitution of the self” (p. 114). Ricoeur’s argument is based on two assumptions: First, life is readable. Blumenberg’s (1981) metaphoricity of the readability of the world emphasizes the reading act as primary mode of knowledge. Self-understanding is thus a verbal interpretation brought about by the act of reading. Second, this verbal self-interpretation finds in narrative a privileged form of mediation. Human lives become more readable when interpreted in terms of narrative models (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 114). At the outset, Ricoeur focuses of the interpretive function of narrative. We will later see how the narrative schema also generates self. Ricoeur distinguishes two ‘modalities’ (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 165) of permanence of time: idem (sameness) and ipse (selfhood). Idem is a structural-relational concept that works by the method of comparison according to the criterion of similitude (Ricoeur, 1992, pp. 116-117). The crite-rion of similitude appears in four forms: (a) Numerical identity denotes oneness in opposition to plurality. (b) Qualitative identity addresses extreme resemblance, qualitatively identical in-stances are substitutable with no difference. (c) Developmental sameness as uninterrupted con-tinuity “between the first and the last stage in the development of what we consider to be the same individual” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 117) constitutes the third type of the relation of similitude. Phenomena of growth and aging that are factors of numerical diversity can be subsumed under this criterion. (d) Permanence in time is the relational invariant that is the “condition of the possibility of conceiving change as happening to something which does not change” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 118). It is a “structure” as opposed to the event, “the organization of a combinatory system” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 117) that has the status of a Kantian category. The weakness of idem is that it cannot account for the event of change because it is structural-relational in nature. Time is a factor of dissemblance, divergence, difference (Ricoeur, 1992), i.e., idem cannot synthesize the temporal distention. The consequence is that there is need of a principle that can capture permanence across change. Ricoeur suggests two models of permanence in time: (a) character and (b) promise. The two models express contrary manifestations of the dialectic of idem and ipse: My hypothesis is that the polarity of these two models of permanence with respect to persons results from the fact that the permanence of character expresses the almost com-plete mutual overlapping of the problematic of idem and of ipse, while faithfulness to oneself in keeping one's word marks the extreme gap between the permanence of the self and that of the same and so attests fully to the irreducibility of the two problematics one to the other. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 118) In the permanence of character, idem and ipse are mutually overlapped. Character denotes the specific configuration of typical behavior that is established over time (Meuter, 1995, p. 260). Character comprises habituated modes of behavior and identification with culture: By ‘character’ I understand the set of distinctive marks which permit the reidentification of a human individual as being the same. By the descriptive features that will be given, the individual compounds numerical identity and qualitative identity, uninterrupted con-tinuity and permanence in time. In this way, the sameness of the person is designated emblematically. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 119) The character’s distinctive features allow the re-identification by what remains the same ac-cording to the criterion of similitude. In this sense, character that is based on similarity is an expression of the principle of concordance in which the temporal distention becomes imper-ceptible: Character, I would say today, designates the set of lasting dispositions by which a person is recognized. In this way character is able to constitute the limit point where the prob-lematic of ipse becomes indiscernible from that of idem, and where one is inclined not to distinguish them from one another. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 121) The permanence of the “lasting disposition” eclipses change. Ricoeur again distinguishes two forms of permanence that mask change: (a) habit, and (b) identification. Habit “gives a history to character, but this is a history in which sedimentation tends to cover over the innovation which preceded it, even to the point of abolishing the latter” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 121). The pro-cess of traditionality is obscured in habit, only the product of traditionality that seems unchange-able is given in habit. This product is sedimentation: It is this sedimentation which confers on character the sort of permanence in time that I am interpreting here as the overlapping of ipse by idem. This overlapping, however, does not abolish the difference separating the two problematics: precisely as second nature, my character is me, myself, ipse; but this ipse announces itself as idem. Each habit formed in this way, acquired and become a lasting disposition, constitutes a trait - a character trait, a distinctive sign by which a person is recognized, reidentified as the same - character being nothing other than the set of these distinctive signs. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 121) The seeming stability of sedimentation confers permanence on habit, thus giving the self same-ness. Sameness as trait makes the self distinctive and recognizable. Traditionality expresses itself as static sedimentation, not as dynamic process of sedimentation and innovation. In habit, change hides behind sedimentation. The temporal ipse is presented as structural idem. With identifications, otherness is converted into mineness: Second, we may relate to the notion of disposition the set of acquired identifications by which the other enters into the composition of the same. To a large extent, in fact, the identity of a person or a community is made up of these identifications with values, norms, ideals, models, and heroes, in which the person or the community recognizes itself. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 121) Identification denotes the process of internalization of the cultural other during the actualization of the cultural archive. Hall (2007) asserts that identification with the other (“recognizing one-self in”) is a major means of understanding oneself (“recognizing oneself by”): “To a large extent, in fact, the identity of a person or a community is made up of these identifications with values, norms, ideals, models, and heroes in which the person or the community recognizes itself. Recognizing oneself in contributes to recognizing oneself by.” (p. 27) From this it follows that self-understanding is mediated by culture. This Ricoeurian argument is essential for the teaching of literature that aims at insight into the self as it suggests that the acquisition of cul-tural artefacts has the potential of entering and changing the self’s identity. Habits and identifications ensure a stability by which character gives idem to identity: By means of this stability, borrowed from acquired habits and identifications — in other words, from dispositions — character assures at once numerical identity, qualitative identity, uninterrupted continuity across change, and, finally, permanence in time which defines sameness. I would say, barely skirting paradox, that the identity of character expresses a certain adherence of the "what?" to the "who?" Character is truly the "what" of the "who." (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 122) In Ricoeur’s analysis of character, the idem (what) is tied to the ipse (who). Character presents the temporal development of identity as permanent structure: However, this overlapping of ipse by idem is not such that it makes us give up all at-tempts to distinguish between them. The dialectic of innovation and sedimentation, un-derlying the acquisition of a habit, and the equally rich dialectic of otherness and inter-nalization, underlying the process of identification, are there to remind us that character has a history which it has contracted, one might say, in the twofold sense of the word ‘contraction’: abbreviation and affection. It is then comprehensible that the stable pole of character can contain a narrative dimension, as we see in the uses of the term ‘char-acter’ identifying it with the protagonist in a story. What sedimentation has contracted, narration can redeploy. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 122) The dialectic of innovation and sedimentation on the one hand and the dialectic of otherness and internalization on the other hand can restore the temporal dimension of identity. In idem, time is concentrated into permanent structure. Ipse as narrative dimension of identity recon-structs temporality. The paradigmatic case of ipse is the promise. Here, self-constancy is established by imputing the act to the responsible agent who abides by the activity in spite of change. Self-constancy is not supported by sameness: […] keeping one's promise […] does indeed appear to stand as a challenge to time, a denial of change: even if my desire were to change, even if I were to change my opinion or my inclination, ‘I will hold firm.’ […] This ethical justification, considered as such, develops its own temporal implications, namely a modality of permanence in time ca-pable of standing as the polar opposite to the permanence of character. It is here, pre-cisely, that selfhood and sameness cease to coincide. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 124) Ricoeur concludes: This new manner of opposing the sameness of character to the constancy of the self in promising opens an interval of sense which remains to be filled in. This interval is opened by the polarity, in temporal terms, between two models of permanence in time - the perseverance of character and the constancy of the self in promising. It is therefore in the sphere of temporality that the mediation is to be sought. Now it is this ‘milieu’ that, in my opinion, the notion of narrative identity comes to occupy. Having thus situated it in this interval, we will not be surprised to see narrative identity oscillate between two limits: a lower limit, where permanence in time expresses the confusion of idem and ipse; and an upper limit, where the ipse poses the question of its identity with-out the aid and support of the idem. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 124). It is the concept of narrative identity that mediates between the two modalities of identity, the structural stability of the character that hides its temporality and the temporal constancy of the promise that lacks structure. Finally, if we relate the dialectic of idem and ipse to the dialectic of concordance and discord-ance, we can note that idem embodies the principle of concordance whereas ipse represents the principle of attributing the synthesis to the agent who preserves self-constancy by continually synthesizing the heterogeneous. Reagan (1996) succinctly summarizes the dialectic of idem and ipse. Whereas character denotes permanent dispositions, i.e., “what is identifiable and reidentifiable in me, through time and across all of my experiences and actions” (pp. 85-86), the promise maintains selfhood despite diversity because the agent “act[s] in a manner that others can count on me and thus make me accountable for my actions” (p. 86). Where sameness is absent, responsibility takes its place. Reagan (1996) concludes that the “true nature of narrative identity is found only in the dialectic of sameness and selfhood” (p. 84). This dialectic of idem and ipse that can be grasped within the narrative model as outlined above is the contribution of narrative theory to the constitution of the self. What the narrative in narrative identity achieves is the schematic synthesis. The narrative schema makes temporal connections: “Narrative links the permanence of character to the gap between present narrator and the past protagonist, for whose actions the narrator is responsible. […] Only the narrative transformations of emplotment, he [Ricoeur] argues, create self-continuity across character development and across the gap between the protagonist and narrator.” (Habermas, & Köber, 2014, p. 151) As the narrative schema is operative, the im-portance of productive-poietic imagination for identity formation is evident. Let us return to the characteristics of ipse as they are essential for a theory of the teaching of literature that aims at insight into the self. To begin with, Ricoeur (1992) states that “identity in the sense of ipse implies no assertion concerning some unchanging core of the personality” (p. 2). Ipse is not substantial, it does not have a kernel. However, it derives its unity from the activity of writing/reading the story, the act of mythos-mimesis that is constitutive of all ipse-identity. Embodiment is essential to ipse. The polysemic verbal manifestations of identity with their ten-tative schematic unity are ascribed to the body. Therefore, identity is both bodily and psycho-logical. Embodied consciousness is the phenomenon that identity models. We will term embodied consciousness ‘self’ hereafter. Mineness of the body is an irreducible trait of ipse: “[…] the corporeal condition is not by nature foreign to the problematic of selfhood, to the extent that my body's belonging to myself constitutes the most overwhelming testimony in favor of the irreducibility of selfhood to sameness” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 128). Ricoeur even goes one step further in postulating that it is mineness that establishes bodily ipse: “[…] it is not the sameness of my body that constitutes its selfhood but its belonging to someone capable of des-ignating himself or herself as the one whose body this is (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 129). As a conse-quence, ipse is directed at the embodied subject of experience to whom this experience is im-puted, not to the permanent bodily substance. Mimetic writing/reading the life story implies perspectivizing the self. First, the perspective reciprocates between the first and the third person in auto-hetero-affection. In writing according to the narrative schema, the writer (1st person perspective) produces a self-narration imagina-tively imitating her actions, and this objectification reifies the writer (3rd person perspective). In reading the life story according to the narrative schema, the reader (1st person perspective) transacts with the life story which has been constituted by the imaginative imitation of actions (3rd person perspective). Atkins (2004) holds that the narrative schema allows “co-ordination of heterogeneous aspects of time and human experience” (p. 343). From this it follows that it can synthesize three per-spectives. The narrative model is “a complex model that interweaves the first-person subjective perspective with the second-person perspective of the communicative situation of social exist-ence, along with a generalizable or third-person perspective presupposed by a shared world of meanings with public standards of objectivity.” (Atkins, 2004, p. 343). The distinction of the first-person perspective (the experiencing, agentive subject) and the third-person perspective (the objectified discursive subject) are reminiscent of James’ (1890) I as subject of experience and Me as the object of experience. In addition, the second-person perspective opens up identity to intersubjectivity, the perspective of the other that is a prerequisite for all reading experiences of identification, empathy and cognitive perspective-taking is included into the narrative pro-cess. Moreover, the second-person perspective is vital for learning as an interactional experi-ence. In addition, Atkins (2004) maintains that the “three perspectives […] arise from our corporeal condition.” (p. 344). As stated above, ipse is dependent on both physical and psychological predicates of the self: “It is because we are embodied consciousness that we can view ourselves from two standpoints: as object of theoretical understanding (from a third-person perspective) or as originators of our actions (from a first-person perspective).” (Atkins, 2004, p. 345) The narrative co-ordinates the narrating (writing/reading) and experiencing reflexive/agentive I with the narrated (written/read) and experienced passive I. Again, the imaginative synthesis can bring about the integration of all perspectives by means of the structuring and unifying narrative schema: “In other words, who [=ipse] a person is is the named subject of a practical and con-ceptual complex of first, second and third-person perspectives which structure and unify a life grasped as it is lived.” (Atkins, 2004, p. 347). Atkins(2004) concludes: […] the narrative model provides a framework for understanding persons as beings whose existence is primarily practical, temporal and self-concerned. Narrative identity is not simply a first-person report but a complex structure that interweaves first, second and third-person perspectives into a semantic whole with an implied subject who attests to her identity and in doing so constitutes it as her identity […] (p. 354). Ipse is concerned with the self practically and temporally. It synthesizes the first, second and third-person perspectives according to the category of unity. As we will see below, the synthesis and its results cannot be validated by means of empirical truth (correspondence theory of truth), but by means of the act of attestation that defies suspicion (consensus theory of truth). Perspectivity implies a stance of perspective. This stance can be measured on a continuum from proximity to distance from the self as embodied consciousness. According to Straub (2019a), self-narrations are a “einmalige Melange aus Selbstdistanzierung und emotionaler Verstrickung des (oder der) Erzählenden ins Erzählte“ (p. 233). This unique blend of self-distancing and emotional involvement is connected to perspectivity, the first-person perspective insinuating proximity, the third-person perspective suggesting distance. As we learn from Ricoeur’s (1981) analysis of appropriation during reading, self-distancing as a detour through the signs is a pre-requisite for self-understanding. Straub (2019a, p. 273) detects the same function of self-dis-tancing in writing/reading the life story. Self-observation from the distant third-person point of view is a prerequisite for self-understanding. The writing of life produces the distant story which in turn the writer/reader approximates in reading her own life story. Thus, self-under-standing becomes possible through self-narration. Considering the second-person perspective, ipse can also guide the movement on the continuum of closeness and distance to the social other. By analogy, the material (written) life story can also be regarded as the other (second-person perspective) in the cultural realm, generated from the first-person perspective and rep-resenting the third-person perspective. The ipse is situated in the world. This situatedness is mediated by the corporeal and terrestrial conditions (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 150). With reference to Bakhtin’s (1981) seminal concept, we will call narrative identity’s situatedness, i.e., the self’s temporal and spatial anchoring in the world through narrative identity, the identity chronotope. This chronotope is yielded by synthetic plotting (temporal arrangement of I-episodes in the self’s psyche) and mapping (spa-tial arrangement of I-positions in the self’s social life). The narrative schema thus fulfils a dou-ble integrative function. As plotting and mapping are performative in nature (Cf. the act of writing/reading the life story), and performance is necessarily situated, narrative identity is sit-uated in time and space. Klepper (2013) explains: “[…] topographical concerns cannot be sep-arated from temporal ones. Performance, after all, is a concept that implies both space and time. The concept of narrative identity, which, after all, can easily accommodate the semantics of space, has to take both categories into account.” (p. 22). We have realized that ipse is an act. Polkinghorne (2004) infers from this agentive nature of identity that “[w]e are activities” (p. 46). Moreover, ipse has implications for the self’s agency; it is dependent on the capabilities of narrating and being imputable, and, by doing - these acts are potentially a site of learning -, it opens up new capacities of acting. Following Hall (2007), we will reconstruct the basic structure of the act of Ricoeurian ipse. The dialectic of voluntary/freedom (initiative) and involuntary/nature (desires, needs, physical abil-ities, laws of nature, temporality) is the basic structure of the act (Hall, 2007, p. 19). In this sense, action is both active and passive. Passivity is not the other of activity, but a dimension of agency itself (Hall, 2007, p. 30). Let us have a look at these two poles of the act now. According to Hall (Hall, 2007, p. 19), capability delineates the freedom that is available to humans. Freedom must be understood by the relation of the voluntary and the involuntary: the “voluntary structures of action only make sense when considered in their relation to the invol-untary” (Hall, 2007, p. 23): “[…] freedom is human capability that traverses the structures of a project motivated by needs and desires, of movement that exerts effort on bodily resistance, and of voluntary consent to the limitations upon action. Therefore, human freedom is an embodied, in-carnate freedom.” (Hall, 2007, p. 24) Hall (2007) explicates why freedom is tied to the body: “That is to say, the body, the flesh, is the point of commerce with the world; it is the place where I affect and am affected by the world. Human freedom is incarnate because the experience of being capable is an experience of the body in the world.” (Hall, 2007, p. 30) We already know that the body is the mediator between the self and the world. It is also the site to which the specific form of engagement is ascribed. The structure of this bodily engagement with the world is ‘active receptivity’, “I af-fect” (activity), and “I am affected” (passivity). The figure of ‘active receptivity’ is “an attempt to configure the structures of the voluntary and the involuntary, that is, the active and the re-ceptive sides of human capability, into a meaningful account of agency” (Hall, 2007, p. 25). Active receptivity occupies a middle position on the continuum of agency with its poles of total autonomy and total heteronomy, thus complying with Straub’s (2019b, p. 39) notion of partial autonomy that he attributes to identity. As far as narrative identity is concerned, narrative is neither free from any constraints, nor are we entangled in the stories (Schapp, 1953/2012) so that we are totally idle. We can conclude with MacIntyre (1981) “that we are never more (and sometimes less) than the co-authors of our own narratives” (p. 213). In the following, we will tackle two major Ricoeurian capabilities: (a) to be imputable, (b) to be able to tell a story. Capacities are “fundamental powers [that] constitute the primary base of humanity” (Ricoeur, 2005a, p. 125). For Ricoeur (2002, p. 282), capability is the basic concept of philosophical anthropology. He asks himself what the self can make of itself. The ‘I can’ is central to his thoughts. Oneself as another “can be read in terms of four verbs, which the ‘I can’ modifies: I can speak, I can do things, I can tell a story, and I can be imputed” (Ricoeur, 2002, p. 280). In this system of capabilities, “[l]anguage is not a capability among all of us, but is the condition of the possibility of all other meaningful human capabilities” (Ricoeur, 2002, p. 280). Ricoeur (2005b) connects capability to being: By launching the idea of capacity by way of that of being able to say things, we confer on the notion of human action the extension that justifies the characterization of the self as the capable human being recognizing himself in his capabilities. Acting will then be the most appropriate concept at the level of the philosophical anthropology that charac-terizes my approach. At the same time, it will be a prolongation of Aristotle's famous assertion, concerning the notion of being on the plane of fundamental ontology, that being is spoken of in many ways, including being as potentiality (dynamis) and as act (energeia). (p. 94) The self can recognize itself in its capabilities. Capabilities that point to potential being are approachable through acts that express actual being. In this sense, the self is not only an act due to its ipseity, it is also a “power-to-act in the world” because of the experience of ‘I can’ that is related “to what the self in fact can ascribe to its own initiative and impute to its own responsi-bility” (Pellauer, 2007, p. 107). The relation of the self to its capabilities can be understood as follows: “The self attests to its own self by recognizing itself in the capacities it has.” (Kauf-mann, 2009, p. 21) In other words, “attestation establishes the connection between the self and its capacities (Kaufmann, 2009, p. 24), capabilities “fundamentally, […] are felt, experienced in the mode of certainty” (Ricoeur, 2005b, p. 125). In conclusion, “I attest to my power to be through my power to do.” (Hall, 2007, p. 29). The capability of imputation of the action to the agent is central for ipse. By imputing the action, the action represents myself in the world. The act stands for the self. The capacity to act reveals itself in the performance of the act, and the capacity to be emerges in the capacity to do. To sum up, the self is a capable being whose doing unfolds its capabilities. Or, as Ricoeur (2002) puts it, “actions [are] the expressions of agency connected to an agent capable of acting” (p. 282): Every act […] possesses at the same time an objective intending and a relation of ‘imputa-tion’ which appears clearly in a decision; in making up my mind, I impute to myself the action, that is, I place it in a relation to myself such that, from then on, this action represent me in the world. […] Thus I posit myself as the agent in the intending of the action to be done […] My power-to-be manifests itself in my power-to-do and this power-to-do is re-vealed to itself in the projects which it forms concerning the things in the world. (Ricoeur, 1978a, p. 69) Selfhood is attested to in the capacity to act; the I is, first and foremost, a capable agent. The ethical implication of the agentive self is responsibility (Hall, 2007, p. 22). In the domain of the self, the capability to tell a story denotes the configuration of the identity of the agent in terms of idem and ipse. By being able to tell a story, I potentially construct and understand myself. On the basis of temporal and spatial-social self-understanding through the capability of narrating, future agency is made possible. Ipse as act and capability is situated in time. It is not solely retrospective in nature as has been reportedly criticized (Bamberg, 2011). In promising, ipse has a prospective dimension: “In giv-ing a promise, I display the ability to intend myself into the future with the intention to make good on the word I have given in the present. Thus, there is a profound link between selfhood and agency. The self is an agent who maintains him/herself in remaining true to his/her word.” (Hall, 2007, p. 27) From this it follows that the “ability to intend myself into the future” is linked to ipse, not to idem. The “self maintains itself in initiative” (Hall. 2007, p. 26), and ipse’s capabilities are the condition of the possibility of initiative. Human freedom, the paradigmatic case of activity in our dialectic of activity and passivity that defines agency, is “the ability to initiate a series of events within a causal structure” (Hall, 2007, p. 30). Initiative comprises four interrelated phases: “first, I can (potentiality, power, ability); second, I act (my being is my doing); third, I intervene (I inscribe my act within the course of the world: the present and the instant coincide); fourth, I keep my promises (I continue to act, I persevere, I endure).” (Ricoeur, 1991e, p. 217) We have discussed the relation of ca-pability and being above. The act is motivated. It is by motivation that we can distinguish the impersonal event from the personal act. Actions mark the fracture in the permanently given, they introduce change into the system (Hall, 2007, pp. 30-31). These changes are schematized in ipse in an effort to bridge discontinuity. Acting possibly encompasses intervening, which more clearly produces change to the given. The act of writing/reading the life story can bring innovation to the sedimented story, thus being an instance of intervention. Moreover, the interplay of capability, act, and intervention is crucial for our understanding of learning as ‘ca-pacity change’ (Illeris, 2017). The capacity to act is potentially changed in the act that inter-venes in the sedimented mind, thus bringing about mental innovation. Thus, our understanding of learning is deeply rooted in human initiative. Finally, promising is the point at which future action touches upon the idea of capability in the form of commitment. The com-mitment to a future action opens analysis to the fact that agents are capable toward the future. In this sense, promising is not only a point of initiation, that is, an intervention in the course of things, but also an orientation toward the future that secures my under-standing of my capability. If I were incapable of initiating the course of action I prom-ised, the promise itself would be meaningless. (Hall, 2007, p. 31) Promising orients capability towards the future, and it is the point of entrance for responsibility. Promise is not only intervention in the present status quo, but it facilitates the understanding of one’s agency because of its future-orientedness. Hall (2007) summarizes the significance of initiative for agency as ‘active receptivity’: “There-fore, initiative is the defining mark of human capability. Human agency is bound within condi-tions that both limit and empower it, conditions against which agency is passive and to which it is receptive but not incapable.” (p. 32) Even though agency is constrained by passivity, initi-ative secures that agency remains capable, active, intervening, and responsible. In conclusion, we can hold that there are two fundamental modes of being of the agent: activity and passivity. Narration can explore the relationship between these modes, and it can make sense of ‘active receptivity’ in the life story. In pedagogy, initiative must take center stage. However, passivity within agency (the psychological other: desires, needs, experienced neces-sity; the cultural other: the material text, the social other: the teacher, the classmates) must not be neglected as “deepened senses of passivity lend themselves to a deepened understanding of selfhood” (Hall, 2007, p. 32). After having clarified the fundamental structure of agency as dialectic of activity and passivity, we will now turn to its temporal and relational character. Emirbayer and Mische (1998) define agency as “the temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structural environ-ments - the temporal-relational contexts of action - which, through the interplay of habit, imag-ination, and judgment, both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing historical situation” (p. 970). In this definition, the authors stress the temporal and relational aspects of agency. Agency here, however, is not situated at the level of Ricoeurian capabilities, but as engagement, it is an act, not the capacity of act. Emirbayer and Mische (1998) make an analytical distinction between three temporal dimen-sions of agency: (a) the iterational, (b) the projective, and (c) practical-evaluative. In concrete actions, all these three temporal dimensions play a role to varying degree. The iterational di-mension provides the actor with a wide repertoire of responses (capacity, beliefs and values) to current situations. In the projective dimension, short-term and long-term projections about fu-ture trajectories are considered. The practical-evaluative dimension allows the agent to make judgements: The iterational element […] refers to the selective reactivation by actors of past patterns of thought and action, as routinely incorporated in practical activity, thereby giving stability and order to social universes and helping to sustain identities, interactions, and institutions over time”. […] Projectivity encompasses the imaginative generation by ac-tors of possible future trajectories of action, in which received structures of thought and action may be creatively reconfigured in relation to actors’ hopes, fears, and desires for the future. […]. Finally, the practical-evaluative […] entails the capacity of actors to make practical and normative judgments among alternative possible trajectories of action, in response to the emerging demands, dilemmas, and ambiguities of presently evolving situations.” (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 971) Emirbayer and Mische define agency as the interaction of memory, imagination, and judge-ment. Imaginative past (habituated/schematized patterns that sediment and that are iterated in their application, . stability) and imaginative future (poietic play on/according to the schema, . innovation) open up possibilities for action. These possibilities are judged. This judgement is not only responsive to the imaginative past and future, but also to the present situation. In agency, present, past, and future are interconnected. This temporal concept of agency is highly compatible with Ricoeur’s temporal ipse, which is based on St. Augustine’s theory of the three-fold present. Let us now turn to the relations of actions to their contexts. The interplay between agent and context varies within different contexts, and the agent has “the ability to shape our responsive-ness to such contexts” (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p. 133). In addition, the present engagement is affected by the “configuration of influences from the past, [and the] orientations towards the future“ (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p. 135). We can conclude that both the agent’s agentic orien-tations towards the past and the future influence the present act. However, the agent has the capability to form the response to the context. Therefore, this concept of present engagement with the context is in line with our basic hypothesis of the structure of agency as ‘active recep-tivity’. Let us return to the initial quote from Emirbayer and Mische for a moment: agency was defined as “engagement by actors of different structural environments […] which […] both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing historical situations.” (p. 970; my emphasis) The relation (“engagement by actors of different structural environments”) is high in complexity. Both the agent with her agentic orientations and the contexts of engagement, “the changing historical situations”, are temporal in nature and undergo transformations. The outcome of engagement is reproduction or transformation, which is reminiscent of the dialectic of sedimentation and innovation. The engagement itself is con-ceptualized as “interactive process” or as “dialogical process” (Emirbayer & Mische, p. 974). Emirbayer’s and Mische’s concept of agency as interaction or dialogue is compatible with Ros-enblatt’s transactional theory of literary reading35 (1969, 1978) that we resort to for the read-ing/writing of the literary text: 35 In our view, the engagement as interactive and dialogical process is compatible with transaction although Dewey and Bentley (1949) have spotted a difference between interaction and transaction. Whereas in interaction two different self-contained factors act on one another, transaction “designate[s] situations in which the elements or factors are […] aspects of the total situation in an ongoing process” (Rosenblatt, 1969, p. 43). Therefore, the terminological distinction primarily refers to the status of the elements, not to the engagement itself. We must, however, concede that the status of the factors has an impact on the engagement. The transaction involving a reader and a printed text thus can be viewed as an event occurring at a particular time in a particular environment at a particular moment in the life history of the reader. The transaction will involve not only the past experience but also the present state and present interests or preoccupations of the reader. (Rosenblatt, 1969, p. 45) The relation to the symbolic agent of the text is conceptualized as transaction. The transaction as event takes place between the reader and the text. The engagement is situated within a spe-cific temporal and situational context. What is notable here is that Rosenblatt neglects the agent’s agentic orientation towards the future. The conceptual model of transaction can be trans-ferred from reading/writing the literary story to writing/reading the life story without losing its explanatory power. Now we will return to nature of engagement as defined by Biesta and Tedder. Contrary to Ric-oeur, agency is not regarded as a ‘power-to-do’: Agency is not some kind of ‘power’ that individuals possess and can utilise in any situ-ation they encounter. Agency should rather be understood as something that has to be achieved in and through engagement with particular temporal-relational contexts-for-action. Agency, in other words, is not something that people have; it is something that people do. It denotes a ‘quality’ of the engagement of actors with temporal-relational contexts-for-action, not a quality of the actors themselves. We might therefore charac-terise such an understanding of agency as an ecological understanding in that it focuses on the ways in which agency is achieved in transaction with a particular context-for-action, within a particular ‘ecology’. (Biesta, & Tedder, 2007, pp. 136-137) To recapitulate Biesta and Tedder’s argument, agency is achieved through engagement, the self does not have agency, it does agency. Therefore, agency is a quality of the engagement, not of the agent. We agree with the ecological understanding that agency can be achieved in the trans-action with a context. Above we have held that agency can be promoted through the acts of writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story. As agency is supposed to be a dimension of ipse, it must be acted out, it is not a quality that the self possesses. By doing, being in its ipseity is affected. Thus, doing becomes a dimension of being, doing is not inher-ently a dimension of being. But we partly disagree with Biesta and Tedder. It is essential to distinguish capabilities from actions. Agency is not done, but it is a capacity to do. This capacity is ascribed to the agent, it is a quality of the agent, although not a stable and innate one, it must be achieved. Engagement as act, on the other hand, is not had by the agent, it is a transaction between agent and context. Therefore, the engagement is ecological and can describe the indi-vidual’s response to cultural artefacts (cultural agency as trans-action) and to the social others (social agency as inter-action). Capability/agency, on the other hand, is not ecological although it facilitates ecological engagement and is affected by this ecological engagement. Moreover, capability is linked to being in the act of attestation. Biesta and Tedder (2007) explain the epistemological implications of the concept of agency as achievement: This concept of agency highlights that actors always act by means of an environment rather than simply in an environment. To think of agency as achievement makes it pos-sible to understand why an individual can achieve agency in one situation but not in another. It also makes it possible to understand the fluctuations of agency over time, that is, in the individual’s lifecourse. Such fluctuations can partly be understood as a result of learning because actors can bring their experiences from past situations (the itera-tional dimension of agency) to bear on the present, although there is always the question whether what was learnt in the past can be utilised in the present (the pragmatic-evalu-ative dimension). (p. 137) The ecological concept of agency facilitates a twofold understanding. Agency is dependent on temporal and situational factors. On the one hand, the Emirbayer-Mische (1998) model can describe the temporal dimension of engagement: the “distinction between the iterational, prac-tical-evaluative and projective aspects of the ‘chordal triad of agency’ […] makes it possible to characterise the particular ‘tone’ of individuals’ engagement with events in their lives” (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p. 137). By adopting this model, we can detect which orientation dominates in a specific engagement with the context. On the other hand, we can realize how this ‘tone’ of individuals’ engagement interacts with different temporal contexts. Now we will turn to the relationship of agency and learning. Agency as achievement and the ecological understanding of agency are prerequisites for learning. If agency were an inherited disposition, there would be no need for learning. If, on the other hand, agency is to be achieved, this achievement can be regarded as learning process. In our definition of learning, we mainly resort to Illeris (2017), Jarvis (2005), and Wenger (1998). All three authors emphasize the in-teractional dimension of learning. An ecological understanding of agency is compatible with the assumption that learning can only take place if the condition of interaction is met. In line with Ricoeur and Rosenblatt, agency as act is not a purely passive response to context. Agents have the “capacity […] to critically shape their own responsiveness to problematic sit-uations’ (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 971). Agency as capacity correlates with the “ways in which people are ‘in control’ of their responses” (Biesta & Tedder, p. 138) by being able to shape their responsiveness. We can conclude that achievement of agency is bound to the capa-bility to reorganize the configuration of the agentic orientations in response. Emirbayer and Mische (1998) explain this capacity as follows: We contend that as actors alter or shift between their agentic orientations, dialogically reconstructing the internal composition of their chordal triad, they may increase or de-crease their capacity for invention, choice, and transformative impact in relation to the situational contexts within which they act. (p. 1003) The capability for the management of agentic orientations makes more effective and satisfac-tory engagement possible, what in turn potentially influences the context (Biesta & Tedder, p. 138). In conclusion, the dialogue between agent and context as mediated by the act is reciprocal: the context affects the agent in the achievement of agency and in the configuration of agentic orientations, and the agent affects the context in engagement of the agent who is capable of effective management of her agentic orientations. Therefore, the major pedagogic question is “how people might be able and might be enabled to reconstruct their agentic orientations. It is precisely here that we can locate the role of learning.” (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p. 138) In addi-tion, we need to shape the context in a way that learning, i.e., the achievement of agency, can take place. Biesta and Tedder (2007) regard narrative as a useful vehicle for bringing about learning in the field of agency: “We argue that learning about the particular composition of one’s agentic orientations and how they play out in one’s life can play an important role in the achievement of agency, and that life-narratives, stories about one’s life, can be an important vehicle for such learning. (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p. 133). The precondition for learning agency is distancing from and evaluation of agentive orientations. What we can learn about agency is (a) which agentic orientation is predominant in which situ-ation and if agentic orientations are consistent with each other, and (b) “how one can change or reconstruct the composition of one’s agentic orientations” (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p. 138). Narrative is a privileged medium both to meet the major preconditions of distancing and eval-uation and to bring about the learning itself. Biesta and Tedder (2007, p. 139) maintain that we can reframe relational-temporal agency by imaginative recomposition and critical judgement. The life-narrative at least has the potential to be the ‘place’ for agentic learning. Imagination is central to refiguration and judgement, and we have learnt that narrative as mythos-mimesis is primarily an imaginative activity, i.e., it can refigure and judge. In conclusion, Biesta and Tedder (2007) hold that Emirbayer and Mische help us to see that there is a particular kind of learning that may help people to gain (more) control over and give (more) direction to their life, viz., learning that has to do with understanding and evaluating the composition, history and ‘ecology’ of one’s agentic orientations. This can be seen as a form of biographical learn-ing, understood as learning about one’s life and learning from one’s life. (p. 139) This kind of biographical learning is triggered both by insight that will lead to change in peo-ple’s lives (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998) and by change in people’s lives that will actually lead to insight (Biesta & Tedder, 2007). We hypothesize that biographical learning is triggered by writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story. Finally, we think that the relationship between agency and learning is reciprocal. In the itera-tional dimension of agency, learning extends the repertoire of responses to present situations. In addition, students’ projections about future events are enriched. Thus, the capacity to direct one’s life and to be in control of the responses to the presently evolving situations is expanded. In sum, the learning about one’s agentic orientations and how one can change or reconstruct the composition of one’s agentic orientation helps the students shape their responsiveness and hence achieve a higher level of agency as capacity (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p. 138). Agency, on the other hand, is a prerequisite for learning. It represents the interactional dimension in Illeris’ theory of learning which is vital for the learning process. It can be hypothesized that there is no development of functionality, sensibility and sociality without agency as engage-ment. Thus, a reciprocal relationship of agency and learning in the process of writing/reading is demonstrated. In the following, we will ask ourselves how agency is related to meaning as we consider learn-ing to be a meaning-making process. We agree with Hall (2007) that agency and meaning-making are mediated through reflection. To begin with, the basic structure of agency “makes reflection on existence possible” (Hall, 2007, p. 37). In reflection, meaning-making is tied to passivity, but understanding is also an active process: Humans come to understand their existence within a realm of meaning to which they are receptive; however, like the passivity encountered at the level of the basic structures of agency, human receptivity to the realm of meaning is not absolute passivity. This receptivity is an active receptivity. In other words, humans actively understand on the basis of the meanings they receive: they create new meaning out of received meaning. (Hall, 2007, p. 38) ‘Active receptivity’ on the level of reflection takes the form of the dialectic of sedimentation and innovation that we have explained above: “Self, using its capacities for reflection and for envisaging alternatives, escapes or embraces or reevaluates or reformulates what the culture has on offer” (Bruner, 1990, p. 109). This dialectic is performed in interpretation that is a form of reflection: In this sense, interpretation represents a further specification of the conceptual bridge of reflection that leads from agency to meaning. In the last chapter, I followed Ricoeur in claiming that agency is experienced as attestation to oneself as an acting and suffering being. Attestation rises to the level of self-reflection in the form of interpretation. (Bruner, 1990, p. 63) We can conclude that reflection mediates between agency and meaning. This is true for both reading/writing the literary story and writing/reading the life story. In reading/writing the life story, mediating reflection may take the form of autobiographical reasoning: The term ‘autobiographical reasoning’ designates a process of thinking or talking about the personal past that involves arguments that link distant elements of one’s life to each other and to the self in an attempt to relate the present self to one’s personal past and future. AR establishes a biographical perspective on events and oneself. This involves using the life as a frame of reference. In addition to hierarchically integrating events into static personality traits, more importantly, AR may also create a dynamic developmental story to link diverse events to the self (Habermas, 2011; Habermas & Bluck, 2000). (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 149) Agency in its temporality is signified through reflection. Life is the reference point of reflection. The mimetic activity of life writing/reading complies with the basic structure of ‘active recep-tivity’. Reflection mediates between the action of writing/reading the life story and the mean-ingful life story. We have called this reflection the interpretive function of writing/reading the story. The narrative schema synthesizes life episodes into the dynamic ipse, i.e., the meaningful life story that can grasp continuity across change in the self’s development. As a consequence, ipse is agentive, reflective, and meaningful. The identity concept that is to be applied in the teaching of literature has to meet certain condi-tions so that the student self can learn. In the following, we will tackle the question how the self must be understood by means of an identity concept so that learning can occur. First, the self must be dynamic so that ‘capacity changes’ can take place. The changeable iden-tity concept corresponds to the plasticity of the brain that is the neurological precondition of learning. Second, the self must be capable so that acts that involve learning are possible. Third, the self must be agentive. In our case, the self must trans-act with the world and its artefacts. By trans-acting, the learner learns about the other and the herself. Fourth, the self must be em-bodied and situated. Learning is a contextual and interactive process, so the self must be situated temporally and spatially by means of the body that mediates between the learner and the other. Fifth, the self must be conscious in explicit intentional learning, The conscious brain allows processing of data that may result in affirmation of or change to neural networks which is the material manifestation of learning. Sixth, the self must be reflective and self-reflective. As learn-ing is a meaning-making process, acts directed at oneself or the other must be signified through reflection. Sixth, the self must be imputable. In order to gain insight into the self, the learning must be ascribable to the learner. Seventh, the self must be meaningful. For self-understanding to take place, the self itself must have meaning. Only the meaningful can be understood. In addition, the meaningful self is the prerequisite for the meaningful other. A self that is understood as ipse meets all these conditions. A self as ipse can learn. In order to summarize this chapter on the Ricoeurian modalities of identity, the features of idem and ipse are compared in Table 1. Table 1: The modalities of personal identity: idem and ipse idem-identity ipse 1 category existential 2 the what of identity the who of identity 3 general particular 4 abstract, non-narrative concrete, narrative 5 relational structure agency 6 permanence in time self-constancy across change 7 impersonality responsibility 8 stability individual style 9 actuality potentiality 10 pragmatic cognition narrative cognition 11 knowledge understanding 12 empirical truth attestation Whereas sameness is a Kantian category, selfhood is a Heideggerian existential. Heidegger (1927/1996) defines: “Existentials and categories are the two fundamental possibilities of the characteristics of being. The being which corresponds to them requires different ways of pri-mary interrogation. Beings are a who (existence) or else a what (objective presence in the broad-est sense).” (p. 42). Existentials are characteristics of being of Dasein, the experience of being that is peculiar to human beings. Categories, however, are “determinations of being of those beings unlike Da-sein”. (Heidegger, 1927/1996, p. 42) The what of identity, the categories, are mainly attributes, and qualities. These are properties shared with others, the what does not constitute individuality. Arendt (1958/1998) defines the who of identity, the existentials, as follows: “Who somebody is or was we can only know by knowing the story of which he is himself the hero – his biography, in other words; everything else we know of him, including his work he may have produced and left behind, tell us only what he is or was.” (p. 186). The who is the biographical story that makes the self individual. Based on Marquard and Stierle (1979), Müller-Funk (2012, p. 6) distinguishes an identity of generality that is beyond time from the historical identity of particularity. In the generality of idem, every being is identical with itself. Sameness denies difference. Ipse, however acknowl-edges indefinite qualitative difference. In addition, Müller-Funk (2012, p. 18) assigns the prop-erties ‘abstract’ and ‘non-narrative’ to idem, the properties of ‘concrete’ and ‘narrative’ to ipse. The given classification seems tenable as generality and abstractness as well as particularity and concreteness are consistent with each other. It is notable that both Arendt and Müller-Funk consider ipse as narrative in nature. While sameness is a relational structure, agency is an indispensable dimension of selfhood. Idem is constructed by “placing” (Cote &Levine, 2002, p. 120) the self in the relational grid which is a cultural-social structure (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, occupation). Thus, idem is a combination of general (Cf. no. 3 above) characteristics. These character traits are not individ-ual but socially and culturally standardized and homogenizing identity patterns (Rorty, 1983, p. 130). In this sense, idem is a function of social and cultural structures (Meuter, 1995, p. 262). Ipse, however, is a particular and individual narrative act. Moreover, the ipse is attested to through capabilities. In study 5 of Oneself as another (1992), Ricoeur expounds in great detail the temporal aspects of identity. Whereas sameness can be characterized by the structural permanence in time, self-hood constitutes self-constancy across change. From the characteristics of idem specified so far, we can conclude that sameness is impersonal. Action cannot be imputed to idem. Ipse, on the other hand, is imputable, and therefore it is the basis of responsibility (Greisch, 2009, p. 135; Hall, 2007, p. 82; Pellauer, 2007, p. 106; Reagan, 1996, p. 86). While the structure of idem secures stability (Meuter, 1995, p. 260; Meuter, 2013, p. 36), ipse can be regarded in the phenomenological tradition of Merleau-Ponty (1962) as individual style (Meuter, 1995, pp. 263-264; Meuter, 2013, p. 37). Hall (2007) explains the relationship of the dialectic of idem and ipse with the dialectic of ac-tuality and potentiality: This then is the significance of Ricoeur’s designation of the identity of the agent in terms of both sameness and selfhood. By relating these terms through the concepts of character and self-constancy, he wove actuality and potentiality into the being of the self. How-ever, in the degree that self-constancy is conceived as the point at which selfhood estab-lishes itself beyond the constraints of sameness, the being of the self is decentered from its position in actuality, but in such a way that actuality is not cancelled out but reas-signed. In this way, the self who acts, and who finds its capacity for action in actuality, testifies to its power for being a self in potentiality (pp. 61-62) Sameness is tied to actuality. The actual act of selfhood, however, is made possible by the power of capacity that transcends actuality. The act is performed in actuality, the capacity opens up potentiality. Finally, idem and ipse are epistemologically different. Sameness is a manifestation of paradig-matic cognition, selfhood a manifestation of narrative cognition (Bruner, 1986). Idem is knowledge, ipse is understanding (Greisch, 2009, p. 156). In addition, sameness and selfhood have different truth claims. Whereas idem must fulfil the criteria of empirical truth according to the correspondence theory of truth, “selves attest to their [ipse-]identity and their responsi-bility through their testimony of themselves. Obviously, this kind of certainty [attestation] is always fragile in some ways, not in the sense that attestation can be shown to be false, but because it is threatened by suspicion” (Pellauer, 2007, p. 92). The self accounts for the experi-ence of being a self by attestation as “assurance of being oneself acting and suffering” (Hall, 2007, p. 29). There is no epistemic certainty because of the alethic dimension of attestation; “one attests to selfhood in and on the basis of the interchange between trust and suspicion” (Hall, 2007, p. 29). Acceptance for attestation must be found in consensus, not in the adequacy of representation as in empirical truth. Attestation “makes a truth claim that […] goes beyond being a claim about language usage. It presupposes that this use of language is about something beyond itself; in this case, the self in its very being.” (Hall, 2007, p. 107). We can conclude with Ricoeur (1992) that “attestation is the assurance – the credence and trust – of existing in the mode of selfhood” (p. 302) - in spite of the self’s suspicions. In the end, we must recollect that narrative identity is neither idem nor ipse, it mediates between these modalities of identity. Narrative identity has also been empirically researched within personality psychology. McAd-ams and Pals (2006) propose three levels of personality: (a) dispositional traits: “Broad individual differences in behavior, thought, and feeling that account for general consistencies across situations and over time (e.g., extraversion, the Big Five). Interin-dividual differences in traits are relatively stable over time.” (b) characteristic adaptations: “More specific motivational, social cognitive, and developmental variables that are con-textualized in time, situations, and social roles (e.g., goals, values, coping strategies, relational patterns, domain-specific schemas, stage-specific concerns). Some character-istic adaptations may change markedly over the life course.” (c) integrative life narratives: “Internalized and evolving life stories that reconstruct the past and imagine the future to provide a person’s life with identity (unity, purpose, meaning). Individual differences in life stories can be seen with respect to characteristic images, tones, themes, plots, and endings. Life stories change substantially over time, reflecting personality develop-ment.“ (p. 212) The Ricoeurian concept of personal identity covers all three levels of the McAdams-Pals model, not only the life narratives. Dispositional traits are an instance of the overlap of sameness and selfhood. Traits tend to be stable. Their development, their ipse-aspect, is veiled by the sem-blance of permanence. In integrative life stories, on the other hand, the temporal workings of ipse is most prominent. The narrative schema integrates discontinuous life episodes, thus syn-thesizing a developing life into unity. Characteristic adaptations address the self’s interactional response to given situations. Ricoeur’s practical-ethical identity (1992) that he adds to his con-cept of narrative identity deals with this interactional-situational-social dimension of identity. Here, relations of self and other play a major part. Within a narrative framework, Bamberg (2011) and Bamberg and Georgakopoulou (2008) focused on the interactional dimension of narrative identity. C:\Users\grap\Desktop\landscape model.png Figure 3: The empirical structure of narrative identity: The Landscape Model (McLean et al., 2020, p. 80) McLean et al. (2020) analyzed the third level of the McAdams-Pals model with the aim to uncover the underlying dimensions of quantified features of life narratives, thus giving insight into the basic structure of actual self-narrations. They found support for three factors of life narratives: (a) motivational and affective themes, (b) autobiographical reasoning, and (c) struc-tural aspects. Their Landscape Model (Figure 3) gives an overview of the empirical structure of narrative identity. The constructs used in this model are explained in Table 2. Table 2: Definition of the constructs in the Landscape Model Constructs Definitions Autobiographical Reasoning 1 Growth sense of positive personal growth (positive change, development, new insight) as outcome of the event narrated (McLean et al., 2020, p. 24) 2 Exploratory Processing open analysis and exploration of the meaning of past events in order to understand their internal impact and potential to change the self (McLean et al., 2020, p. 25) 3 Meaning-making narration of self-knowledge derived from reflection on the past experi-ence which directs behavior, or changes thoughts and understanding of self, other, or one’s worldview (McLean et al., 2020, p. 25) 4 Change Connections (a) induce: a connection in which a change in the self was caused by the event, (b) reveal: a connection when an experience brings to light a previously unknown aspect of self (McLean et al., 2020, p. 26) 5 Interpretations statements in narratives that refer to mental processes and subjective interpretations that cannot be objectively verified (McLean et al., 2020, p. 26) 6 Thematic Coherence clarity of the topic in the narrative (McLean et al., 2020, p. 27) Constructs Definitions Structure 7 Facts statements in narratives that can be objectively verified and that capture something that can be sensed with one of the five senses (McLean et al., 2020, p. 26) 8 Context Coherence placement of the event in time and location (McLean et al., 2020, p. 27) 9 Chronological Coherence temporal organization of the narrative (McLean et al., 2020, p. 27) Motivational/Affective Themes 10 Ending Valence emotional and evaluative tone of narrative closure, independent of the objective circumstances of the event (McLean et al., 2020, p. 27) 11 Affective Tone overall emotional tone of narrative (McLean et al., 2020, p. 27) 12 Redemption narrative that begins in a negative state, and end in a positive state (McLean et al., 2020, p. 28) 13 Contamination narrative begins in a positive or neutral state, and ends in a negative state (McLean et al., 2020, p. 28) 14 Agency autonomy of the protagonist who can affect her own life and achieves control over the course of her experiences (McLean et al., 2020, p. 28) 15 Communion concern with the protagonist’s connection, intimacy, love, belonging, union, friendship, and caring (McLean et al., 2020, p. 29) Note. Definitions taken from McLean et al. (2020, pp. 24-29) The fifteen first-order factors are combined into three second-order dimensions of narrative identity, the so-called ‘Big Three’: (a) autobiographical reasoning, (b) structure, and (c) moti-vational and affective themes. It can be concluded from the SEM analysis that the narrative level of personality is complex and interdependent (Cf. overlap in the structural model). In addition, the levels of McAdams’ personality model are distinct; narrative shows “consistent, but small associations with traits” (McLean et al., 2020, p. 44). In these associations, we might detect the relationship between idem (traits) and ipse (the act of autobiographical reasoning that “captur[es] a dynamic aspect of perceived change and development” (McLean et al., 2020, p. 41). In the following, we will discuss if the empirical research, in particular the measurement model of narrative identity as established by McLean et al. (2020), supports our theorizing of the con-struct. In other words, does the theory match what is manifest in self-narrations? The second-order factor of autobiographical reasoning comprises two theoretical dimensions: (a) the processes that lead to meaning-making, and (b) the results of these processes. First, the empirical findings prove that the act of ipse, i.e., writing/reading the life story, is reflective and interpretive in nature. In McLean et al. (2020), interpretive reflection is mainly directed at memory. Although this retrospectiveness is characteristic of narrative identity, the prospective aspect of narrative identity is not considered in the given model. In addition, interpretation is considered as alternative representational activity to empirical veracity (Cf. the factor ‘Facts’ in the Landscape Model), what is in line with the mimetic theory presented above. Interpretation is directed at life as fiction. Meaning-making through exploration, interpretation and reflection possibly result in revelatory self-understanding or transformative self-change or, in developmental terms, growth. These findings corroborate the Ricoeurian effects of the act of reading (Cf. below) that are analogously produced by the act of writing/reading the life story. The empirical research confirms that the synthetic activity of making connections is a prerequisite of transformation. Thematic coherence is reminiscent of Holland’s (1975) ‘identity themes’: “That is, we can be precise about individuality by conceiving of the individual as living out variations on an identity theme much as a musician might play out an infinity of variations on a single melody. We discover that underlying theme by abstracting it from its variations.” (p. 814) In the adult, these themes are stable and are an instance of the overlapping of idem and ipse (Cf. character traits) in which selfhood (development of the theme) hides behind sameness (the pattern of the theme): I can abstract, from the choices in the life I see, facts as visible as the words on a page, various subordinate patterns and themes until I arrive at one central, unifying pattern in that life which is the invariant sameness, the "identity theme" of the individual living it. In other words, just as I can arrive at a unity for the series of choices that is Hamlet by means of a central, unifying theme, so I can arrive at an identity for a particular self by means of a centering identity theme. And again, it may not be unique: the same identity theme may describe several different people, just as a single literary theme might de-scribe several different texts. (Holland, 1975, p. 815) For Holland, an ‘identity theme’ is a structural “unifying pattern” of idem-identity that brings about unity. Similar to the character trait and to distinguish it from ipse, the identity theme does not guarantee individuality, it might be ascribed to more than one self. This structural function of the theme is indicated by a cross-loading in the measurement model. However, McLean et al. (2020) emphasize the epistemic function of the ‘identity theme’. Contextual coherence complies with the ipse-quality of situatedness. Temporalization by the schema that has been identified as another quality of ipse is also confirmed by the Landscape model. The term ‘chronological coherence’, however, is misleading. We have learnt from Ric-oeur (1984) that temporalization is about configuration of time, not about pure succession. In our view, ‘Facts’ is not a structural, but a representational model applied by narrative identity. Atkins (2004) considers the need of objectively verifiable propositions of narrative as ‘reality constraint’ (Cf. above) that limits the freedom of metaphorical reference. Veracity and inter-pretation are the respective truth claims of life as fact and life as fiction. The affective moment as measured in empirical research is a worthwhile supplement to the Ricoeurian theory of narrative identity that emphasizes the cognitive components of schema and understanding. However, Ricoeur’s (1988) theory of reading recognizes the emotionality of the mimetic activity by referring to Aristotelean catharsis that is exerted by eleos and phobos (Cf. below). Kerby (1991), another influential theoretician of narrative identity, recognizes the importance of emotionality in the construction of the life story: Emotional experiences are, however, not only the result of interpretive emplotment but also the occasion for it. in promoting interpretation, emotions ‘open us to the domain of what it is to be human’ [Taylor, 1985, p. 64]. Language, in articulating the import of emotions, discloses what is important to us in our lives […] and will serve to define our own character, our values, our relationship with others. (p. 50) In addition, Kerby holds that “self-referential emotions are a product of how we articulate or plot a given state of affairs” (Kerby, 1991, p. 57). In short, emotions demand emplotment so that they can be understood, and emotions are products of interpretive emplotment. We can conclude from the empirical findings, Kerby’s analysis of the relationship of emotion and em-plotment and Ricoeur’s theory of reading that any theory of narrative identity must encompass emotionality. Closure is an important structural component of mythos. We conjecture that there is no cross-loading of this factor on structure as the construct is principally about the emotional and not the structural dimension of closure. Redemption and contamination are examples of dominant cultural scripts that, as we will out-line below, influence the schematization of actions and experience. Finally, the Landscape Model confirms that agency as capability is a major dimension of ipse. Contrary to McLean et al. (2020), we do not think that agency is tied to autonomy solely but is embedded in the dialectic of autonomy and commitment. This dialectic was convincingly es-tablished by Bruner (2003, pp. 78-84). The factor ‘Communion’ supports Eakin’s (1999) rela-tional model of identity that tries to explode the “myth of autonomy” (p. 49) as advocated by the Gusdorf model. In conclusion, the Landscape Model principally deals with the ipse-modality of narrative iden-tity. The empirical research corroborates that ipse-identity is reflective, interpretive, synthetic, unifying, situated, capable, relational, and it suggests that the formation of self-constancy through narration potentially exerts revelatory and transformative effects on the self. As far as the mimetic mode of ipse is concerned, the narrative produces a metaphorical reference under the reality constraint. The Landscape Model made us aware of the profound significance of emotionality for narrative identity. From a theoretical perspective, the emphasis on the epis-temic function of ‘identity themes’ and the combination of processes and their effects under one factor seem questionable. Let us now summarize why it is useful for the teaching of literature to conceptualize the world of the reader that transacts with the world of the text as narrative identity. First, students’ nar-rative identity is accessible through the stories they write. Second, an intertextual analysis can identify changes within students and similarities and differences among students. Third, the transactional relationship between the text and the reader is enhanced by the isomorphy of lit-erary fictions and students’ stories. Fourth, literary fiction provides the reader with structural and temporal models for identity construction and interpretation. Fifth, text comprehension is promoted through identity work. Sixth, the use of the given construct enables the integration of various aspects of identity. The concepts of embodiment and performance as well as spatial and sociocultural models can be included in the narrative identity framework. In the end, we will discuss limitations and constraints of the concept of narrative identity. We have already maintained that narrative identity must be complemented with practical identity so that we can account for the action that is triggered by the reading/writing the literary story. As Ricoeur (1988, p. 248) puts it, narrative identity does not exhaust the question of self-con-stancy, its limit is the ethical self that accepts responsibility. The fundamental limitation of narrative identity is that “narrative is not (and cannot be) coextensive with all of selfhood, given the multiple registers of selfhood […]” (Eakin, 1999, p. 101); it is one understanding of the self that will prove useful when we think about how the reading of literary texts can be connected to the self as written life story. When Kerby (1991) holds that “the meaning of life can be adequately grasped only in a narrative or storylike framework” (p. 33), we need to object. The act of mythos-mimesis is not an exclusive means of the formation and understanding of the self. The making of the self is not solely verbal, the interpretive-generative concept of the self that we have been calling identity needs to be multifaceted, not only narrative. For instance, Hallet (2008, p. 49) suggests that the picture is a mode of identity formation. Description36, the fierce rival of narrative in fiction, that is related to the pictorial mode might also be considered and is probably more closely connected to idem-identity. In our case, conceptualizing the self as nar-rative is standing to reason because we can intertextually link the primarily narrative literary text with the narrative life story. 36 Cf. Wolf, & Bernhart (2007) for an insightful analysis of the intermedial mode of description in literature. A further limitation of narrative identity is its instability that is due to ipse. Furthermore, the referentiality of narrative is problematic in terms of the correspondence theory of the truth. The poietic power of metaphorical reference competes with the reality constraint (Atkins, 2005, p. 353) that requires the narrative to comply with external reality. Finally, the fact that the narra-tive unity of life is an ideal that can never be reached severely undermines the category of unity that is schematized by the narrative (Ricoeur, 1988, pp. 248-249). Narrative identity also has epistemological limitations, i.e., self-understanding via the concept of narrative identity is constrained. First and foremost, Kerby (1991, p. 89) holds that narrative truth is not to be equated with historical factual verisimilitude. In addition, he discerns interpre-tive distortions like masking that are strategically applied in writing/reading the life story (Kerby, 1991, p. 88). Straub (2019a) extensively deals with the epistemological limits of narrative identity. First, he holds that the unconscious is a fundamental constraint of narrative identity as it cannot be grasped by the narrative schema (Straub, 2019a, p. 284). Moreover, selection from the total experience of life that we have identified as indispensable component of the narrative schema skews understanding (Straub, 2019a, p. 286). Fundamentally, language itself is a limitation to self-transparency through writing/reading the life story. Representation models of language are problematic as, according to Boesch (2005), no symbolic system can totally express subjectivity (Straub, 2019a, p. 288). Symbolic forms that attempt to mediate subjectivity are inevitably de-ficient. The inner life cannot be totally represented and communicated in general symbolic sys-tems. Straub identifies a tension between individual experience and general notions and linguis-tic schemata (Straub, 2019a, p. 290). From this it follows that experience cannot be equated with the expressed (Straub, 2019a, p. 292). As outlined above, Boesch (2005) proposes a con-cept of language that is both practical and structural. Structural indeterminacies of language make linguistic action possible, and it is linguistic action that in turn can generate individual connotations that can potentially communicate internal individuality (Straub, 2019a, p. 295). Poietic play, as we have argued above, is an instance of linguistic action in which subjective meaning is potentially restored. Nevertheless, inner experience can never be fully grasped by linguistic means. As a result, narrative as a manifestation of language is only a constrained means of self-understanding. Finally, the narrative emplots memory in identity formation. As memory has its own limits – Hacking (1998) proposes a typology of false consciousness: (a) false memory, (b) contrary- memories, (c) merely-false-memories, and (d) wrong-forgetting -, narrative might lead to self-delusion, not self-understanding (Straub, 2019a, pp. 308-318). Straub (2019a, p. 324) concludes that the self must constantly struggle for self-understanding because it is endangered by simulations and simulacra of self-knowledge that have sedimented in culture. The site of this struggle for self-understanding is, inter alia, the self’s narrative iden-tity in which identity proposals (scripts, texts, pictures, and a myriad of other models of self-presentation) from the cultural archive are considered in an endeavor to narrate a life from au-tobiographical memory that is situated in the present and that is directed towards the future in the mode of being-toward-death. In his paper on narrative-in-interaction, Bamberg (2011) holds that any concept of identity has to address three dilemmas: “Any claim of identity faces three dilemmas: (i) sameness of a sense of self across time in the face of constant change; (ii) uniqueness of the person vis-à-vis others in the face of being the same as everyone else; and (iii) the construction of agency as constituted by self (with a self-to-world direction of fit) and world (with a world-to-self direction of fit). (Bamberg, 2011, p. 4). We have extensively covered dilemmas (i) and (iii), principally with regard to Kerby (1991) and Ricoeur (1992). Now we will turn to dilemma (ii) in an attempt to clarify the interactional, social, and ethical dimensions of the relationship between the self and the other. 4.2.2 Practical identity Eakin (1999) postulates that “the self emerges in the presence of language and the other” (p. 66). Following Ricoeur, we have elaborated on how narrative synthesizes life into a temporal unity. Now, we will have a closer look on how identity is negotiated with the other. Bamberg (2011) declines the life story model of identity. Identity shall not primarily be sought in temporal unity across a life span, but in the “groundedness of sense of self and identity in sequential, moment-by-moment interactive engagements” (Bamberg, 2011, p. 8) in which the self positions itself and is positioned. As one engages in a multitude of social interactions, Kerby (1991, p. 64) uses the metaphor of the social chameleon for the self which adapts to the situational and social needs of the moment. Bamberg, however, does not totally reject the nar-rative paradigm, he attaches more importance to the “interactional, context-, and performance oriented aspects of narration” (Bamberg, 2011, p. 13) than to temporality. In our view, Bam-berg’s stance is compatible with Ricoeur’s theory, there is a difference in perspective on the self, not in the conception of the essence of self. Ricoeur’s narrative is, as we have tried to demonstrate above, also performative and contextual in nature. The interactional and social dimensions, however, are marginalized. Therefore, we will address these dimensions before we move on to Ricoeur’s interpretation of the relationship of the ethical self with the other. In the following, we will defend an integrative position: Self-narration is both interactive and temporal in nature. Bamberg’s interaction of the moment is necessarily embedded in temporality both through agency and identity, and Ricoeur’s narrative as mimetic act is inevitably interactional-transactional. For Bamberg, the self-narration is an embodied practice, a “verbal act that is locally and bodily performed in situated, interactional contexts” (Bamberg, 2011, p. 8). The embodied narrative talk is the context for identity negotiations. In the ‘narratives-in-interaction’, the mode of inter-action is dialogue. As a consequence, the act of narration is complemented with the act of dia-logue. Müller-Funk (2012) holds that this dialogical nature of narration is vital for the cultural quality of identity: “Narrating means to narrate something to someone. This dialogical element, this presence of the other in the narrative matrix is also the precondition for what one may call cultural identity.” (p. 15) Following Vygotsky’s dialogicial model of the self, Eakin (1999, p. 65) considers narrative identity as a conversation. Hermans (2001) goes one step further and subordinates the narrative quality of identity to its dialogical quality. We, on the other hand, are of the opinion that dialogue is the interactional mode of agentive narrative identity, thus subor-dinating dialogue to narrative. Narrations contribute to the conceptualization of the self and the other, they […] “enable, create, stabilize and energize both identity and empathy” (Meuter, 2013, p. 33), they “facilitate the formation of identities and empathetic experience” (Meuter, 2013, p. 46). Thus, self-narrations mediate between cognitive and emotional self-understanding and other-understanding. Kerby (1991) specifies the relationship of identity and empathy. Self-understanding implies empathy that in turn opens up possibilities for self-development: “Self-understanding rides tandem with an encountering of otherness, with an imaginative empathy for the other that in turn discloses or develops possibilities for oneself” (pp. 63-64). The condition of possibility of this interac-tional relationship between identity and empathy is narrative. Meuter (2013, p. 39) regards the empathetic ability as constituent for any moral behavior. By empathy, he understands the “capacity to intuitively understand someone else’s feelings with-out necessarily sharing them” (Meuter, 2013, p. 39). Empathy must be set apart from sympathy: “While empathy describes the ability to relate to the feelings and situation of someone else, sympathy also entails the willingness to respond adequately – namely, adequately for the other person – to their perceived emotional state and situation.” (Meuter, 2013, p. 39) Empathy presupposes the ability to understand expressions (e.g. facial expression), and this expression-related empathy “marks the beginning of our moral relationship with the world” (Meuter, 2013, p. 39). When this kind of empathy is complemented with situation-related em-pathy, cognitive aspects come into play (Meuter, 2013, p. 40). Meuter argues that the “ability to feel empathy goes along with the formation of self-conscious-ness. […] To identify the expressively perceived emotion as the other’s emotion requires that one does not confuse it with one’s own feeling. This presupposes a sufficient concept of the self.” (Meuter, 2013, p. 40). In short, identity is the prerequisite for empathy. In addition, em-pathy might result in self-relativization if we realize that the other is more important than the self in a given situation (Meuter, 2013, p. 40). In this case, we must detach ourselves from our own perspective that was established during identity formation. In short, empathy influences identity. As a consequence, the relationship between identity and empathy is reciprocal. Proceeding from this, Meuter posits two fundamental values: (a) the value of the self, and (b) the value of the other (Meuter, 2013, p. 41). What we consider essential in our lives contributes to the value of the self. Values contribute to identity and facilitate personal growth (Meuter, 2013, p. 41). On the other hand, the value of the other is established when other people and their perspectives are recognized as a Kantian maxim (Cf. the moral stance of deontology be-low) for one’s own experience and actions. Meuter hypothesizes that values are not created, but stem from experiences of personal growth and of self-transcendence: “Values […] are charac-terized by this double aspect of identity-formation and self-transcendence.” (Meuter, 2013, p. 41) We assume that reading fiction might be such an act of self-transcendence in which through literature the reader transcends herself and, by means of this self-transcendence, trans-forms her identity. Meuter (2013) concludes: “It follows that, in terms of their structure, values are effects and further manifestations of empathetic ability. The act of empathy is the first act of self-transcendence, and it is inseparable from the formation of one’ s own distinct identity.” (p. 41). Based on the interplay of identity formation and empathetic experience, both self and other can achieve the status of moral values (Meuter, 2013, p. 42). The prerequisite for the processes of identity formation and empathetic behavior is the “development of symbolic representation” (Meuter, 2013, p. 42). At this point, we would like to repeat our assumption that imaginative narrative is the condition of possibility of the moral values of self and other. Meuter (2013) summarizes: […] narratives systematically generate contingency; they override the power of the sit-uational and the factual. In social terms, contingency means perspectivity. An individ-ual’s view of the world is not the only possible one, different perspectives are possible: others attest to them. Morality […] starts with one’s perception of the world through perspectives: the perspective of the other and one’s own. In this constellation it is nec-essary that both perspectives can express themselves on equal terms. If one can only experience his or her own perspective, they are the prisoner of a narcissistic identity; if they can only perceive the perspective of the other they are helplessly at the mercy of their social environment. Empathy and identity are two sides of one (moral) cause. Self and Other are two values that cannot be pitted against one another. I suggest that it is exactly this double structure that represents the central touchstone of narrative ethics. Narratives facilitate the formation of identities and empathic experience. But it is not merely a case of facilitation, but also of formation and differentiation in the process of which once-gained stabilities can be redynamized at any time. (p. 46) The central argument is that narrative contingency allows the perspective of the self and the other. These perspectives are opened up by the narration’s formation and differentiation of identity and empathy. Formation and differentiation are subject to the dialectic of sedimentation (stability) and innovation (re-dynamization). In conclusion, the self and the other are the irre-ducible moral principles of narrative. According to Meuter, stories serve the double function of condition of possibility (“allow”) of representation (interpretive stance) and formation (generative stance) of identity/empathy: “Be-yond their concrete moral contents, stories are the medium that allow the moral double-structure of identity and empathy to develop and be symbolically represented at the same time.” (Meuter, 2013, p. 46) Following Ricoeur, we think that the narrative schema is the condition of possibil-ity of representation and formation of identity and empathy, and that the story, i.e., the narration, actualizes this possibility. Identity does not only have an interactive, but also a sociocultural dimension: […] it should be clear that such narratives [first-person narration] are considerably in-fluenced by the social milieu in which the human subject functions. The stories we tell of ourselves are determined not only by how other people narrate us but also by our language and the genres of storytelling inherited from our traditions. Indeed, much of our self-narrating is a matter of becoming conscious of the narratives we already live with and in […]. It seems true to say that we have already been narrated from a third-person perspective prior to our even gaining the competence for self-narration. Such external narratives will understandably set up expectations and constraints on our per-sonal self-descriptions, and they significantly contribute to the material from which our narratives are derived. (Kerby, 1991, p. 6) Kerby distinguishes three dimensions that influence self-narration: (a) the interactive dimen-sion (the others’ stories about my self), (b) the social dimension (social milieu), and (c) the cultural dimension (language, intertextuality: sedimented genres, and, again: the others’ stories about my self). These dimensions are partly overlapping. As we have learnt above, stories that are culturally determined also have an interactive dimension in embodied talk. In the following, we will draw on Cote and Levine (2002) to analyze the interactive and social dimensions of identity. First, they distinguish three layers of identity: (a) the ego identity (per-sonality), (b) the personal identity (interaction), and (c) the social identity (social structure). Figure 4 illustrates these levels and the four processes by which they are connected. cote_levine2.docx Figure 4: The social psychological levels of identity and their interrelationships (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 131) The aim of this process model is to “explain how culture is reproduced, thereby maintaining structural stability, and how both culture and social structure can change” (Cote & Levine, 2002, pp. 131-132). Now we will expound on the four relationships between the three layers of identity. Arrow 1 in Figure 4 represents a “causal influence of social structure on interaction through the implemen-tation of laws, norms, values, rituals, and so forth that have been previously codified or institu-tionalized” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 132). During this socialization process, social structure is reproduced. The second arrow depicts the subjectivation processes “by which each individual internalizes the outcomes of their ongoing, day-to-day interaction” and during which “people actively de-fine situations and develop individual constructions of reality” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 132). The subjectivation processes are the site of interactional learning. During internalization, the ego synthetic abilities are operative. The self derives meaning as it synthesizes experiences (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 93). Close parallels can be seen to Ricoeur. Society and culture provide laws (process 1) that govern the interactional process. During the interaction, the ego’s synthesis is decisive for understanding. Moreover, the ego’s “subjective sense of continuity of being the same person over time in different situations” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 121) is se-cured by synthesis. Cote and Levine complement the Ricoeurian ipse-identity as self-constancy with the social unity of the identity across different social situations. Thus, Bamberg’s dilem-mas one and two are tackled. Cote and Levine (2002) conclude that ego identity is the “capacity to master and maintain a stable identity across situations and through time” (p. 94). One more similarity between Ricoeur and Cote and Levine is that the temporally and socially unified ego is the source of agency: “the ego is the personality agency responsible for behavioral, cognitive, and emotional control” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 94). In short, the ego’s synthesis brings about the social and temporal unification of the manifold that is accessible in interaction. The third arrow represents externalization through self-presentation, in our case self-narration. Cote and Levine make clear that “an individual’s behavior is in part a product of past internal-izations, in part a result of their attempt to act appropriately in a given situation, and in part a product of their abilities to produce the behaviors that their past ego synthesis suggest are sui-table” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 132) Self-expressions are facilitated by ego executive abilities that master behavioral response to complex situation. The healthy ego is dependent on these synthesizing (process 2) and executive (process 3) abilities: “The more the ego is capable of effectively managing information about itself and its environment (its synthesizing function), and in regulating behavior on the basis of this information (its executive function), the stronger it becomes and remains.” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 105) The fourth arrow depicts the process of interactive objectification of a self’s perspective in which reality is socially constructed (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 133). In the literary domain, this social construction corresponds to the projection of the world of the text. This social construc-tion process “culminates in the creation of codified laws” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 133) that might be in conflict with old norms. Thus, innovation can take place. In conclusion, the relationship between the psychological and social worlds is dialectic. Cote and Levine hold that “personality and social structure indirectly affect each other” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 136; my emphasis). Their relationship is mediated by the interactive level of personal identity where self-definition and other-definition meet. Cote and Levine outline the identity formation patterns in late modern society (Cf. Figure 5). cote_levine3.docx Figure 5: Identity formation patterns in late modern society according to Cote and Levine (2002, p. 137) The identity formation process comprises three activities that correspond to the three levels of identity. As far as the social identity is concerned, the self needs to position itself socially in diverse contexts, it is in need of social role locations. In order to establish a personal identity, the self has to present itself. In our case, self-presentation takes the form of self-narration. Fi-nally, the ego seeks subjective continuity across change, the Ricoeurian ipse-identity needs to be produced. Cote and Levine describe the status quo at the turn of the century (Cote & Levine, 2002, pp. 138-139). Many of their assessments are still valid today. First, social identity is characterized by less dominant norms. Second, presentations of self are increasingly based on images, there-fore narratives become less important. These two developments have a detrimental effect on the ego capacities. The sense of continuity and the development of agency are threatened. Therefore, identity is diffused, i.e., there is no real sense of inner continuity based on ego syn-thetic and ego executive abilities. Adolescents tend to be passive acceptors, they are dependent on direction from others as their ego identities are weakened. The results are heteronomy and extended youth. Cote and Levine conclude: If young people are more concerned with how they look and feel than in larger issues of meaning in their lives and the direction their communities are going, it is easy for others to set their own political and economic agendas, while at the same time profiting from sales of items that feed the personal identities of those absorbed with nurturing such limited aspects of their identity. (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 139) Currently, interactive self-presentations are of paramount importance for the youth. These presentations that are pictorial to a large extent are principally guided my media norms. By strictly abiding to these rules, social acceptability is achieved, but the ego capacities are weak-ened. In line with Cote and Levine’s analysis, adolescents tend to be heteronomous due to their subjection to the media code. Cote and Levine have convincingly explained the interrelationships between psychological, in-teractional, and societal processes (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 140). Ricoeurian temporal unifica-tion by means of synthesis is the basis for the interactive self. Interactional self-narrations, how-ever, do not only bring about self-constancy, they also mediate between the psyche and society. Norms are internalized through interaction, and they are potentially changed through interac-tion. We need to take the processes of socialization, enculturation, and objectification into ac-count if we want to understand identity fully. In the field of pedagogy, we need to consider both temporal identity development and social identity negotiations. In analogy with literature education, we can assume that identity formation encompasses both processes of socialization and enculturation (Kepser & Abraham, 2016, p. 27). At this point, we will touch upon enculturation. First and foremost, our major hypothesis that the narrative schema is foundational for the writing/reading the life story proves that identity is cultural in nature. By learning how to write/read the life story, i.e., by acquiring the technique of poietic play on/according to the principle, we are encultured. Further instances of the cultural determi-nation of identity are the self’s narrative ecology (Breen et al., 2017); dominant cultural scripts (McAdams et al., 2001), cultural templates (Hallet, 2008), and cultural identity models (Eakin, 1999); the power of biography generators (Hahn, 1987), and media stories (Sarbin, 1997); the omnipotence of pictures and images (Gergen, 2009); and finally, the life story’s intertextuality that encompasses references to the other’s stories about my self as well as to literary fiction. In order to achieve cultural accountability, the self is presented in a culture-confirming way (Neumann, 2008, p. 66), i.e., self-narration must be representative of the culture of the time. The self aligns its self-narration to the dominant cultural forms. We have already stated above that this leads to a weakening of the ego capacities. In addition, cultural innovation does not occur; the sedimented norm prevails. Although literature is potentially a “laboratory in which we can experiment with the possibilities for culturally admissible constructions of identity” (Neumann, 2008, p. 66), enculturation can only have an empowering impact on the self if the self does not only passively reiterate the norm, thus subjecting to the cultural other, but if it is prepared to engage in the poietic play during writing/reading the life story. In conclusion, identity is formed, inter alia, by the ego’s interaction with society and culture. We have learned from Cote and Levine that these interactions constitute personal identity. Self-narrations mediate between personality and society-culture. They enable the dialogue between the psyche and society in a double reciprocity. On the one hand, self-narrations apply and trans-form the norms, i.e., cultural models shape self-narration, and self-narrations are constitutive and transformative of culture. On the other hand, the self-narrations are internalized and exe-cuted by the ego, i.e., self-narrations shape the ego, and the ego forms the self-narrations. Finally, we will analyze the relationship of the self and the other in light of Ricoeur’s (1992) proposal of practical identity that complements narrative identity. Ricoeur asks the following question that is the starting point for our reasoning: “[…] in what way does the narrative com-ponent of self-understanding call for, as its completion, ethical determinations characteristic of the moral imputation of action to its agent?” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 163). Although narrative iden-tity has an ethical dimension, we can only fully grasp the relationship between the self and the other when we enter the field of ethics. The fundamental categories of the hermeneutics of the self, i.e., imputability, responsibility, and recognition (Greisch, 2009, p. 135), can only be ex-plored by adding practical identity to narrative identity. Before we turn to the Ricoeurian concept of the practical self, we will have a look at the ethical dimension of narrative itself. By referring to Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay “Der Erzähler” (1936), Ricoeur classifies oral storytelling as a practice in ethical phronesis: […] the art of storytelling is the art of exchanging experiences; by experiences, he means not scientific observations but the popular exercise of practical wisdom. This wisdom never fails to include estimations, evaluations that fall under the teleological and deontological categories […]; in the exchange of experiences which the narrative performs, actions are always subject to approval or disapproval and agents to praise or blame. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 164) When we practice phronesis during the narrative-in-interaction, i.e., the “exchange of experi-ences”, estimations, ethical-moral evaluations, and value judgement are necessarily made (Reagan, 1996, p. 83). Ricoeur detects this ethical quality not only in the narrative of oral sto-rytelling, but also in narrative literature. Literary thought experiments that are conducted during writing/reading the story allow “explorations in the realm of good and evil” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 164). Despite the Ricoeurian stasis during the engagement with the literary text, moral judg-ment is not suspended, it is “rather itself subjected to the imaginative variations proper to fiction” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 164). We can conclude with Ricoeur that reading literature serves a didactic function, it provides moral exercises which might have a revelatory or transformative effect: “Because of these exercises in evaluating in the dimension of fiction, the narrative can finally perform its functions of discovery and transformation with respect to the reader's feel-ings and actions, in the phase of the refiguration of action by the narrative” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 164). In conclusion, phronetic activity during mimesis3 has potentially self-implicating effects. In the field of writing/reading the life story, Meuter (2013) holds that self-narrations convey “specific rules, values, norms and moral orientation” (pp. 42-43). Kerby expounds on the ethical dimension of self-narrations: Narrative, then, articulates what is of value to us and why, for it essentially defines (in the first instance) who we are and what we want […] It is a moralizing force that em-bodies and exemplifies the norms (customs) by which people gain identity and that pro-vides criteria of judgement for acts that occur within the society it defines. […] On the personal level this identity, as in his [Taylor’s] earlier work, is tied to our sense what is morally good: ‘My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose.’ [Taylor, 1989, p. 27] (Kerby, 1991, p. 59) According to Taylor, identity is tied to morality inasmuch as moral values that are established by moral commitments and identifications contribute to the definition of identity. We need to ask ourselves what the role of the narrative is in this relationship of identity and morality. Kerby’s answer is that narrative expresses values by defining ipse-identity. It “embodies and exemplifies” the values that are the context for identity formation and moral judgement. In addition, he claims that a “sense of good has to be woven into my understanding of my life as an unfolding story” (Kerby, 1991, p. 47). In short, the story integrates morality into identity. Returning to the Ricoeurian theory, we can hold that the narrative unity of life that the writer/reader of the life story aspires to represents an ethical aim (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 164): If stories told offer so many bases for moral judgment, is this not because this judgment needs the art of storytelling in order to schematize, as it were, its aim? Beyond the rules, norms, obligations, and legislating that constitute what can be called morality, there is, as we shall state then, the aim of the true life, which Maclntyre, echoing Aristotle, places at the summit of the hierarchy of the levels of praxis. Now if this aim is to become a vision, it cannot help but be depicted in the narratives through which we try out different courses of action by playing, in the strong sense of the word, with competing possibili-ties. This allows us to speak of an ‘ethical imagination,’ which feeds off of the narrative imagination. (pp. 164-165) The aim of unity is schematized by the narrative. This schematization is a function of narrative imagination. The ethical imagination, on the other hand, provides the possibilities for achieving the ethical aim of unity. Moral judgement that is directed at this aim evaluates the possibilities created by ethical imagination. The means of ethical imagination is, again, narrative. As a result, we can hold that the narrative schematizes the aim (narrative imagination) and generates imag-inative possibilities of how to achieve the schematized aim (ethical imagination) that the phronimos judges. In two respects, the narrative allows the achievement of the Aristotelean ethical aim of a good life. After having discussed the ethical dimension of narrative, let us not turn to the question how the limits of narrative identity can be overcome by complementing it with practical identity. We have discovered above that the narrative identity cannot account for the action that might result from mimesis3 (Ricoeur, 1988). As far as writing/reading the life story is concerned, this is the moment when the life story re-enters praxis by motivating the storyteller to take action. We stated above that actions can only be imputed to the ipse-modality. Ricoeur (1988, p. 249) postulated that narrative identity is only true self-constancy in the decisive moment of ethical responsibility. Ipse attempts to answer the question ‘Who am I?’, but ethical responsibility ex-pressed by the ‘Here I stand’ transcends the narrative framework and can only be grasped by the concept of practical identity. In order to substantiate his claim for the necessity of a practical identity, Ricoeur (1992, p. 166) once again resorts to the epistemic power of literature and its unsettling cases. In the act of reading, the dissolution of the self that might result in a self deprived of idem-identity confronts the reader who is in quest of identity with the hypothesis of her own loss of identity. The ethical answer to the loss of idem is practical identity: How, then, are we to maintain on the ethical level a self which, on the narrative level, seems to be fading away? How can one say at one and the same time "Who am I?" and "Here I am!"? Is it not possible to make the gap separating narrative identity and moral identity work to the benefit of their living dialectic? This is how I see the opposition between them transformed into a fruitful tension. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 167). Ricoeur remains faithful to his methodology and proposes a living dialectic of narrative and practical identity. Practical identity supports narrative identity that is caught up in the dialectic of sedimentation and innovation by offering some stability: On the one hand, there is no doubt that the ‘Here I am!’ by which the person recognizes himself or herself as the subject of imputation marks a halt in the wandering that may well result from the self's confrontation with a multitude of models for action and life, some of which go so far as to paralyze the capacity for firm action. (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 167) The consequence of the limiting cases of literature is the nothingness of the character. If we understand idem as nothingness, the dialectic of selfhood and sameness is “a dialectic of own-ership and of dispossession, of care and of carefreeness, of self-affirmation and of self- effacement. Thus, the imagined nothingness of the self becomes the existential ‘crisis of the self’” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 168). Ricoeur responds to this crisis of the self by assigning responsi-bility to ipse: On the other hand, the tormenting question "Who am I?” exposed by the troubling cases of literary fiction can, in a certain manner, be incorporated into the proud declaration "Here is where I stand! The question becomes: ‘Who am I, so inconstant, that notwith-standing you count on me?’ (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 168) We think that the loss of idem as imagined by the modernist literature is what many adolescents face currently. As the identity structures and social patterns tend to erode, the narrative quest for identity lacks support by idem. This is where judgmental phronesis that mediates between the ethical aim and the moral norm comes in. If there are no idem-identity offers, pedagogy needs to promote the phronetic competence of the students to stabilize their narrative identities. Biesta (2015) explained the significance of phronesis for becoming a good teacher. We will address the question why students should engage in phronetic activity when writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story. Habermas and Köber (2014) conclude their article on narrative identity by alluding to the ethi-cal and moral implications of writing/reading the life story: Narrating one’s life basically requires assuming responsibility for one’s past (Schafer, 1983). It also requires narrating the past in such a way that others who were part of it find themselves being treated respectfully and recognize sufficient resemblance to their own version of the past. However, doing justice to the social and moral aspects of self-continuity through the life story requires more than this chapter can offer. (p. 162) Responsibility, respect, and recognition are key terms of practical identity that is supposed to complement ipse-identity. In the following, we will try to sketch the concept of practical iden-tity with regard to Ricoeur’s ‘little ethics’ that he presents in Oneself as another (1992). It is notable that the moral perspective arises from the imputation of action to the ipse-identity. According to Pellauer (2007), imputation denotes “those cases where we ascribe an action to an agent who is held responsible for his or her acts where these actions are themselves consid-ered to be permissible or not.” (p. 98) Imputability that has been covered as the relationship between plot and character within the mimetic theory of narrative now serves as the entry point for ethics and morality. Ricoeur (1992) asks the question whose answer is supposed to connect narrative identity with practical identity: “Who is the moral subject of imputation?” (p. 169) Ricoeur (1992) formulates his theory of practical identity in terms of three stages: (a) teleolog-ical level (Aristotle’s aim of good life), (b) deontological level (Kantian morality), and (c) phronetic level (application of ethical intention and moral norms in Aristotelean phronesis). Phronesis mediates between the teleological interest in good life and the obligatory universal norms that act as constraints on this aim in order to prevent violence. It is the phronetic act that complements the narrative act of writing/reading the life story. Ricoeur’s primary aim in his ‘little ethics’ is to substantiate the primacy of Aristotelean ethics over Kantian morality. He describes the relation between ethics and morality as follows: “[…] morality is held to constitute only a limited, although legitimate and even indispensable, actu-alization of the ethical aim, and ethics in this sense would then encompass morality” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 170) First, we need to recapitulate the teleological and deontological levels of Ric-oeur’s practical theory before we can understand how the phronetic act guarantees the priority of ethics. Greisch (2009) gives an overview of the interrelated concepts that define ethics and morality. Figure 6 illustrates the figures of the ethical and moral selves. Figure 6: The figures of the ethical self and the moral self (adapted from Greisch, 2009; pp. 126, 129) As we are interested in promoting insight into the self and insight into the other by designing and implementing a model of literature education, the focus is on inner psychological processes (self-esteem, autonomy) and interactional processes (solicitude and respect). Although the so-cietal dimension of identity, as Cote and Levine (2002) convincingly argue, interacts with the ego and personal identities, sense of justice and the social contract are excluded from our dis-cussion because the learning objectives only address the students’ personality and their inter-action, not the social structure in its entirety. Ricoeur (1992) defines the “‘ethical intention’ as aiming at the ‘good life’ with and for others, in just institutions” (p. 172). This ethical intention needs to be “put into practice through con-crete acts, where […] fragmented acts come together in the idea of a whole life that can be recounted” (Pellauer, 2007, p. 103). The narrative schema unites life, ethics gives it its teleological dimension. Ethical self-esteem “will first appear as the result of one’s self-inter-pretation of narrative identity37” (Pellauer, 2007, p. 103). Reagan (1996) explains: “Our prac-tices are defined by constitutive rules and standards of excellence. In appreciating the excel-lence or success in our actions, we begin to appreciate ourselves as the author of those actions.” (p. 87) The individual estimations of actions and evaluations of people are connected by the narrative unity of life. In the hermeneutical circle between the parts, the idea of the ‘good life’ and particular actions are connected. Ricoeur (1992) hypothesizes that the interpretation of this narrative that synthesizes manifold actions into the ethical unity of a ‘good life’ is not only a means to achieve knowledge about action, but also about the self: “For the agent, interpreting the text of an action is interpreting himself or herself” (p. 179). We have stated above that narrative understanding might result in self-understanding. Ricoeur (1992) concludes: “On the ethical plane, self-interpretation becomes self-esteem. In return, self-esteem follows the fate of interpretation.” (p. 179). This implies that narrative identity may generate self-understanding, and the ethical aim may generate self-esteem. 37 Narrative identity is an interpretation of the self by means of the narrative schema. During writing/reading the life story, the reading might be an interpretation of formerly constituted narrative identity. Solicitude addresses the good life with others: “the ideal relation to the others can be summed up as solicitude for the other, which introduces the question both of whether the self is worthy of such self-esteem and whether such self-esteem does not require the mediation of the other to realize itself” (Pellauer, 2007, p. 103). Solicitude is internal to self-esteem and represents its dialogical dimension: “my thesis is that solicitude is not something added on to self-esteem from outside but that it unfolds the dialogic dimension of self-esteem” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 180). In the following, we will deal with the relationship of self-esteem and solicitude. Self-esteem is linked to capability: it is “not founded on the accomplishment of an action but on capacity; the ability to judge (to esteem) is based on the ability to act” (Reagan, 1996 , p. 87) At this point, Ricoeur (1992) wonders if self-esteem that aims at actualization is in need of the other: “The question is then whether the mediation of the other is not required along the route from capacity to realization.” ( p. 181) In search of a model that captures self-esteem and solicitude in the relationship between the self and the other, Ricoeur (1992) comes across Aristotelean friendship that is characterized by mu-tuality: To self-esteem, understood as a reflexive moment of the wish for the ‘good life,’ solic-itude adds essentially the dimension of lack, the fact that we need friends; as a reaction to the effect of solicitude on self-esteem, the self perceives itself as another among others. This is the sense of Aristotle's ‘each other’ (allelous), which makes friendship mutual. (p. 192) As the self needs the other for self-esteem, the perspective of the self on itself changes. The solicitude for others teaches us “that to say ‘self’ is not the same thing as saying ‘myself’. And this leads to the further insight that I cannot esteem myself unless I can also esteem others as themselves selves, themselves myselves, other selves.” (Pellauer, 2007, p. 104). Mutuality is a relationship between the selves of the self and the other. Esteeming myself presupposes esteem-ing the other. In other words, the other is not a derivative of the self. Both the self and the other are, as we stated above, values, and this is the precondition for the reciprocity of identity and empathy. The model of friendship paves the way for the “ethics of reciprocity, of sharing, of living to-gether” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 187). Solicitude is “based on the exchange of giving and receiving” (Reagan, 1996, p. 87) which are two fundamental orientations to the other (Hall, 2007, p. 90). Whereas Aristotelean friendship is reciprocal, the Kantian moral injunction constitutes an asymmetrical relationship between the self and the other (Hall, 2007, p. 88). This is how Ric-oeur justifies the primacy of the ethical goal over moral obligations. Reagan (1996) hypothesizes that the inverse of moral injunction is suffering that Ricoeur (1992) defined as follows: “Suffering is not defined solely by physical pain, nor even by mental pain, but by the reduction, even the destruction, of the capacity for acting, of being-able-to-act, ex-perienced as a violation of self-integrity.” (p. 190) In order to describe the model of friendship in more detail, he proposes a spectrum of capability/suffering with two poles, one pole being the moral injunction coming from the moral obligation, the other pole being the sympathy for the suffering other from the self. The model of friendship can be found in the middle of the spectrum of activity/passivity as friends are equal and share the “common wish to live together” (Reagan, 1996, p. 88). The self and the other are both agents and patients, they both give and receive. In the mutual relationship of friendship, roles are reversible, but persons who play the roles are not substitutable: “The agents and patients of an action are caught up in relationship of exchange which, like language, join together reversibility of roles and nonsubstitutability of persons. So-licitude adds the dimension of value, whereby each person is irreplaceable in our affection and our esteem” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 193). Irreplaceability and nonsubstitutability are complemented by Ricoeur (1992) with similitude: Finally, above the ideas of the reversibility of roles and the nonsubstitutibility of persons (this latter idea raised to the level of irreplaceability), I shall place similitude, which is not just the natural accompaniment of friendship but, in the manner we have stated, of all the initially unequal forms of the bond between oneself and the other. Similitude is the fruit of the exchange between esteem for oneself and solicitude for others. This ex-change authorizes us to say that I cannot myself have self-esteem unless I esteem others as myself. (p. 193) The interplay of self-esteem and solicitude for others creates similitude between the self and the other. The result of the exchange between self-esteem and solicitude for the other is that the self understands the other as a self, an agent that is like itself: “Fundamentally equivalent are the esteem of the other as oneself and the esteem of oneself as an other” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 194). We can conclude with Hall (2007) that “giving and receiving represent two fundamental orien-tations to the other, two modes of recognizing the other who confronts me. But solicitude be-comes problematic once this situation of reciprocity is canceled out by differences of position, ability, etc.” (p. 90). As the distribution of power between the teacher and the student is unequal, solicitude in the form of friendship does not work. Based on Ricoeur’s theory of narrativity, Moratalla (2015) proposes the ethical deal of care as a model to grasp solicitude in education. The deal of care that is at core of the educational act describes the relationship of teacher and student that is based on confidence. Also there is a relation of exchange of expectations here, the student hopes to learn (and to pass the exams) and the teacher hopes that the student take advantage of the resources he/she makes available to him/her. It is […] the ‘struggle against suffering’ […]: igno-rance (that is also a diminishing of capacity’). In the same way as in the deal of care in medical ethics, in the relation between physician and patient, some precepts are at work but it also happens in the educational field: irreplaceability (the teacher has to pay pre-cise attention to each one of the students), indivisibility (the student not only has intel-ligence, he/she also has feelings, motivation, etc., we educate the whole person) and the educational goal is also achieved thanks to the student’s esteem, that it will be a driving force for change and learning; to reach this self-esteem (critically) can be […] the great objective for education. (Moratalla, 2015, pp. 106-107) The exchange of giving and receiving is turned into an exchange of expectations. Expectations are beliefs that are directed at the other, not actions towards others. Expectations can fail. We doubt that students necessarily want to study and the teachers necessarily demand something from the student. Many factors influence the route from expectation to action. In addition, the quality of reciprocity is missing in Moratalla’s account. Are the teachers not expected to learn, are they not supposed to take advantage of the students’ contributions? We agree with the in-teractional attitudes of irreplaceability and indivisibility, and self-esteem is a worthwhile learn-ing objective alongside of self-understanding. We, however, refuse Moratalla’s foundation of care on expectations. In addition, the educational acts of giving and receiving that are constitutive for solicitude are not specified. Therefore, we propose to understand the relation-ship between the self and the other as the act of reciprocal dialogue among unequal but irre-placeable, nonsubstitutable, and similar selves whose roles are reversible as a model for solici-tude in education that replaces friendship. Our model draws on the response model by Hall (2007): Doing so [attempting to account for solicitude in terms of an exchange relationship] risks reducing the other to instrumental value; he/she is valuable in my quest for the good life, self-realization, authenticity, etc.. I respond to the solicitations of the suffering other, I give my attention to him/her, in the hopes that my response will be rewarded, that my investment of energy will be returned, perhaps with interest—the others’ grati-tude, personal reputation, good karma, entrance into heaven. Basing solicitude instead in a response relation forces me to recognize an intrinsic value in the other who solicits my attention, even if the foundation for that intrinsic value must be sought beyond eth-ical and moral reasoning. Moral values are not exchange values; the moral life does not revolve around “breaking even” in one’s expenditures, or worse, in making a profit. (p. 93) To emphasize the reciprocity of the relationship in which roles are reversible, we resort to the dialogue model that, in line with Hall’s claim, esteems the intrinsic value of the other (Cf. Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative: the self as an end) that is also, as we have learnt from Meuter (2013), the precondition for empathic behavior. The concept of responsibility is central for a pedagogy that has the self and its relationship to the other as its learning target. According to Hall (2007), Ricoeurian responsibility “encom-passes both the idea of imputability, or the sense of being responsible for one’s actions, and that of solicitude where one responds to the claim of another” (p. 82). Two forms of responsibility are united by ipse: Self-constancy is for each person that manner of conducting himself or herself so that others can count on that person. Because someone is counting on me, I am accountable for my actions before another. The term ‘responsibility’ unites both meanings: ‘counting on’ and ‘being accountable for.’ It unites them, adding to them the idea of a response to the question ‘Where are you?’ asked by another who needs me. This response is the following: ‘Here I am!’ a response that is a statement of self-constancy. (Ricoeur 1992, p. 165) From this it follows that the self is responsible for its actions due to imputation (“I am account-able for”) and that the self is responsible to the other due to solicitude (“others can count on” me). Hall (2007) explains: Imputing is the act of ascribing an action to an agent. A sense of responsibility resides at the heart of this ascription because to ascribe an action to an agent is to assign respon-sibility for the action and its consequences. There is a dimension of otherness within this ascription which Ricoeur seemed to miss, however. In imputing an action to me, someone holds me responsible: my responsibility for an action is also responsibility to another who counts on me. More pointedly, responsibility inclines solicitude toward the other’s moral claim. Solicitude toward another is not simply the recognition of another agent like me, but the recognition of a person who makes a moral demand on me, the recognition of another to whom I am responsible. (p. 87) The responsibility for my actions is linked to ipse through imputation. The promise as an in-stance of ipse that lacks the support of idem testifies to the fact that the capacity of promising that potentially establishes self-constancy is tied to the responsibility to others: “If another were not counting on me, would I be capable of keeping my word, of maintaining myself?” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 341). We can conclude that the responsible self is intimately tied to the self’s ipse identity. According to Ricoeur, the ethical aim needs to be put to the test of the deontological norm, or, as Reagan (1996) puts it, there is a “necessity for the ethical aim to pass through the sieve of the norm” (p. 89). Already the ethical intention implies that the I is not an isolated monad: There is already an element of universality operative in the very idea of good life and the way we find it valuable. Moreover, this idea of universality already introduces the correlative ideas of duty and constraint as applicable to achieving such a life. These, in turn, suggest how sometimes this aim can miscarry and be used for evil, not good ends, which is why a test of moral obligation arises. (Pellauer, 2007, p. 104) Kantian morality is founded on the universality of the normative obligation. Reagan (1996) holds that the “criterion of universality is the hallmark of Kant’s formalism” (p. 89). In this sense, the “moral law is an ‘autonomous’, a universal law or reason that the autonomous subject gives himself. At the same time, his autonomy means that he can choose to obey or disobey this law” (Reagan, 1996, p. 89). Kantian autonomy does not mean total freedom, but that the self is a universal lawmaker. The third formulation of the categorical imperative documents that by autonomy we understand that the authority of the moral law is in the will of the self, the author-ity is not outside the self. Autonomy means that the self’s actions are rule-governed, but the rules are made and executed by the self itself. As we know, the ethical aim is to be achieved by narrative. Narrative’s contingency implies a freedom that is more fundamental than rule-governed autonomy. As the freedom of ethics is affected by the tendency to evil, the universal moral law must supervise the ethical intention: “Because there is evil, the aim of the ‘good life’ has to be submitted to the test of moral obliga-tion” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 218). Let us summarize with Reagan (1996) what we already know about the relationships of basic notions within the domains of ethics and morality and across these domains: Ricoeur has already shown how solicitude for the other was implicitly contained in the idea of self-esteem; he wants to show now that respect for others is implicit in the idea of obligation, rule, or law. His argument is that respect owed to others is tied to solici-tude on the level of ethics; and, that on the level of morality, it is in the same relation to autonomy that solicitude is to the goal of the good life on the ethical level. (p. 89) In short, solicitude for others is implicit in self-esteem on the teleological level. The aim is the good life. On the deontological level, respect for others is implicit in the obligation or rule or law. The aim is autonomy. The relationship between solicitude and respect for others is medi-ated by the Golden Rule. Kant defines the respect for others in the formula of the End in Itself which is documented in the second formulation of the categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.” (Paton, 1948). In order to prevent solicitude from resulting in evil, the moral obligation tells the self not to instrumentalize the other. Respect as interactive dimension of the law guarantees that the other has intrinsic, not instrumental value. Hall (2007) calls this the norm of reciprocity: “Morality demands that I respect the humanity of others as I respect it in myself, that I never reduce others to means in the search for my own ends, that I reciprocally respect others in their aims as I respect myself in mine.” (p. 103) Level three of the ‘little ethics’ concerns the application of ethics and morality. The dialectic of ethics and morality is played out in the moral judgement in particular situations in which the self confronts others who make a claim on this self. Reagan (1996, p. 93) maintains that the conflict between respect for the universal law and the respect for persons in solicitude requires the act of phronetic judgement. What phronesis accomplishes is that it “allows us to decide in difficult particular cases without falling into a kind of arbitrary situationism” (Reagan, 1996, p. 92) Moral judgement that, in contrast to the universal law, is contextual makes recourse to the eth-ical intention in order to resolve moral conflicts: “The passage from general maxims of action to moral judgment in situation requires, in our opinion, simply the reawakening of the resources of singularity inherent in the aim of the true life.” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 240) Ricoeur explains the functionality of the phronetic act in the dialectic of the rule and solicitude: “[p]ractical wisdom consists in inventing conduct that will best satisfy the exception required by solicitude, by be-traying the rule to the smallest extent possible” (p. 269). Although solicitude must be considered in the respective situation, moral judgement may only change the rule to the smallest possible extent. The conflict between the law and solicitude potentially has a tragic dimension. Ricoeur exem-plifies the relationship of morality and aesthetics by referring to Sophocles’ Antigone in which the moral conflict is at the heart of the play. The universal law forbids Antigone to bury Poly-nices, but because of her conviction that is rooted in solicitude, she feels she has to bury her brother. The conviction is the limit to the enforcement of the law. It is this tragic conflict that leads to knowledge and catharsis on the part of the audience: Das Selbst, das sich erzählen muss, um sich selbst zu verstehen, ist auch das Selbst, das sich des unüberwindlichen Abstands zwischen der tragischen und der praktischen Weis-heit bewusst geworden ist. Indem sie darauf verzichtet, uns direkte Ratschläge zu ertei-len, eröffnet die tragische Läuterung den Weg des guten Abwägens. Der vom tragischen phronein zur praktischen phronèsis ist nicht nur gangbar, er allein erhellt die wahre Quelle der moralischen Konflikte, die nicht nur in der Einseitigkeit der Charaktere be-steht, sondern in den ‚mit der Komplexität des Lebens konfrontierten moralischen Prin-zipien selbst‘ [Ricoeur, 2005c, p. 281] wurzelt. (Greisch, 2009, p. 133).38 38 “The self that must narrate in order to understand itself is also the self that has become aware of the insurmount-able distance between tragic and practical wisdom. By refraining from giving us direct advice, catharsis opens the way to careful deliberation. The passage from tragic phronein to practical phronèsis is not only viable, it alone illuminates the true source of moral conflict, which consists not only in the one-sidedness of characters, but is rooted in the 'moral principles which themselves are confronted with the complexity of life' [Ricoeur, 2005c, p. 281].” [our translation] The act of reading/writing the literary story leads the reader who has constituted herself through writing/reading the story from the tragic configuration back to praxis. This act of reading is revelatory in the ethical field. The transition from narrative to praxis is the prerequisite for the self to realize that the moral conflict resides in the moral principles themselves. The application of the text in a specific reading act potentially exerts a cathartic effect on the self which in turn enables the self to apply the value in a specific situation by means of the phronetic method of mediation. Phronesis that might be instructed by literature mediates between the universalist thesis of Kantian deontology and the contextualist thesis of Aristotelean teleology. Thus, liter-ature has both an epistemic (self-understanding) and a moral (exercise in phronetic judgement) impact on the self. In conclusion, the resolution of conflicts by the Kantian test of universalization is not sufficient as universal laws can collide with the demands of otherness inherent in solicitude (Pellauer, 2007, p. 105). In addition to the questioning of the test of universalization, Ricoeur demands two more revisions to the Kantian formalism: First, the emphasis on autonomy over respect for the other must be called into question. Second, an ethics of communication that dialogically mediates between the Aristotelean teleology and the Kantian deontology is demanded: Finally, such a revision requires something close to what has been called an ethics of communication, one that will build on a dialogical rather than a monological understanding of practical reason. From this will follow a revised notion of what counts as a moral argument. It will be a form of argument that will include a place for an appeal to convictions, that is, to what is expressed through attestation. (Pellauer, 2007, p. 106) In the ethics of communication, the dialogical phronesis generates moral judgements that are not solely based on obligations. The law is supplemented with convictions that are the expres-sions of the “assurance of the being oneself acting and suffering” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 22). Through solicitude, the ipse constitutes its relationship to the other. It attests to itself through convictions. These convictions communicate with the law in phronesis. As a consequence, both the ipse and the moral judgements are tentative. Pellauer (2007) concludes: If we accept this, we can then say that imputability ‘is the ascription of action to its agent, under the condition of ethical and moral predicates, which characterize the action as good, just, conforming to duty, done out of duty, and finally, as being the wisest in the case of conflictual situations’ [Ricoeur, 1992, p. 292). To whom, then, is such action imputable? To the self, where the self is capable of passing through the whole course of ethical and moral determinations of action, so that at the end self-esteem becomes the expression of a basic conviction, but one always checked by self-respect. This will be a conviction that makes possible the responsible self – one who ought to be recognized as such. (p. 106) Through convictions, the capable self can become a responsible self. In analogy with the ca-pacity of narrating that is the prerequisite for selfhood, the capacity to phronetically judge is the prerequisite for self-esteem. Narrative is capable of mediating between idem and ipse, and phronesis is capable of mediating between self-respect and self-esteem, and, in the relationship to the other, between respect for the other and solicitude. The narrative act and the phronetic act realize the respective capacity. The narrative act potentially generates identity, the phronetic act generates responsibility. Finally, we can claim that Ricoeur sees no antinomy between teleological ethics (Aristotle) and nomological morality (Kant). There are poles in a dialectical relationship that are synthesized by phronesis: “A teleological view of the goal of ethics needs universal moral rules as a neces-sary means; on the other hand, the application of these rules to difficult particular cases calls for an appeal to the ultimate telos of morality.” (Reagan, 1996, p. 95). Finally, we will address the dialectic of selfhood and otherness (being) and the corresponding dialectic of activity and passivity (agency) that are connected to this ethical-moral dimension. Hall (2007, p. 83) asserts that the experience of otherness is intrinsic to the constitution of the self. Reagan (1996) agrees: “Otherness does not come from outside selfhood, but is part of the meaning and ontological constitution of selfhood.” (p. 96) As far as agency is concerned, pas-sivity is the “phenomenological respondent to the metacategory of otherness” (Hall, 2007, p. 83). Passivity at the core of otherness is manifest in: (a) the experience of the own body as mediator between the self and a world, (b) the relation of the self to the foreign (=other than self), and (c) the relation of the self to itself (=conscience). Pellauer (2007) summarizes these forms of otherness: This passivity is experienced in many ways, including the experience of our own body as something we do not fully control, and similarly in our relation to the other person, but most deeply in our experience of ourselves in relation to conscience – which is not yet Cartesian consciousness and is one of the sources of what above was spoken of as suspicion. (p. 108) First, otherness is constitutive of the self (Reagan, 1996, p. 98) because of the double belonging of the lived body to the order of things and to the self. This partly explains the paradoxical title of Ricoeur’s Oneself as another (1992). Second, ipse’s self-constancy as exemplified by the act of promise is tied to the responsibility to the other: “If another were not counting on me, would I be capable of keeping my word, of maintaining myself?” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 341) Reagan (1996) confirms: “It is the other who constitutes me as responsible, that is, capable of answer-ing.” (p. 98) Ricoeur (1992) puts it succinctly: “[…] the word of the other comes to be placed at the origin of my acts” (p. 336). Therefore, imputation, i.e., the ascription of responsibility to the self” is outside the self, it comes from the other. Third, the Freudian superego’s internaliza-tions of the other can be identified as the otherness in one’s own conscience (Reagan, 1996, p. 99). Let us briefly return to the otherness in the relation of the self to the other than self as the student’s relationships to the social other (teacher, classmates) are essential in intervention de-sign. Ricoeur (1992, pp. 329-341) again adopts a mediating position between the extremes as laid out in Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations (1960) and Lévinas’ Totality and Infinity (1969) and Otherwise than Being (1998). Husserl regards the other as a projection of the self. Hall (2007) explains: Thus, the ego projects or ‘intends’ specific meanings onto the world depending upon how the world is constituted in intuition. Therefore, those meanings are the reduction of the objective world to the sphere of ownness; I project my meaning on the world. There are two important outcomes of this reduction to the sphere of ownness. First, the ego or self is presented as a monadic structure that looks out onto the world from complete separation. Second, the objective world, including the existence of other subjective, mo-nadic egos, is reduced to an array of phenomena which the transcendental ego claims as its ‘own,’ that is, as its peculiar subjective intending. The ‘worldphenomenon’ is re-duced to a projection of ‘my psyche.’ (p. 84) In Husserl’s argumentation, the other belongs to the self’s psyche. Otherness is obliterated by selfhood. On the other hand, Lévinas postulates that the self is passively constituted in the con-frontation with radical alterity. Selfhood is obliterated by otherness: He [Lévinas] reversed the order of priority in the constitutive relationship that exists between self and other: the other is not constituted through my intentional conscious-ness, which appresents the other as my alter-ego. Rather, I am constituted as a finite freedom in the confrontation with the “epiphany” of the face of the other, which calls me in the accusative. ‘The way I appear is a summons,’ Levinas asserted. ‘I am put in the passivity of an undeclinable assignation, in the accusative self. Not as a particular case of the universal, an ego belonging to the concept of ego, but as I, said in the first person—I, unique in my genus.’ (Hall, 2007, p. 85) Lévinas’ self does not exist as an ego. It is not a nominative, but an accusative self. Hall (2007) explicates how the self is constituted as an ethical relationship by being summoned by the other: “The self only exists in the first person of a dialogic summons, as the I who answers the call with the response, ‘Here I am.’ The self is constituted primordially as an ethical relationship, as a responsibility that is called into existence.” (Hall, 2007, p. 85) Hall (2007) summarizes Ricoeur’s position that he develops from these extremes: “If the ego is not simply a monad that constitutes a world out of its own monologic intentionality, neither is the self nonexistent prior to the call. I have already shown how Ricoeur placed the self within a sociocultural environment of shared meanings.” (p. 86) Ricoeur (1992) concludes: “Must not the voice of the other who says to me: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ become my own, to the point of becoming my conviction, a conviction to equal the accusative of ‘It’s me here!’ with the nom-inative of ‘Here I stand’?” (p. 339). The other’s invocation to comply with the moral obligation must be complemented with the exclamation of my conviction. Selfhood and otherness are syn-thesized. Throughout his analysis of narrative and practical identity, Ricoeur remains true to his principle of dialectics in which extremes are not contrasted as dichotomies. His dialectics result in “a ‘reading through’ from one pole to the other in order to show their independence. His dialectical analyses do not result in a Hegelian ‘third term’ which surpasses the dialectical poles and ren-ders them useless. His ‘third term’[…] can only be understood at the very heart of the dialectic and as completely implying both poles of the dialectic.” (Reagan, 1996, p. 99) In this sense, both narrative identity implying idem and ipse as well as phronetic judgement implying ethics and morality are typical instances of Ricoeurian ‘third terms’. Reagan rightly arrives at the conclusion that Ricoeur’s work “is at the crossroads between ‘words and deeds’” (Reagan, 1996, p. 99). The self is the crossroads where narrative identity and practical identity meet. At this point, the responsible ipse comes into view that is the target area of learning in our pedagogical endeavor. Hall (2007) succinctly summarizes the practical experience of life: I experience life practically as a quest for the good life, a quest that takes place in the presence others both immediate and distant to me. At the same time, I experience those others as a source of value that must be preserved. My search for the good, therefore must be delimited by rules that remind me that others need to be treated as ends and not merely as means, and which perhaps coerce me into obedience. (p. 105) We are in quest - by the way, this is one of the major narrative genres – of the good life. Life implies living with others. That is what Eakin (1999) wants to teach us by advocating his rela-tional model of identity. In order to acknowledge the other as value, the self has to consider the other as an end. This is the function of the moral law. It must ward off the ever-present possi-bility of violence, the “constant temptation to violence toward others within the search for self-actualization” (Eakin, 1999, p. 106). 4.2.3 Learning through writing/reading the life story Identity-oriented literature education is both a narrative and practical experience for the self. Table 3 illustrates the capacities, the educational acts and their accomplishments as well as the possible learning outcomes in the domains of narrative and practice. Table 3: Narrative and practice in identity-oriented literature Domain Capacity Educational act Act’s accomplishment Learning outcome narrative narrating (writ-ing/reading the life story) narrative act = narra-tion mediation between: - ipse and idem (self) - identity and empa-thy (self-other) - insight into the self - insight into the other practice making the moral judgement phronetic act: moral judgement mediation between: - self-esteem and self-respect (self) - solicitude and re-spect for the other (self-other) - responsibility for the self - responsibility to the other The interactional dimension of identity is a possible site of learning. Both the narrative act and the phronetic act are interactional in nature. The mode of the interaction is dialogue. The self either converses with itself (dialogic soliloquy) or with the social other (teacher, classmates) and the cultural other (mainly the literary text). What the dialogical educational act accom-plishes is mediation. On the one hand, the narrative act on the basis of the mimetic mythos mediates between ipse and idem and between identity and empathy. On the other hand, the phronetic act mediates between self-esteem and self-respect and between solicitude and respect for the other. Thus, the educational act affects both the self’s relation to itself and the self’s relation to the other. The possible learning outcomes are insight into the self and the other (ep-istemic learning) as well as responsibility for the self and to the other (moral learning). The modalities of the learning outcome are revelatory and transformative. We can conclude that, in the field of identity learning, the educational objective is to promote the capacities of narrating and judging by performing the narrative and the phronetic acts. As mentioned earlier, the interaction between the self and the other is crucial for learning. We advocate a dialogical model of interaction with the social other and a transactional model (Ros-enblatt, 1978) of interaction with the cultural other. First, we seek to create learning opportuni-ties not only by having students write life stories in dialogical soliloquy (Phase 1 of our model of literature education), but also by having them tell their own stories to others and listen to others’ own stories and others’ stories about themselves (Phase 2). In this way, students position themselves socially in the classroom and become socially positioned. These positions can be synthesized in the narrative. Here, the narrative act brings about socialization. In our model of literature education, the dialogical interaction is linked to an ethics of reciproc-ity, mutuality, non-substitutability, irreplaceability, and similitude. The educational experience is necessarily conflictual. Conflicts between happiness and duty and genuine conflicts of duties are inevitable in a competitive school context. As the students’ self-constancy and agency are weakened and their identity status is diffused (Marcia, 1993), the phronetic act that works on solutions to these conflicts is to be exercised. During the self-implicating transaction of the students with the literary text, the cultural other necessarily influences the writing/reading the life story. The intertextual interplay of writ-ing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story in which the narrative schema, dominant plots, scripts, templates, etc. circulate facilitates enculturation. Both socialization and enculturation are reciprocal processes. Culture and society change the self, and the self changes culture and society. As we learnt from Ricoeur (1992), the narrative and phronetic acts are potentially both self-related and other-related. We think that the self and the other are intrinsic values that are nev-ertheless connected to each other. Ricoeur holds that otherness is immanent in selfhood. In addition, selfhood is immanent in otherness as soon as we recognize the other as value, as soon as we accept the other as self. This is the ethical precondition for the dialogue of/about narra-tions in the literature classroom. In identity-oriented literature education, we must, as a matter of course, ask ourselves what literature contributes to the process of identity learning. The act of reading/writing the literary story can promote insight into self and the other and is an exercise in phronesis potentially resulting in responsibility. In the terminology of Ricoeur, reading/writing the literary story might be thought experiments in the realms of identity and ethics. Ricoeur proposes that self-understanding through reading/writing the life story is possible. As this view instrumentalizes literature as a means to self-knowledge, we will expand Ricoeur’s approach by postulating that narrative understanding might also be promoted through the writing/reading of the life story that produces the world of the reader. Thus, the relationship of reading/writing the literary story and writing/reading the life story is no longer one-way, but reciprocal. In the next chapter, we will analyze the imaginative reading process and its transactions with the imaginative writing of the life story. 4.3 Imaginative reading/writing the literary story: Mimesis3 The process of reading/writing the literary story will be investigated in a phenomenological manner. Kuiken and Douglas (2017) propose a framework for the reader’s absorbed encounter with the narrative text that comprises four aspects: (a) striking linguistic features of the text, (b) modes of attention, (c) reflective engagement with the text, and (d) outcomes of the engage-ment. The framework suggests that salient text segments guide the distribution of attention. Different modes of attention bring about different forms of engagement. Kuiken and Douglas (2017, pp. 235-236) differentiate two forms of engagement: (a) expressive enactment (experi-ential approach), (b) integrative comprehension (interpretive/explanatory approach). Expres-sive enactment foregrounds the proximal senses and implies that the diegesis is close to the reader (peri-personal space). The reader fuses with a character, and this fusion “provides a resonant felt sense that initiates performative explication of what is ‘the same’ across self and other” (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 231), requiring a metaphoric shift to the character’s per-spective from the reader (pre-enactive empathy). In addition, the semantic categories of the text are blended with episodic memories of the reader (self-implicating givenness). Expressive en-actment precipitates aesthetic outcome (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, pp. 236-237), i.a., self-in-sight (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 238, self-perceptual depth). Integrative comprehension, on the other hand, highlights the distal senses and implies that the diegesis is distant (extra-per-sonal space). The fusion of character and reader “is sensed as (non-metaphoric) perspective coordination [which] provides a simile-like – and comparative – frame of reference during a deictic shift to a narrative personae’s perspective” (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 231, cognitive perspective-taking). The correspondence between the text and the real world is evaluated (gen-eralizing realism). Integrative comprehension predicts explanatory outcomes, i.a., the under-standing of textual and extra-textual personae (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 236) as well as the understanding of plot (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 238). The Kuiken-Douglas model of reading underlies the design of the literature classroom intervention as will be explicated below. Fialho (2019, p. 6) advocates a model that is structurally similar. Literariness is defined as a distinctive mode of reading which comprises three key components of response to literary texts: (a) foregrounded textual or narrative features, (b) cognitive and emotional engagement and (c) the consequent modification of personal meanings. Fialho does not include the attentional as-pect. She, however, offers six forms of engagement with the literary text that precede deeper insights into themselves and other: (a) readers’ defamiliarizing strategies of imagery, (b) iden-tification, (c) experience-taking, (d) character evaluation, (e) sympathy, and (f) aesthetic aware-ness (Fialho, 2019, p. 7). These forms of engagement must also be taken into consideration when an intervention is designed that seeks to promote students’ self-insight. The reader’s engagement with the text is at the heart of the reading process. Rosenblatt (1978) conceptualizes the reader’s engagement with the text as transaction: The reading of a text is an event occurring at a particular time in a particular environment at a particular moment in the life history of the reader. The transaction will involve not only past experience but also the present state and present interests or preoccupations of the reader. This suggests the possibility that printed marks on a page may even become different linguistic symbols by virtue of transactions with different readers. […] a poem should not be thought of as an object, an entity, but rather as an active process lived through during the relationship between a reader and a text. (pp. 20-21) In the beginning, we need to ask what the nature of this transaction is. First, the reader-text-transaction can be subsumed under the Ricoeurian agency category of ‘active receptivity’ which implies that the attention is distributed between text and reader in a balanced way and that the reading stance oscillates between proximity and distance. Second, its factors are reciprocal: Transaction is an “ongoing process in which the elements or factors are, one might say, aspects of a total situation, each conditioned by and conditioning the other” (Rosenblatt, 1978, p. 17). For Ricoeur (1988, p. 170), the relationship of these elements is dialectic. The world of the reader (the self) and the world of the text (the cultural other) are synthesized in the act of read-ing. Third, the transaction is a spatial and temporal phenomenon, it is not a formal relationship. By labeling it a “speech act” (Rosenblatt, 1978, p. 19), transaction becomes performative. The enactment of response does not produce the text, but the experience of the world of the text that the reader lives through. Fourth, the transaction is poietic, i.e., it generates personal meaning. Following Ricoeur (1984), we understand the act of reading as a connecting process between the world of the text and the world of the reader. As the world of the reader is here conceptual-ized as narrative identity, the link that is established during Ricoeurian mimesis3 can be re-garded as an intertextual ‘fusion of horizons’ (Gadamer, 1975). The relationships that are es-tablished during the act of reading are complex. First, the mythos-mimesis model is transferred from the literary story to the reader’s life; the text model is reduplicated as identity model. The fact that the same model underlies both the reader’s self and the text guarantees the compatibil-ity of the world of the text and the world of the reader: Narrative model meets narrative model. In addition, we can conclude with Ricoeur (1992) that the literary story and the life story are not only compatible, but also complementary due to the mimetic process: The conclusion of this discussion, then, is that literary narratives and life histories, far from being mutually exclusive, are complementary, despite, or even because of, their contrast. This dialectic reminds us that the narrative is part of life before being exiled from life in writing; it returns to life along the multiple paths of appropriation […]. (p. 163) Second, concrete fictional stories intertextually transact with concrete readers’ life stories. Dur-ing this transaction process, the projection of the world of the text is realized by means of the metaphorical reference. This projected world of the text is intertextually linked to the reader’s narrative identity in our model of literature education. From this it follows that narrative identity has a double status in our teaching model. On the one hand, it is the reader component in the reader-text transaction. On the other hand, it is a target of learning as we aim at promoting the learner’s self-understanding. Ricoeur (1984) uses the metaphor of the intersection to denote the place where the two worlds cross: […] the sense or the significance of a narrative stems from the intersection of the world of the text and the world of the reader. The act of reading thus becomes the critical moment of the entire analysis. On it rests the narrative’s capacity to transfigure the ex-perience of the reader. Allow me to stress the terms I have used here: the world of the reader and the world of the text. To speak of a world of the text is to stress the feature belonging to every literary work of opening before it a horizon of possible experience, a world in which it would be possible to live (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 26) At this intersection where the world of the reader and the world of the text meet, learning can take place. Therefore, it is at this intersection that literature education must interfere if it aims to promote a specific learning objective through the reading of literary fiction. As stated above, the transaction is a temporal experience. Iser (1978) elucidates how the tem-porality of the self and the temporal configuration of the text are synthesized in the act of read-ing: In whatever way, and under whatever circumstances, the reader may link the different phases of the text together, it will always be the process of anticipation and retrospection that leads to the formation of the virtual dimension, which in turn transforms the text into an experience for the reader. The way in which this experience comes about through a process of continual modification is closely akin to the way in which we gather expe-rience in life. And thus the ‘reality’ of the reading experience can illuminate basic pat-terns of real experience. (p. 281) Anticipation and retrospection are a formation condition for the world of the text. When he describes the temporality of the text experience, Iser claims that anticipation and retrospection are necessary mechanisms that connect the various phases of the reading process and thus guar-antee the continuity of the experience. Anticipation continually opens up new horizons as the reader moves from sentence to sentence, thus modifying the reader’s expectations. This “sub-sequent modification of them will also have a retrospective effect on what has already been read. This may now take on a different significance from that which it had at the moment of reading” (Iser, 1978, p. 278). Hence retrospection means that memories of earlier phases of the reading process are evoked in the present moment and, in hindsight, these memory contents are transformed within the new present context. The present which is extended by anticipation and retrospection39 is viewed from the “perspec-tive that is continually on the move” (Iser, 1978, p. 280). If our deictic center has shifted to the world of the text, we “travel with it as our reading progresses” (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 168). As soon as the perspective changes due to our involvement in the progressing plot – mind the fusion of spatial (perspective) and temporal (progression) metaphors that indicate the interrelation of these two dimensions – recollections are necessarily transformed. In addition, anticipation and retrospection are interdependent. Retrospection is the basis for modified anticipations of the text to come, and anticipations provide a new context for the transformative interpretation dur-ing retrospection. It is the reader who “in establishing these interrelations between past, present and future, actually causes the text to reveal its potential multiplicity of connections. These connections are the product of the reader’s mind working on the raw material of the text, though they are not the text itself“ (Iser, 1974, p. 278). The reader synthesizes the temporal dimension 39 Husserl (1964) uses the terms ‘protention’ and ‘retention’ to describe the thickness of the living present. by linking up the text material. This transaction between text and reader is complicated by the fact that the reader brings in memories and expectations from real life. The text becomes the world of the text, the material letters on a piece of paper turn into an experience of the reader’s mind. Text experiences and real-life experiences are similar in their ontological status; they become by being continually modified. This similarity is the prerequi-site for the effect that reading can exert on our real lives. Rosenblatt (1978) describes this mod-ification that we have already found in Iser as follows: As the text unrolls, there is not only the cumulative building-up of effect through linking the remembered earlier elements to the new ones. There is sometimes a backward flow, a revision of earlier understandings, emphases, or attitudes, there may even be the emer-gence of a completely altered framework or principle of organization. Sometimes this very act of revision of the framework becomes an important aspect of “the meaning” of the work (pp. 60-61) The transactional synthesis that aims at producing temporal continuity is highly complex: it must coordinate (a) the recurrent modifications and the new interpretive contexts that they es-tablish, (b) the transformations of the meaning of earlier elements that are possibly brought about within these new interpretive contexts. Only in purely aesthetic reading, these modifica-tions and transformations are solely guided by text signals. As soon as the reader suspends his attitude of disinterestedness (Kant, 1790) and partly shifts the attentional focus back to his own world, his own experiences and expectations further complicate the temporal synthesis. Due to the complexity of the process, the synthesis is necessarily selective. Selection from a set of possible modifications and transformations here is a precondition for combining elements into a temporal whole. The means of the synthesis is the productive-creative imagination. The syn-thesis itself is inevitably tentative, and as the elements to be combined are modified and trans-formed, it is continually revised. The wandering perspective of the reader within the world of the text and the shifting of the attentional focus between the world of the text and the world of the reader make synthesis formation a highly dynamic process. Synthesis does not only seek continuity of time, but also coherence of form. Ricoeur (1991a) conceptualizes formal coherence as the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’ in the mythos. As out-lined above, this conception of plot is not ignorant of modern textures that defy coherence, it tries to integrate difference within identity. Difference is tamed within identity, but not annihi-lated. Rosenblatt (1978, p. 55) works on the premise that the text structure offers a basis for a coherent experience. Ricoeur admittedly takes into consideration that the plot might be on the verge of structurally falling apart, which might result in the decomposition of the story. As story and self are homologous, identity is diffused if the unity of the story is decomposed. In our understanding, however, coherence is not the effect of the text on the reader which is possible because of their homologous structure, but coherence is the result of the synthetic transactional poiesis which can produce illusionary coherence and narrows down the possibilities of the text to its actual realization (Iser, 1974, p. 284). What Iser calls illusion-making is the process of connecting concordant and discordant parts of the written story which produces formal coher-ence, thus complementing temporal continuity which is created by anticipation and retrospec-tion. The dialectic of the text’s polysemy and the reader’s illusionary coherence finds its syn-thesis in configurative meaning: The polysemantic nature of the text and the illusion-making of the reader are opposed factors. If the illusion were complete, the polysemantic nature would vanish; if the poly-semantic nature were all-powerful, the illusion would be totally destroyed. Both ex-tremes are conceivable, but in the individual literary text we always find some form of balance between the two conflicting tendencies. The formation of illusions, therefore, can never be total, but it is this very incompleteness that in fact gives it its productive value. (Iser, 1974, p. 285) Incompleteness is productive because the meaning is not ultimately fixed. The result of the reader’s application of the text is configurative meaning which replaces correspondence the-ory’s ostensive meaning. It allows coherence which is halfway between illusion and polysemy and which allows readability of the text: Without the formation of illusions, the unfamiliar world of the text would remain unfa-miliar; through the illusions, the experience offered by the text becomes accessible to us, for it is only the illusion, on its different levels of consistency40, that makes the ex-perience "readable." (Iser, 1974, p. 285) 40 Iser defines ‘consistency’ as the patterned outcome of the “process of grouping together all the different as-pects of a text” (Iser, 1974, p. 283). Therefore, it can be used synonymously with coherence. I. aesthetic emotions (view of the whole from distance) II. narrative emotions (experience of the particular from the proximity of immer-sion) (a) fresh emotions i. sympathy (feeling for) ii. identification (feeling as) iii. empathy (feeling like) (b) emotions connected to memory i. relived emotions (connection to autobiographical memory) ii. remembered emotions (connection to cultural memory) Configurative meaning is inherently provisional as the mechanism which brings it forth – the productive-creative synthesis – is tentative. By forming the illusions of coherence, the unfamil-iar linguistic and narrative deviations can be integrated alongside the familiar patterns and themes within the world of the text that is evoked in the transaction. Ricoeur (1981) compares the reading process to “the ‘to and fro’ (Hin und Her) of play” (p. 148). This ‘to and fro’ can be detected on both planes of the dialectic of reading: (a) the dialectic of self and other that form the poles between which the transaction happens, (b) the dialectics of processes that make up the transaction. Let us consider the dialectic of anticipation and ret-rospection once again to learn something about the nature of the play. This process which is in itself dialectic (b) is embedded within the dialectic of self and other (a). The self’s temporality and the text’s temporal configuration form one axis of the play whereas the processes of anticipation and retrospection constitute the other axis. To sum up, the time play is experienced in the “to and fro” between text and reader who toggles between anticipation and retrospection. Similarly, a double “to and fro” can be discerned as far as form is concerned: (a) between the self’s expectation of coherence and the configuration’s polysemy and (b) between illusion-forming and illusion-breaking. As the formation of the illusion necessarily transforms the probable text into a factual experi-ence, many other possible realizations of the text are excluded, with the result “that the config-urative meaning is always accompanied by ‘alien associations’ that do not fit in with the illu-sions formed” (Iser, 1974, p. 286). These “alien associations” force the reader to accommodate the configurative meaning to the new context. For this meaning-making process, he has to sus-pend her narrative presence in the world of the text so that the perspective becomes hetero-diegetic. Thus, new connections that re-establish the illusion can be made. Iser (1974) summa-rizes the interplay of illusion-forming and illusion-breaking as follows: As the formation of illusions is constantly accompanied by "alien associations" which cannot be made consistent with the illusions, the reader constantly has to lift the re-strictions he places on the "meaning" of the text. Since it is he who builds the illusions, he oscillates between involvement in and observation of those illusions; he opens him-self to the unfamiliar world without being imprisoned in it. Through this process the reader moves into the presence of the fictional world and so experiences the realities of the text as they happen. (p. 286) Because of the creation of illusions and their disturbance, the configurative meaning changes all the time. This prevents the reader from an unreflective stay in the diegesis. No expectation of coherence is finally fulfilled. Iser draws an important conclusion from his phenomenology of illusion. As we conduct the balancing act between the involvement in and observation of the illusion, we impart lifelikeness to the text (Iser, 1974, p. 288). The advancing text interpretation that demands the reader to constantly make new connections because of the incongruity of il-lusionary coherence and the polysemous text resembles the understanding of social experience as interplay of illusionary identity and social multiplicity. This structural resonance allows per-meability between the cultural and the social experiences. The interplay of illusion-forming and illusion-breaking has a more general equivalence in Ros-enblatt’s (1978) dialectic of evocation and reaction: The various strands of response are often simultaneous, often interwoven, and often interacting. The dynamics of the literary experience include, then, first the dialogue of the reader with the text as he creates the world of the work. […] Second, there is the concurrent stream of reactions to the work being brought forth: approval, disapproval, pleasure, shock; acceptance or rejection of the world that is being imaged; the supplying of rationales for what is being lived through. (p. 69) The evocation is the creation of the world of the text which lacks the formal attribute of coher-ence. Similar to the causal relationship of illusion-forming and illusion-breaking, the creation of the world of the text provokes a reaction. Contrary to Iser, the creation is not transformed in any case, it can also be validated. The “supplying of rationales” underscores Iser’s shift of focus in illusion-breaking: narrative presence is suspended in order to (a) give explanations of the experience (Rosenblatt), or (b) seek alternative ways of illusion-forming (Iser). Let us now turn our attention to the elements of the transaction for a moment. What do we need to know about the “aspects of a total situation” that condition each other. Rosenblatt describes reading as an “experience shaped by the reader under the guidance of the text” (Rosenblatt, 1978, p. 12). First, the text primarily guides the attentional focus through its form. Stylistic and narrative variations, also known as foregrounding techniques, influence the reader’s response by de-automatizing perception. (Miall & Kuiken, 1994). Second, the text’s indeterminacy in-fluences the transaction. The gaps in the written text – Iser calls them the unwritten text – need to be filled in order to establish continuity and coherence. Missing connections between the written elements of the text are supplied by productive imagination (Iser, 1974, p. 283) – and, we would like to add, by poietic imagination. Ricoeur (1988, pp. 177-178) calls the poietic interplay between the written and the unwritten parts the dialectic of freedom and constraint. Indeterminacy constitutes the space of freedom whereas the written parts of the text put a con-straint on the transaction. Iser (1974) describes this dialectic as follows: Thus begins a whole dynamic process: the written text imposes certain limits on its unwrit-ten implications in order to prevent these from becoming too blurred and hazy, but at the same time these implications, worked out by the reader's imagination, set the given situation against a background which endows it with far greater significance than it might have seemed to possess on its own. (p. 276) The unwritten text contextualizes the written text. By this means, meaning is, as contended above, generated in a non-referential way. The written text stimulates what readers bring to the transaction. Stimulation here implies that there is a reservoir of possibilities on the part of the reader from which one or some are selected by virtue of the stimulation. Both regulation through stylistic and narrative deviations and stimulation through gaps are perfect examples of transac-tion: the text regulates and stimulates, the reader focuses the attention and selects from the pool of possibilities. In addition to foregrounding and indeterminacy, Jacobs (2015) detects a further set of text fea-tures that influence the transaction, the “background elements”: […] any literary text contains both back- and foreground elements and a sometimes tense relation between them inspired by the gestalt-psychological notion of figure-ground. This tension is created by the fact that the background of a text ‘includes the repertoire of familiar literary patterns and recurrent literary themes and allusions to fa-miliar social and historical contexts which, however, inevitably conflict with certain textual elements that defamiliarise what the reader thought he recognised, leading to a distrust of the expectations aroused and a reconsideration of seemingly straightforward discrepancies that are unwilling to accommodate themselves to these patterns.’ [Cited from: Richard L. W. Clarke: http://www.rlwclarke.net; LITS3303 Notes 10B] (pp. 146-147) Foregrounding and indeterminacy can only exert a defamiliarizing effect in their interplay with familiar patterns, themes, and contexts. Jacobs’ relationship of background familiarity and fore-ground unfamiliarity is reminiscent of the Ricoeurian dialectic of sedimentation and innovation that is operative in both writing and reading the story. At this point, we need to take up a fundamental question of literature education again: What does the reader-learner potentially bring to the transaction? It must be clarified in advance that by reader we mean the real reader, not some abstract construct of reader, e.g. Iser’s (1974) implied reader. In order to describe the reading process, we must turn to real people: “It is in fact this real reader who is in question in a phenomenology of the act of reading” (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 171). Our tentative answer to the crucial educational question of what the real reader contributes to the reading process is: her identity, i.e., the interpretation of herself. We have learnt from Ricoeur (1992) that past experiences are referents and that habits are ex-pressions of self-interpretation. Rosenblatt (1978) holds that “the perceiver sees even a struc-tured object or environment in the way that his past experience and habits determine” (p. 19). The reader is entangled in temporality. The past experiences work as a “mnemonic matrix” (Rosenblatt, 1978, p. 58) in the transaction. Life experiences, experiences with language, expe-riences with literature, i.e., our personal archive of possible intertexts and intertextual relation-ships, are possibly evoked in the reading of the text. These past experiences can be affective and cognitive in nature, so past experience of knowledge is included here. We have learned from Rosenblatt that the reader does not only bring in her past experience, but also her present state and present interests and expectations for the future. Dispositions are also a part of personality. Iser (1974) argues that “realization is by no means independent of the individual disposition of the reader” (p. 274). Kuijpers et al. (2019) give empirical evidence for the hypothesis that personality traits and reading habits predict absorbed reading. It can be concluded from this study that the reading process can be in part explained in terms of readers’ dispositions and habits. Rosenblatt (1978) summarizes that “[t]he reader brings to the text his past experience and his present personality” (p. 12). This assumption is vital for our intervention. Narrative identity is one way of interpreting personality. Students may be invited to contribute their identities to the transaction. From this follows that identity-oriented reading is never purely aesthetic. The aes-thetic condition of disinterestedness that excludes all personal concerns of a self entangled in time and language is not satisfied when the learner brings her life story to the act of reading. In conclusion, both text factors and reader factors shape the process of transaction. When we teach literature, it is not only the text factors and the reader factors that guide the transaction, but the educational intervention itself also shapes the reading process. First, literature education shall aim at making the students understand how the text features of indeterminacy, foreground-ing and backgrounding guide the learner, thus increasing the students’ capabilities of reading a literary text. Typically, texts in the upper secondary classroom are read in their original form, so text adaptations that might influence the transaction are excluded as forms of learner guid-ance. But further modifications to the reader factor are possible. In our case, we attempt to enhance the self-consciousness and the understanding of the self and the other by having stu-dents write relevant episodes of their life stories and by having them talk about their own iden-tities and the identities of others. Now we will analyze the following aspects of the reading transaction in the light of a model of literature education that seeks to promote insight into the self and the other: (a) stance, (b) attention, (c) reflection-action, and (d) emotionality. We will argue that the specific engagement with a specific text in a specific attentional mode will produce the desired learning outcome. Let us start with the specifications from scratch. It will prove worthwhile to approach the response to the literary text from the extreme of aesthetic reading because we can classify the reading process our intervention triggered in relation to the given point of reference. A brief summary of what is to be explained in detail in the validation study report will be provided here. The aesthetic stance directs the reader’s attention towards the text in two ways: (a) The filter of disinterestedness blocks out the reader’s personal con-cerns. (b) When the reader evokes the world of the text, her deictic center shifts towards the world of the text. As a result of this attitude to the literary text, attention is focused on the text during engagement. This focused attention on the text is distributed among salient linguistic and narrative features. From this purely aesthetic stance, the text dominates the interaction of the reader and the text. The reader becomes part of the diegesis, her personality and her world are blocked out. Identity-oriented literature education necessarily deviates from this extreme position because it encourages students to engage with the text from the perspective of their own lives. Therefore, we need to investigate how a shift in attentional focus towards the reader affects the reader’s engagement and the reading outcome in the given intervention. Second, the attentional focus must be considered. As soon as literary text and life story interact, a dialectic between aesthetic and personal relevance is established. The concept of aesthetic relevance purports that attention is not diverted from the text by the reader’s associations and knowledge (Stolnitz, 1960, pp. 26-28). On the other hand, we hypothesize that reading is per-sonally significant if the literary text can be associated with the student’s life story. Fialho (2019) proposes that “the way texts are approached, or their uses, determines if readers will become aware of personal relevance” (p. 8). Reading for personal response is evidently the appropriate mode of engagement and application because it fosters self-implication (Fialho, 2012; Hakemulder et al., 2016). As a consequence, attention must be distributed among the world of the text and the pertinent episodes of the life story in the given intervention. Aesthetic relevance and personal relevance work as mutual correctives. The former prevents interpreta-tion from falling prey to autobiographical diversion (Sikora et al., 2011, p. 8) that results in an obliteration of the text meaning. The latter wards off the danger that the text remains alien to the reader and no personal meaning is generated. What we seek to promote through the inter-vention is a balanced attention between the world of the text and the world of the reader. Third, the relationship between reflection and action during the act of reading must be taken into account. We have commented on this above with regard to Ricoeur’s theory of stasis and impetus. Ricoeur hypothesizes that the reader is fictionalized during the reflection phase by being immersed in the world of the text. In our view, the reader figures in this world of the text as her own life story. During the educational intervention, we aim at making the reader inter-weave her own world of the text, i.e., her life story/her narrative identity, with the world of the literary text. Thus, the poietic play is operative on both the world of the text and the world of the reader. This imaginative act of reading does not only have the potential to promote self-understanding, it also enlarges agency and initiates actions. Finally, the act of reading is not merely cognitive. Engagement with narrative fiction is an emo-tional experience (Oatley, 1995). We assume that emotions arise during the reader’s transaction with the world of the text, and that these emotions have self-implicating and self-modifying effects under certain circumstances. Mar et al. (2011, pp. 822-823) describe the interaction between emotions and literary narrative fiction on the basis of Oatley’s (1995) taxonomy of emotions of literary response. They distinguish two sets of literary emotions according to Cupchik’s (2002) distance construct. On the one hand, aesthetic emotions like admiration and appreciation arise from the distanced en-counter of the world of the text from an external perspective. On the other hand, proximity experienced in immersion or absorption might result in narrative emotions. Miall and Kuiken (2002) hold that these two sets of emotions are not mutually exclusive, aesthetic emotions can combine with narrative emotions to modify them. Oatley (1995) distinguishes three kinds of narrative emotions: (a) sympathy, (b) identification, and (c) relived emotions. Mar et al. (2011) supplement the original taxonomy with empathy and remembered emotions. They subdivide narrative emotions into fresh emotions (sympathy, em-pathy, identification) that are evoked in engagement with characters and remembered emotions (relived memories, remembered memories) that are rooted in memory. As the delineation of these narrative emotions is problematic, Mar et al. (2011) offer some guidelines for demarcation. First, identification and empathy are differentiated by the pres-ence/absence of the desire to be a character. While “identification in fiction describes wanting to be (or be like) a protagonist […] empathy for fictional characters does not entail becoming that character” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 823). Second, empathy denotes ‘feeling like’ the character and sympathy ‘feeling for’ the character: “Whereas sympathy is feeling for someone in a par-ticular predicament and, for instance, feeling that one wants to help them, empathy is having an emotion that is somewhat like the emotion experienced by the target person.” (Mar et al., 2011, pp. 823-824). In addition, the fresh emotions are delineated with reference to Oatley’s (1999) simulation hypothesis. The planning processor is a “mental means by which people accomplish actions in the real world” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 824). During literary reading, the reader “with-draws from [her] immediate world, and uses this same planning processor to empathise and identify with fictional characters, suspending [her] own goals, plans, and actions. Instead, [she] makes the processor available to the goals, plans, and actions, of a protagonist.” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 824). Thus, the protagonist’s mind is modelled on the agentic plane (Mar & Oatley, 2008). Mar et al. (2011) summarize the differences between sympathy, identification and em-pathy as follows: In sympathy, we feel bad for a character whose goals are not being met, but we do not need to model these goals on our planning processor in order to do so. In identification, we take on these goals and plans as our own, and see ourselves as the character feeling what he or she feels. In empathy, we understand a character’s goals through our model of his or her mind, and feel something similar to what the character feels, but we do not see ourselves as that character and identify these emotions as our own rather than as the character’s. (p. 824) No modelling occurs in sympathy, the reader feels for a different other. In identification, the reader adopts alien models, she is the character that feels the foreign feelings. The reader does not take on an alien model in empathy but employs her own model. She feels similar feelings, but her own feelings. Memory plays a decisive role in the second set of narrative emotions. Reliving emotions means that “the text has produced a particular resonance with a piece of personal autobiography, so that the reader relives emotions associated with it” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 825). This is an “affect that accompanies the recollection of personal experience (emotions of the personal past)” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 824). Reading the narrative “allows [the reader] the possibility of assimilating these emotions more fully” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 825). It is notable that these feelings are not purely replicative. By linking up the past memories with literature, relived emotions can be modified and be more fully understood (Miall & Kuiken, 2002). Remembered emotions that are reminiscent of the rasas from Indian poetics that denote an experience with deep insight are linked to relived emotions, but they are not the same because remembered emotions arise from the connection of narratives with the collective past (Cf. the concept of the cultural intertextual archive presented above), not with personally experienced events (Mar et al., 2011, p. 825). Both “relived and remembered emotions seem most likely to spur introspection, reflection and personal insight, and appear best suited for appreciation motivations” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 826). In conclusion, Mar et al. (2011) propose the following taxonomy: In his neurocognitive poetics model of literary reading, Jacobs (2015, p. 142) confirms the fun-damental distinction between aesthetic feelings (artefact emotions, interest/fascination, con-cernedness) and fiction feelings (familiarity, sympathy, fear/suspense). Jacobs proposes a model that discriminates between two routes of reading: […] a fast, automatic route for (implicit) processing texts which mainly consists of ‘background’ elements informing the reader about the ‘facts’ of a story; and a slower route for (explicit) processing of foregrounded text elements. The fast route is hypothe-sized to facilitate immersive processes (transportation, absorption) through effortless word recognition, sentence comprehension, activation of familiar situations-models, and the experiencing of non-aesthetic, narrative of fiction emotions, such as sympathy, suspense, or ‘vicarious’ fear and hope. The slow route is assumed to be operational in aesthetic processes supported by explicit schema adaptation, artefact emotions, and the ancient neuronal play, seek, and lust systems. (Jacobs, 2015, 142) In line with Mar et al. (2011), foreground reading during the distanced aesthetic experience might stir artefact emotions while background reading that involves immersion potentially pro-vokes fiction feelings. Jacobs (2015) explicates: At the affective level, background elements go together with a feeling of familiarity accompanying the recognition of known items. […] Following Cupchik (1994) I assume that background elements are processed in a configurational mode evoking non-aes-thetic, bodily feelings of harmony or stability, and autobiographical emotions related to memories about events similar to those read about (e.g., fear, joy). Some authors speak of narrative emotions or fiction feelings, like sympathy or empathy for narrative figures, and resonance with the “mood” of a scene (Kneepkens & Zwaan, 1994; Lüdtke et al., 2014). (pp. 148-149) Background reading implies a sense of familiarity and evokes feelings of harmony and stability. In addition, autobiographical emotions related to similar memories might be aroused. Fore-grounding elements, however, produce defamiliarization (Jacobs, p. 152), thus undermining harmony and stability. Kuiken, Miall and Sikora (2004) suggest a taxonomy that adds two categories of feelings. Sim-ilarly to Mar et al. (2011) and Jacobs (2015), they also distinguish between aesthetic feelings “that is, the heightened interest (Miall & Kuiken, 1994; van Peer, 1986) prompted by formal components of a text (e.g., being struck by an apt metaphor, intrigued by an ironic description, captured by the rhythm of a verse)” (Kuiken et al., 2004, pp. 174-175) and narrative feelings that “may be evoked in response to the setting, characters, and events in the imagined world of the text (e.g., sympathy with portrayed suffering, empathy with a character’s motives)” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 175). Moreover, “[r]eaders may experience evaluative feelings toward the text as a whole (e.g., the overall pleasure, enjoyment, or satisfaction of reading a poem or short story” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 174) or “self-modifying feelings that restructure their understand-ing of the text and, simultaneously, their sense of themselves” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 175). Now that we have introduced various taxonomies of literary feelings that are partly overlapping, we will ask ourselves which factors evoke these emotions. In a transaction of text and reader, both text and reader factors have to be considered. Here, we will explore which textual features might give rise to emotions. To discover which reader factors contribute to the emergence of feelings during the act of reading is an important area for future empirical research. To begin with, we need to ask with Miall (2006, p. 52) what about a literary text arouses feeling in the reader. Miall makes the following proposals: (a) particular words and phrases (Cf. also Bühler (1934/1999) and Jacobs (2015)), (b) indeterminacy, (c) deviant schemata, (d) literary associations, and (e) personal/idiosyncratic associations. First, Jacobs (2015) holds that words, when heard or read, evoke embodied memories of the thoughts, feelings, or actions associated with the things/events (and their contexts) they describe, thus activating partially the same neural networks as the corresponding ‘natural’ events (see Willems & Casasanto, 2011). Bühler (1934/1999) conceptualized this idea in terms of the Sphärengeruch (spheric fragrance) of words […]” (pp. 136-137). Therefore, he aims at measuring the emotion potential of texts. Available tools for this are the Berlin Affective Word List (BAWL), the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) and the Dictionary of Affect (DoA) (Jacobs, 2005, p. 139) that can be used to estimate the emotion potential of single words or supralexical units. Second, indeterminacy and foregrounding, i.e., deviations from dominant schemata, may evoke feelings. Miall (2006) hypothesizes: “I will suggest that during comprehension response is con-trolled by feeling, which directs the creation of schemata more adequate to the text – this is, literary texts call our existing structures of knowledge into question and require us to formulate new structures.” (p. 47) The process of schema creation/modification that is necessary because the literary text is indeterminate or departs from dominant schemata is under the control of feeling. Miall (2006) postulates that indeterminacy indicates that feeling is a prime factor in literary experience: “The indeterminacy itself may be a primary agent in the reading process, driving other systems that control and modify schemata with their apparatus of causes and goals. The argument presented [here] is that such indeterminacy points to feeling as the primary process underlying comprehension.” (p. 49) Miall theorizes that feeling guides the comprehension pro-cess if features of the literary text unsettle the application of dominant schemata. In this case, new schemata need to be created (Cook, 1994; Semino, 1997). We think that in schema creation Kantian productive imagination is supported by Kantian creative imagination in order to enable comprehension. Miall (2006, p. 57) summarizes this process: Discourse deviation in literary texts leads to schema disruption. Therefore, there is a need of schema refreshment (Semino, 1997, pp. 153-154). If there is no deviation, schemata are reinforced. With reference to Ricoeur (1984), schema reinforcement and schema creation can be subsumed under the dialectic of sed-imentation and innovation. In this process of schema creation, the reader has a constructive role. In Barthes’ (1974, p. 4) terminology, she is writerly. This means that she generates schemata because indeterminacy or foregrounding bring about the effect of defamiliarization (Miall & Kuiken, 1994). This schema disruption that works as a condition of uncertainty activates the reader’s feelings and concerns: “Thus, to read a literary narrative is to rehearse the implications for the self of the situations and events portrayed. Out of the feelings of self-reference, therefore, emerge the schemata which will be adequate to understanding the narrative.” (Miall, 2006, p. 66) We can conclude that the reader’s emotionality is the source of her creativity. As stated above, Miall (2006) hypothesizes that the act of reading is primarily guided by feeling: “I suggest that feeling plays the primary role in directing the reading of literary narratives.” (p. 53) He discusses three properties of feeling which make it appropriate for this task: (1) feeling is self-referential: It allows experiential and evaluative aspects of the reader’s self concept to be applied to the task of comprehension; (2) feeling enables cross domain categorization of text elements; and (3) it is anticipatory, pre structuring the reader’s understanding of the meaning of a text early in the reading process […]. At the highest level the goals and beliefs of the self are instantiated in the feelings; thus it seems likely that feeling plays a determining role in cognitive processing (perception, memory, and reasoning) when this is performed in the service of the self.” (Miall, 2006, p. 48) Self-referentiality is most obvious in the mode of empathy, but “feeling has a wider scope in narratives than this: Any feeling response involves self-concept issues. This provides the inter-pretative process with a range of potential contexts for attributing meaning to text elements, drawn from the reader’s prior experience and concerns” (Miall, 2006, pp. 54-55) The reader’s experience contextualizes the literary text via feelings, thus giving the text meaning. These per-sonal contextualizations are one reason for the different readings of a given text as “different readers are likely to project different self-related concerns onto the narrative” (Miall, 2006, p. 55). In addition, feelings do not only allow connections between personal meaning and text meaning, but also connections across categorical boundaries. Finally, closure of the plot is achieved on the basis of felt implications: “[…] the reader must develop some representation of the outcome of a narrative to keep the comprehension process on line. Because the schemata are defamiliarised, and causes and goals cannot reliably serve to represent the outcome, a rep-resentation will be constructed instead from the felt implications of the narrative” (Miall, 2006, p. 54) From all this we can conclude that the reader’s feelings play a crucial role in cognitive self-processing. Miall (2006, p. 65) draws the conclusion that a theory of reading that considers both the emo-tional and cognitive dimension of the reader can account for indeterminacy and foregrounding: At the outset of a narrative the reader is thus ready to put into operation a set of feeling controls, I argue, that direct subsequent decoding of the narrative, resolving indetermi-nacies or conflicts between schemata and similar failures at the cognitive level of com-prehension. Above all, as literary narratives defamiliarise standard schemata, the feeling control must negotiate the production of new meaning, that is, they manage the process of schema creation. (Miall, 2006, p. 66) In addition, such a theory can satisfactorily explain individual differences and conflicting read-ings: “schema relationships […] provide certain building blocks of narrative structure that are independent of any reader, but readers then color the structure according to their own feelings, and each produces a higher level structure for the whole story that is more or less unique“ (Miall, 2006, p. 66). These insights have implications for education. First, schema knowledge acquisition should be promoted. In addition, schema modifications are to be actively exercised. Second, students must be given opportunities to link up the literary text with world schemata and personal memories. Third, students’ emotions must not be repressed. From this it follows that learning objectives can be set in both the cognitive and emotional domains. On the one hand, schema knowledge shall be scrutinized, on the other hand, insight into the self and change to the self are to be achieved through the exploration of the feelings that are evoked by the literary text: “Narratives allow us to redefine, modify or suspend schemata, but through this process it seems likely that the primary goal of reading is to explore the feelings of the self through engagement with the text. The feelings invoked by narrative episodes and their outcomes allow the reader to enact symbolically various implications for the self” (Miall, 2006, p. 67). In conclusion, we have learnt that the Ricoeurian detour through the cultural sign that might result in self-understanding is emotional in essence which is to be considered in education. Let us now think about how feelings influence the self during the reading/writing of the story. Sikora et al. (2011) hypothesize that “literary reading facilitates a form of feeling expression that deepens understanding” (p. 258). The act of reading has the capacity not only to implicate the self, but also to modify it (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 171). The functionality of self-modification during reading is explained as follows: But, at times, they [the readers] also find themselves participating in an unconventional flow of feelings through which they realize something that they have not previously experienced—or at least not in the form provided by the text. At these times, the imag-inary world of the text is not only unfamiliar but disquieting. One aspect of this disqui-etude is the possibility that the shifting experience of the world of the text may be carried forward as an altered understanding of the reader’s own lifeworld. (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 175) The unfamiliar world of the text has a disquieting effect on the reader whose world is possibly changed due to the transaction with the world of the text. The relation between narrative and self-modifying feelings is of particular interest in the field of literature education. Kuiken et al. (2004) explain how narrative feelings that are self-implicating can be self-modifying: Narrative feelings are often self-implicating in that they evoke reflection on the reader’s personal strivings—and the scripted feelings, thoughts, and actions of events that in-stantiate those strivings (Klinger 1995; Emmons 1996). Feeling plays a critical role in such remembering. There is robust evidence that feelings, such as might emerge during literary reading, facilitate recall of events that embody similar feelings (Singer and Salovey 1988; Kuiken 1989). Thus, an event with a particular, conventionally ‘objec-tive’ setting, characters, and action sequence may prompt recall of a personal memory involving an ‘objectively’ quite different setting, characters, and action sequence, if both events possess a similar feeling substrate. (p. 176) Narrative feelings are self-implicating because they trigger autobiographical memories (Cf. Mar’s et al. relived emotions and Jacob’s fiction feelings during background reading above). Feelings are vital as similarity is established by the “similar feeling substrate” that connects objectively different situations. The fact that “seemingly different events may evoke each other in memory by virtue of the progression of feelings” (Kuiken et al, 2004, p. 176) has two impli-cations: First, the scripted progression of feelings embodied in a literary text may remind readers of similarly scripted events that instantiate their personal strivings. To this extent, within the framework introduced here, reading becomes self-implicating. Second, because af-fectively similar events can be ‘objectively’ different, they may bring together scripted events that are conventionally (nonaffectively) quite different. As Gordon H. Bower and Paul R. Cohen (1982: 329) point out, such boundary-crossing associations can become the source of affective similes and metaphors. These affective similes and metaphors may well contribute to the emergence of self-modifying feelings. (Kuiken et al, 2004, pp. 176-177) First, reading is self-implicating because of the connection of the world of the text with autobi-ographical memories. Second, these connections might have a poietic effect as “boundary-crossing associations” can generate similes and metaphors that may be conducive to the unfold-ing of self-modifying feelings. These self-modifying feelings might be essential for identity learning. As the given intervention primarily aims at promoting accumulative and transformative learning, these self-modifying feelings must be taken into account. With reference to Kantian reflective judgement that is operative in productive-poietic imagina-tion, Kuiken et al. (2004) describe how self-modification is brought about. First, self-implica-tion alone cannot explain why feelings are potentially self-modifying. Self-modifying feelings are tied to the poietic play on the principle during the act of reading. Kuiken et al. (2004) resort to Kant’s portrayal of the aesthetic reflection to account for the threefold generativity of the aesthetic experience: Reflection is generative, first, in that it is a search for concepts to subsume particulars presented in the aesthetic object. As Kant (1951 [1790], p. 15) argued in the Critique of Judgment: ‘Judgment in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained under the universal.[…] But if only the particular be given for which the universal has to be found, the judgment is merely reflective.’ Second, reflection is generative in that its activity produces aesthetic feeling, that is, the ‘lively’ satisfaction found in the ‘play of both mental powers (the imagination and the understanding) when animated by mu-tual agreement’ (ibid., p. 54). Third, reflection is generative in that, as emphasized in Jean-François Lyotard’s (1994) reading of Kant, aesthetic feeling guides the temporal unfolding of experience: ‘We linger over the contemplation of the beautiful because this contemplation strengthens and reproduces itself’ (Kant 1951 [1790], p. 58). Within the generative reflection of aesthetic experience may be found self-modifying feelings. The search for concepts that potentially subsume narrative particulars will sometimes in-volve self-relevant concepts, especially those that represent personal strivings. The aes-thetic feelings that mark accord between imagination and understanding will sometimes enliven these poignantly self-relevant moments. And the generativity of aesthetic reflec-tion may at times challenge the reader’s sense of self within a succession of decentering and recentering moments. (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 177) As we have stated above, the universal is produced from the particulars of the text through the reflective judgement. This means that the poietic play on the principle is exercised. This poietic play is not a purely cognitive mechanism, it also generates aesthetic connotations on the basis of certain text features like indeterminacy and foregrounding. Contrary to Mar et al. (2011), these aesthetic feelings are evoked by particulars, not by the view of the whole. In addition, aesthetic feelings are not tied to Bullough’s (1912) psychical distance construct, but to the Kant-ian disinterestedness concept as explicated above (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 175). The aesthetic feelings in turn direct the temporal structure of the contemplative reading experience. By means of imagination, the recurrent affective themes are modified in a process of re-interpretation. Kuiken et al. (2004) empirically prove that “readers revealed active modification of the affec-tive connotations of a theme evoked by the poetic images taken from different passages in the poem” (p. 189). The form that these variations take is compared to the fugue: the “fugal form characterizes the modifications of a recurrent theme during expressive enactment” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 193). The thematic development in the fugue moves towards saturation: In literary reading, such saturation includes (1) the persistence, albeit in transformed understandings, of a thematized felt meaning; (2) moving beyond conventional ‘sym-bolic’ understandings of that thematized felt meaning; (3) moving beyond simple to more intricate and intimate personal understandings of that thematized felt meaning; and (4) the articulation of temporally and humanly extended convictions about that the-matized meaning, convictions that the reader may otherwise be reluctant to endorse. This fugal movement toward increasingly intricate and intimate personal understandings and this progressive articulation of initially vague and inexpressible convictions consti-tutes the entry of the literary text into the reader’s life. (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 193) The variations on the recurrent affective theme transcend denotational and simple personal meaning and allow the expression of innovative convictions. Eventually, the fugal movement of re-interpretation allows transformative learning. To put it in a nutshell, the particulars might be synthesized according to self-relevant concepts in reflective judgement. This leads to self-implication. In addition, the poietic play on the con-cept complements cognitive self-implication with aesthetic feeling. The play challenges the reader’s identity inasmuch as it produces Ricoeurian imaginative variations. Reading as reflec-tive contemplative judgement that generates feelings thus de- and re-centers the sense of self by questioning the status quo and opening up new future trajectories of living. The reading experience might result in self-modification by means of the fugal re-interpretation of the re-current affective themes. In other words, [w]ithin that reinterpretive effort, self-modifying feelings reflect a search for concepts, including some that are self-relevant, that potentially subsume narrative particulars. Within that effort, newly emerging aesthetic feelings sometimes mark accord between self-relevant forms of imagination and understanding. Within that effort, feeling some-times challenges the reader’s sense of self in a series of decentering and recentering moments. (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 180) By referring to Cohen (1999), Kuiken et al. (2004) formulate one possible precondition for self-modification: “the momentary state of a reader’s absorption within an author’s, narrator’s, or character’s perspective can become self-modifying when the reader metaphorically identifies with that figure” (p. 179). Basically, two forms of self-implications are distinguished in literary reading: “In one form, which functions like simile, there is explicitly recognized similarity be-tween personal memories and some aspect of the world of the text (A is like B). In another form, which functions like metaphor, the reader becomes identified with some aspect of the world of the text, usually the narrator or a character (A is B).” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 171) Readers’ similes and metaphors are two ways of connecting with the literary text. First, Kuiken et al. (2004) explain the functionality of the simile: […] the personal memories evoked during reading often capture similarities between aspects of a personal memory and aspects of the world of the text. In this case, the com-parison is explicit (‘‘the houses looked like that’’), which suggests that this reader’s expression can be understood on the model of a simile (A is like B; my experience of the street in my home town is like the narrator’s experience of the street in the story). […] As implied by the reader’s simile, memory and story are symmetrical partners in a comparison (‘A is like B’ is equivalent in meaning to ‘B is like A). (p. 183). The symmetrical relationship of simile is established between personal memory and the world of the text through an explicit comparison according to the criterion of similarity. On the other hand, metaphor implicitly refers to oneself as possibly being the same kind as another. Oneself and another are identified “as members of the same inclusive class, but they are not situated in the same way within that class” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 184). In the metaphorical relationship, the comparison between the fictional other and the reader is “asymmetrical, that is, ‘A is B’ is not equivalent in meaning to ‘B is A.’ […] Such asymmetry affirms that, rather than comparison through simile, this reader is engaged in a metaphor of personal identification (Cohen, 1999)” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 184). Cohen (1999) coins the term of ‘metaphor of personal identification’ that is relevant for the act of reading: I think this ability to tell stories that promise to secure human understanding is nothing more nor less than one of the powers of art. And I think our ability to be reached by this power is itself nothing more or less than what we could call our moral imagination. […] My thesis is that this imagination is expressed in our capacity to grasp metaphors of personal identification.” (pp. 404-405) In mimesis2, stories are told that offer insight into the human nature. In mimesis3, reading allows us to take up this offer by means of imagination. In line with Kant, imagination is defined as capacity. In this case, the reader can comprehend the metaphor of personal identification. The act of imagination connects the reader to the character of the world of the text. Cohen (1999) clarifies that “[…] in this act of imagination we entertain not an identity but a metaphorical identity” (p. 408). He describes the metaphorical identification as imaginative movement be-tween oneself and another: In achieving such an identification, I think, one engages in a dialectic of metaphorical understanding. B is trying to grasp A, to gain some sense of this other person. He likely begins with A=B and then moves back and forth between A=B and B=A, shifting and adjusting. This is the blending one attempts in imagination, a blending of oneself with another, and here one must add to and subtract from oneself. What one needs to add to and what one must subtract from depend upon oneself, they depend upon how close one is to the other. It is the movement, in imagination, between oneself and another. (Cohen, 1999, p. 407) Cohen (1999) thinks of these metaphors of personal identification “as representations of that extraordinary achievement, thinking of oneself as another.” (p. 400). The metaphorical connec-tion allows the identification. However, the other that the self identifies with is never identical with oneself, the thinking of oneself as another metaphorically bridges the gap between the self and the other without annihilating the difference: “The difficulty comes as one tries to acknowledge the fundamental, ineradicable difference between two things that, although in general very, very similar, are after all two different things.” (Cohen, 1999, p. 407). The move-ment between oneself and another in metaphorical identification is reminiscent of the synthesis of the heterogeneous that seeks identity without abandoning difference. Although there is an attempt to blend oneself and another in imaginative identification, self and other remain distinct values. It is this metaphorical identity that might turn narrative feelings into self-modifying feelings: “Within the moment of emerging metaphoric identification, the possibility of chang-ing the reader’s sense of self also emerges. Within that transition, argues Cohen, there is an opening for self-modifying feelings.” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 180) In conclusion, the reader’s self-implication comes in two forms, whereby only the metaphorical relation of the reader’s self and the fictional other is potentially self-modifying: […] empathy occurs in two forms with rather different implications for the reading pro-cess. First, resonance between personal memories and the world of the text can occur in the figurative form of a simile. Such resonance depends upon the explicit and deliberate recognition of similarities between memory and text world, perhaps especially the recognition of similarity in feeling tone. Within literary reading, enlivenment in this form is an accentuation of what we have called narrative feelings. Second, resonance between personal memories and the world of the text can occur in the figurative form of a metaphor. Such metaphors of personal identification depend upon an interaction between memories and world text that is not only self-implicating but also self-modify-ing. Enlivenment in this form is enactive (Wilshire 1982), taking on the embodied per-spective of a textual other (implicitly, ‘‘I am A’’), and it is expressive just in the sense that it carries forward—rather than merely matches and externalizes—a freshly felt, freshly conceived sense of self (Gendlin 1997 [1962], 2003) (Kuiken et al., 2004., p. 185) The modes of self-implication can be associated with two modes of reading that Sikora et al. (2011) researched empirically. Simile is integral to ‘autobiographical assimilation’ whereas metaphor is constitutive of ‘expressive enactment’. In autobiographical assimilation, “readers were concerned with relations between the poetic narrative and external autobiographical nar-ratives[…]; they identified generic affective themes […], and the syntax of their interpretation involved simile-like resemblances (A is like B) […]” (Sikora et al., 2011, p. 262). During this mode of reading, “intensive self-reflection seemed to displace attention to the poem: these read-ers distinctively reported that they experienced feelings about themselves during reading […]. In sum, generic affective interpretation and intensive self-reflection accompanied inattention to the poem’s sensory imagery” (Sikora et al., 2011, p. 262). During this mode of reading, the “elaboration of the recurrent affective theme in those autobiographical memories replaces at-tention to the poem with attention to self-directed feelings” (Sikora et al., 2011, p. 263). We can conclude that the attention is not balanced but shifts from the world of the text to the world of the reader. In expressive enactment, however, attention is in equilibrium. Again, “participation in the world of the text provide[s] a context for reflection on concerns and values in the reader’s own life” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 187), but this mode of engagement also “gives attention to both narrative and stylistic aspects of the text” (Sikora et al, 2011, p. 266). As a result, readers do not “disen-gage from the poem and entertain purely personal aspects of their associations. Instead, it was sometimes difficult to determine whether the reader was describing her own experience of the world of the poem, the experience of the narrator, or the experience of one of the narrative personae” (Sikora et al., 2011, p. 264). According to Kuiken et al. (2004), expressive enactment is “marked by (1) the emergence of aesthetic feelings as well as explicit descriptions of feelings in response to situations and events in the poem; (2) blurred boundaries between self and other, suggestive of metaphors of personal identification; and (3) active and iterative modification of an emergent affective theme.” (p. 186). These characteristics of the given mode of reading allow the emergence of self-modifying feelings (Cf. above). Sikora et al. (2011) succinctly summarize: “figurative forms evoke feeling, prompt reflection on felt meanings, and loosen the boundaries that normally delimit conceptual categories (Miall & Kuiken, 1994, 2002; Kuiken et al., 2004). Their interplay provides a vehicle for the shifts in understanding, including self-understanding, that are at the core of expressive reading.” (p. 266) Finally, the authors contrast autobiographical assimilation with expressive enactment to spot the difference between self-absorption in simile and self-modification in met-aphor: Finally, expressive enactment is a form of reading engagement that seems self-implicat-ing without being self-absorbed. This is evident especially in the contrast between ex-pressive enactment and autobiographical assimilation […]. In the latter, self-reflective preoccupation with the autobiographical sources of text interpretation displaces engage-ment with the sensory imagery that might otherwise enliven the world of the text. Such inattention to the world of the text (in favor of attention to oneself) plausibly justifies the declared dangers of the "affective fallacy" (Wimsatt, 1954). However, in expressive enactment, metaphors of personal identification direct attention focally to the text and subsidiarily to the reader. The present study indicates that it is possible to differentiate empirically the self-transformative potential of expressive enactment from self-ab-sorbed assimilation of the world of the text. (Sikora et al., 2011, p. 267) By disengaging from the world of the text in autobiographical assimilation, the reader does not realize the text’s potential to change the self. In emotional self-reference, transformation cannot occur. Expressive enactment, however, “involves rich evidence of self-modifying feelings within literary reading” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 190). Therefore, it is “rather than recollection per se, the manner of recollection during reading that seems pivotal […]. Whether personal memories are explicitly and comparatively considered, as in personal similes, or implicitly and enactively evoked, as in metaphors of personal identification, may determine the regenerative potential of reading.” (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 198) We can conclude that it is the manner of recollection that determines whether narrative feelings turn into self-modifying feelings. Mar et al. (2011) regard this transformative learning that is triggered by the reading of literature as major after-reading effect of literary emotions. They hold that the “change in personality was mediated by the emotions evoked by the text. Emotion, therefore, was central to the experience of change in the ways in which they viewed themselves, that is to say in their personality” (Mar et al., 2011, p. 829). The reader can learn about herself if she transacts with the literary text in a specific mode. With regard to Illeris’ (2017, p. 27) theory, this learning takes place both in the content dimension (self-knowledge, self-understanding) and the incentive dimension (self-emotions). Learning, however, is not solely self-referential. The reader also learns about the cultural other, i.e., the literary text (narrative understanding). On the basis of the simulation hypothesis (Mar & Oatley, 2008), Jacobs (2015) detects another learning opportunity in the interactional dimension, the learning about the social other that complements emotional learn-ing: “Reading offers countless learning opportunities for simulating the social world and thus fosters the understanding of social information and the development of emotional competencies (Mar & Oatley, 2008)” (p. 144). In conclusion, reading/writing the story allows the reader to learn about her cognitive and the emotional self as well as about the cultural and social other. Emotion is crucial for this learning to take place. Let us now consider the effects that the reader encounters as a result of her engagement with literary texts. The Kuiken-Douglas model provides a framework that allows us to delineate two modes of engagement and their respective outcomes. Expressive engagement fosters sublime disquietude41 (aesthetic outcome) whereas integrative comprehension supports narrative under-standing, especially the understanding of plot coherence (explanatory outcome; Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 239). 41 The factor self-perceptual depth of the cross-product sublime disquietude is essential for us because it indi-cates self-insight. For Ricoeur (1981), the potential effect of the act of reading is the expansion of the self: “To understand is not to project oneself into the text; it is to receive an enlarged self from the ap-prehension of proposed worlds which are the genuine object of interpretation.” (pp. 144-145) Ricoeur (1981) explains what the text imparts to the reader: […] I shall say that appropriation is the process by which the revelation of new modes of being – or, if you prefer Wittgenstein to Heidegger, new ‘forms of life’ – gives the subject new capacities for knowing himself. If the reference of a text is the projection of a world, then it is not in the first instance the reader who projects himself. The reader is rather broadened in his capacity to project himself by receiving a new mode of being from the text itself. (pp. 154-155) New modes of being are revealed, which changes the reader’s capacities – remember Illeris’ definition of learning – for self-understanding. The text endows the reader with agency, she can project herself in an alternative way. If the reader incorporates the aesthetic effect of reading into their interpretation of the real world, the text is an impetus to action (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 179). The temporary suspension of the self is lifted in the application of the text, the reader becomes real again. It is Ricoeur’s credo that self-insight happens via the detour of literature, and he reiterates it here in the context of appropriation of the literary text. He also outlines the method of self-insight. The new mode of being offered by the text invites the reader to undergo an imaginative variation of her ego (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 151). This phenomenological procedure aims at explicating the structures of experience, in this case of the experience of the self, result-ing in a revelation of the essences of the experience. As a consequence, the literary text supports the reader in his quest of what is constitutive of himself. Ricoeur (1988, pp. 176-179) elaborates on the effects of reading by referring to the triad of poiesis, aesthesis and catharsis42. Poiesis underscores the creative status of reading, aisthesis and catharsis denote different types of reading effects. By introducing catharsis, Ricoeur ex-tends his understanding of the effect of the literary text. Whereas “[a]isthesis frees the reader from everyday concerns, catharsis sets the reader free for new evaluations of reality that will take shape in rereading” (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 176). The cathartic effect redefines the position of the reader to the text. Aesthetic effects require the suspension of personality in the transaction of text and reader, cathartic effects the reinstatement of personality. Again, we can detect the figure of thought that we have become acquainted with: the ‘to and fro’. Here the reader oscil-lates between the realms of fictionality and reality. 42 H.R. Jauß (1982, pp. 46-111) goes into detail about the importance of this triad for the reading process. Aesthetic effects are seduction, illusion, appeasement of suffering, aestheticizing the experience of the past, subversion (Ricoeur, 1988). These effects might constitute self-insight. Catharsis, on the other hand, tends to exert moral effects: “new evaluations, hitherto unheard of norms, are proposed by the work, confronting or shaking current customs” (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 176). These cathartic effects are intersubjective in scope and can therefore be subsumed under insight into the other rather than self-insight. One more difference can be spotted between aesthetic and cathartic effects. Whereas the aesthetic outcome of reading is evidently linked with inexpressibility (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, pp. 237-238), the cathartic outcome is, to borrow an idea from Kant’s aesthetics, generally communicable. Ricoeur (1988, pp. 169-170) discovers one more effect of catharsis that he calls allegorese which denotes a transfer process of the meaning from one context to another, thus giving the meaning a new signification that transcends the text meaning. By recontextualizing the config-urative meaning, the pendulum of attention, by all means, swings back to reality. The bottom line, according to Ricoeur (1988, p. 158), is that reading fulfils two basic functions. It is revealing, it brings features to light which have been concealed, and it is transformative, it changes the reader’s life. Mimesis3, the transaction of the text and the reader, discovers and transforms at the same time. Iser (1974) elaborates on the revelatory function: The production of the meaning of literary texts […] does not merely entail the discovery of the unformulated, which can then be taken over by the active imagination of the reader; it also entails the possibility that we may formulate ourselves and so discover what had previously seemed to elude our consciousness. These are the ways in which reading literature gives us the chance to formulate the unformulated. (p. 294) The unformulated aspects of both the text and the reader are revealed. The fact that reading fiction enables us to formulate ourselves has some implications. First, identity formation can be a verbal activity. Second, this verbal activity is facilitated by another verbal activity, the reading/writing of the literary story. Analogously, we propose that reading fiction permits us to tell our untold life story. To sum up, we bring ourselves to the reading act, and – although our selves might be tempo-rarily suspended during the reading act – our selves are affected. Therefore, it seems justifiable that literature education takes the self into account. Eventually, we will summarize the educational functions that the reading/writing the literary might serve. The act of reading does not only allow text understanding, it also potentially pro-motes insight into oneself and the other. It gives form to our actions, and it opens up new pos-sibilities of action. Literature offers sedimented identity models that allow the organization and representation of the reader’s life. By this means, it is a resource of meaningfulness. Kerby (1991) holds that literature “provides us with a rich vocabulary for articulating, and thus interpreting, experience” (p. 103). We would like to add that it is not only words, but also structural, temporal, and ref-erential patterns that are imparted by literature. Literature supplies models for plotting and mapping that do not only have an epistemic, but an ontological value for the reader; they can be used for how “we, as readers, narrate ourselves into existence” (Neumann, 2008, p. 66). In addition, literature shapes new and influential models of identity (Neumann, 2008, p. 54) through the poietic play on the narrative schemata. Reading fiction is also the “first laboratory of moral judgement” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 140) in which “we experiment with estimations, evaluations, and judgments of approval and condem-nation through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 115). Through literature, we “experience and judge the value of life-styles and ideologies at a dis-tance“ and “develop and sharpen our moral perception and interpretations” (Kerby, 1991, p. 62). Moreover, the limits of what is culturally acceptable can be explored. In the end, we hypothesize that the Ricoeurian (1984) refiguration of the self has a potential for accommodative and transformative learning. By learning about the text, we learn about our-selves and the social other. This learning possibly changes the learner’s identity, i.e., the learner’s interpretation of her relationship to herself and the other. 5 Learning through writing/reading the story In the following, we will propose a pedagogy of the acting and suffering self who finds meaning of itself and the other through exercising the capability of narrating according to the schema, i.e., writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story. As a consequence, we pursue the learning objectives of insight into the self and the other. In addition, we are aiming at developing self-esteem/autonomy and solicitude/respect for the other through exercising the capability for being imputed in the light of the aim of the good life under the constraint of the moral norm. We hypothesize with Illeris (2003) that learning in adolescence “is always connected to and marked by the process of identity development” (p. 357). This development can be understood by means of the narrative: “Individual development again implies a narrative format because it is an ordered sequence of events.” (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 159). The “task or duty of creating, maintaining, and changing their own identities has become in-creasingly important and fundamental” (Illeris, 2014, p. 155) for the young. In contemporary society, adolescents are forced to construct an identity within increasingly ambivalent and un-clear contexts that are no longer determined by dominant norms, and they need to take respon-sibility for their identity constructions: One can always make a new choice and continue to do so – but it is one’s own respon-sibility and equally one’s own fault if the choice is not right. It is not strange that the young are virtually identified with this endless and absolutely decisive process of choice and identification and that there is a tendency for everything to be seen and experienced in this perspective. There is no way around it; it is a matter of one’s life and happiness. (Illeris, 2003, p. 365). According to Illeris (2003), the process of self-orientation is vital: “Under all circumstances, it is self-orientation that lays down the fundamental human conditions for the education and qual-ification activities of young people today.” (Illeris, 2003, p. 374). Self-orientation is thus an “unavoidable condition for your education” (Illeris, 2003, p. 374) which is described as a dia-lectic movement between stability and variability: This situation is reflected in the development task typically facing a young person today. Young people must at one and the same time develop a reasonably stable and sustainable core identity and simultaneously be able, practically and mentally, to handle an enor-mous variability, a risk society in which one can never be sure of anything […] (Illeris, 2003, p. 371) Self-orientation takes place in the light of countless opportunities and countless limitations: […] the situation is extremely complicated by the duality of late modernity: on the one side, the apparently boundless degrees of freedom and volumes of information; and, on the other side, a far-reaching, indirect controlling process on the part of parents, teach-ers, youth cultures, mass media and formal conditions for options. In the area of learn-ing, the transition from child to adult has also become a lengthy, complex and ambigu-ous process with floating contours and unclear conditions and targets (Illeris, 2003, p. 364). Young people are forced to do identity work, they “must find their own way through their own choices” (Illeris, 2017, p. 191). The format within which identity development and self-orien-tation might be performed is the narrative quest which is one of the major plots of fiction (Booker, 2004). At this point, we need to remark on the notions that Illeris uses to describe learning processes in the domain of the self. He replaces identity development with self-orientation: Instead of identity development, a concept that refers back to a context that no longer exists, there is reason to find a new term for this comprehensive process. Here I will use the term self-orientation which is suitable for capturing the fact that this is a very wide-ranging process where one orients oneself with a view to finding oneself, one’s options, ways of functioning and preferences, gradually building up a certain core identity and some rationales for all the choices with which one is constantly presented. On the basis of this concept of self-orientation, in conclusion I will attempt to sum up the way in which young people today typically function in relation to learning and qualification through education and other activities. (Illeris, 2003, p. 372) In our view, identity development and self-orientation operate on different levels and are, there-fore, not mutually exclusive. Whereas development denotes a learning outcome, orientation manifests a learning procedure, i.e., the finding of oneself and one’s options. The learning con-tent of development and orientation is identical: the students’ identity as interpretation of the self’s relationship to itself and the other. We regard orientation as a major reflective learning process and development as an outcome of mainly assimilative learning processes that therefore must be complemented with identity change that results from learning accommodations and transformations. Orientation might lead to development, but it can also eventuate in identity change (Ricoeurian innovation) or identity consolidation (Ricoeurian sedimentation). To sum up, orientation is a reflective form of engagement with oneself and the other whereas develop-ment/change/consolidation are outcomes of learning engagement. In the following, we will address some specifics of learning in adolescence. Illeris describes learning in youth “as a gradual transition from the uncensored, trusting learning of childhood to the selective and self-controlled learning of adulthood. […] it is […] precisely this transition that fundamentally lays down the conditions for learning during the youth phase” (Illeris, 2003, p. 363). The maturation of the central nervous system during that transition period makes a new type of abstract and stringent thinking and learning possible, enabling one to operate context-independently with coherent systems of concepts, and that through youth and adulthood this ability can be further developed in the direction of, inter alia, formal-logical, practical-logical, dialectical, meta-cognitive and critically reflexive thinking and learning. Thus, in the case of learning in youth a new cognitive capacity is present to understand and acquire large-scale conceptual contexts, that to a high degree characterizes learning motivation during the years of youth. One is determined to dis-cover how things are connected and this applies to personal as well as social, natural-scientific, societal, political and religious matters. (Illeris, 2003, p. 364) Illeris holds that a new type of cognitive capacity makes conceptual learning possible. With reference to Bruner (1990), we would like to add a further cognitive-emotional capacity that emerges in adolescence, i.e., narrative learning through which a young person might understand and acquire her life in its manifold context. The synthesis, i.e., the making of connections, which is, as we have learnt above, a function of the imagination, allows both conceptual think-ing and narrative thinking. For our purpose, narrative learning about the self in its sociocultural embeddedness is decisive. During puberty, the youth acquire the means to coherently structure the process of transition “that is insecure, ambivalent, searching, floating and changing with an unclear course towards an unclear goal” (Illeris, 2003, p. 366). Adolescence sees the emergence of the life story, thus investing students with a biographical dimension of their lives. Life story coherence (Habermas & Reese, 2015, pp. 176-177) is created through the narrative meaning-making process of auto-biographical reasoning. The ability for autobiographical reasoning is a form of reflection, i.e., a form of learning engagement, that is connected to the Ricoeurian capability of narrating one’s life. As transitions in the life phase of adolescence produce discontinuity and biographical dis-ruptions, the young have to undertake the task of bridging these discontinuities and disruptions. According to Habermas and Köber (2014, p. 160), this task can be fulfilled by means of explicit autobiographical reasoning. As soon as the discontinuities are solved, there is no need for ex-plicit autobiographical reasoning. However, the exercise of this form of self-reflection in ado-lescence is a preparation for the minimization of future disruptions in the life course: However, it seems that the result of this reflective activity of self-interpretation settles in the autobiographical knowledge base (Conway et al., 2004) at the level of the life story schema (Bluck & Habermas, 2000), so that later it can be readily retrieved when telling a life narrative or when biographically embedding important life events. This technique of compensating threats of self-discontinuity, we have argued, is more potent than the other more basic mechanisms that have been suggested by psychology to date because these presuppose the absence of change to varying degrees. (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 162) We can conclude with Habermas and Köber that autobiographical reasoning that contributes to the consistent interpretation of the self in the relation to the other. It helps the young develop (a) the Ricoeurian agentic ipse-identity that guarantees self-constancy, and (b) ethical self-es-teem that is necessarily tied to responsibility: A kind of reasoning that leads to positive re-evaluations of past negative events bolsters self-esteem and optimism. Autobiographical narrating and reasoning that is not contra-dictory but plausible supports self-consistency and self-continuity (Kernberg, 1984). And autobiographical narrating and reasoning that expresses the individual’s agency (Adler, 2012) and responsibility without denying the limiting role of chance and pow-erful others (de Silveira & Habermas, 2011) supports a sense of being able to influence the path one’s life is taking. (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 162) Autobiographical reasoning basically takes two forms: (a) stability as constancy is indicated by deploying arguments that contribute to thematic coherence, and (b) continuity across change is indicated by advancing arguments contributing to causal-motivational coherence, resulting in continuity (Habermas & Reese, 2015, pp. 186-189). In conclusion, “earlier forms of remem-bering are only implicitly linked to the self, but not tied to identity in a causal-motivational or thematic way as it is by autobiographical reasoning. Thus, the understanding of others and the self turns biographical in adolescence, and autobiographical remembering becomes an essential part of identity” (Habermas & Reese, 2015, p. 180). In conclusion, Breen et al. (2017, p. 254) claim that McAdams’ (2013) author self that is capable of synthesizing present, past, and future is beginning to emerge during adolescence. The young use the tool of narrative during autobiographical reasoning to consolidate, develop, and change their identities. Illeris (2017) points out that we face a basic dilemma with regard to school requirements and students’ needs. Whereas school was developed to primarily deal with subject learning, young people are concerned with identity work: The identity process is, for most young people today, far more immediately important and far more urgent than academic learning, and it is also a very central precondition for the choice of further education and career, or part of it. So from the perspective of young people, there is good reason for the many searching activities, shifts and years out that the system views as expensive delays in the education of young people. (p. 192) Illeris (2017) maintains that the period of adolescence is characterized by identity learning that mainly takes the form of cognitive and affective accommodations and transformations: [t]here is so much to be learnt in the period of youth: academically, emotionally, so-cially, societally – and, most of all, in terms of identity. Whereas childhood is a time for constructive assimilative learning, youth is a period for major accommodations and transformations in which, one by one, profound changes and reconstructions are made to the knowledge structures and the emotional patterns with regard to identity in a broad sense and to educational and social relationships etc. And the reflexivity that is so char-acteristic of late-modernity […], where it is always the individual’s relationship to him- or herself that is the focal point of learning, unfolds without doubt most dramatically in the years of youth as an essential yet enormously taxing tool for the identity process. (p. 193) We can conclude that identity learning is crucial in puberty. In order to be able to systematically understand how identity learning occurs and what kind of learning takes place during our inter-vention of literature education, we will resort to Illeris’ (2017) theory of learning. Figure 7 illustrates Illeris’ model of learning. Learning basically comprises two processes: (a) the interaction between the learner and her environment (horizontal double arrow; Jarvis, 2016: social level of learning) and (b) the acquisition as the psychological processing (vertical double arrow; Jarvis, 2016: individual level of learning) which “has the character of a linkage between the new impulses and influences and the results of relevant earlier learning” (Illeris, 2017, p. 21). Figure 7: Illeris’ (2017, p. 27) model of learning The interaction dimension is conditioned socioculturally and materially (conditions and possi-bilities of the environment, incl. time and space) while the acquisition dimension is determined by biology, esp. by the brain. In his learning model, Illeris distinguishes three dimensions of learning: (a) content (cognitive dimension) that aims at promoting meaning and abilities, thus developing the self’s functional-ity, (b) incentive (affective dimension) that aims at maintaining the mental and bodily balance, thus developing the self’s sensitivity, and (c) interaction (sociocultural dimension) which aims at promoting integration, thus developing the self’s socialization and enculturation. Illeris hy-pothesizes that “all learning involves these three dimensions, which must always be considered if an understanding or analysis of a learning situation is to be adequate. (Illeris, 2017, p. 24) The content dimension of learning deals with what we learn. Signal words for this dimension are knowledge, skills, understanding, recognition, attitudes, behavior, sociality, empathy (Illeris, 2017, p. 25). Illeris admits that this is not an exhaustive list of possible contents of learning. For our pedagogical endeavor, identity learning (understanding of the self and the other) and text understanding are most important as far as content is concerned. Illeris points out that it is content that allows us to acquire abilities, insight, and understanding that are, as we have outlined above, vital to identity learning: All of the learner’s abilities, insight and understanding are developed through the con-tent dimension – what the learner can do, knows and understands – and through this we attempt to develop meaning, i.e. a coherent understanding of different matters in exist-ence (for example, Bruner 1990; Mezirow 1990, 1991; Wenger, 1998), and also to de-velop abilities that enable us to tackle the practical challenges of life” (Illeris, 2017, p. 25) Through practicing the abilities of writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story, insight and understanding might be gained. In our case, content is the result of the process of meaning-making during the poietic play on the principle. It is notable that the experience of writing/reading the story that is creative in nature mainly results in Kolb’s (1984) divergent knowledge whereas literary analysis that is based on infer-ence and deduction mainly produces convergent knowledge. As we advocate a holistic ap-proach to learning content, all of Kolb’s (1984) learning modes (interaction dimension) that result in different types of content (divergent, assimilative, convergent, accommodative) are addressed in our intervention in literature education: experience and reflection are dominant in phases 1-3, comprehension in phases 4 and 5, experimentation in phase 6 of the model of liter-ature education (Cf. Part II). As an adequate learning theory must “concern itself with the human being as a whole” (Illeris, 2017, p. 72), the incentive dimension needs to be covered. Therefore, the acquisition of abilities, knowledge, insight, and understanding must be complemented with the affective, motivational, and volitional aspects of identity learning. Learning is an inherently emotional process, and the emotionality and cognition interact during learning. With reference to Piaget, Illeris (2017, pp. 74-75) holds that (a) mental schemes are affective and cognitive in nature, (b) affective and intellectual life are interdependent, (c) feel-ings express the value of actions while intelligence provides the structure for actions, and (d) emotions might be an impetus for intelligence (affective motivation). Both cognition and emotionality are organized, but the nature of the organizational structure is different. Whereas the structures of content are fixed and have the status of a rule, emotionality is organized by subjective changeable patterns: […] there is a form of mediation of the diversity of the emotional possibilities, but no fixed structure, as in the cognitive sphere. Or to put it another way: where as a rule it is clear what one knows and does not know, what one understands and how one under-stands it, on the emotional level it is more a case of gradual transitions which, for the individual at any rate, follow a certain pattern that can change over time – and these changes occur […] by assimilations and accommodations in the same way as for the content structures. Where the individual builds up structures and schemes in the content sphere, in the emotional sphere it could be a case of developing incentive patterns. (Illeris, 2017, p. 76) Cognitive structures and emotional patterns are developed through learning. In the content do-main, writing/reading the story requires the learning, i.e., the acquisition of the narrative schema through the transaction with the cultural material. The dynamic principles of mythos and mi-mesis are taught as students practice the capabilities of writing/reading the life story and read-ing/writing the literary story, and as learners’ reflection about the significance of the principles for the practice is encouraged. According to Bruner (1996, p. 147), it can be assumed that we know how to form a story and we do it automatically. The problem comes up when we wish to “achiev[e] consciousness of what we so easily do automatically, the ancient problem of prise de conscience” (Bruner, 1996, p. 147). Bruner proposes the problem-solving strategy of meta-cognition that is the theoretical foundation of our communal learner reflection on the narrative schema: “[…] the object of metacognition is to create alternate ways of conceiving of reality making. Metacognition, in this sense, provides a reasoned base for the interpersonal negotiation of meanings, a way to achieve mutual understanding even when negotiation fails to bring con-sensus” (Bruner, 1996, p. 148). As we live our lives mostly in a “world constructed according to the rules and devices of narration”, the task of education is to “provide richer opportunities that it does for creating the metacognitive sensitivity needed for coping with the world of nar-rative reality and its competing claims” (Bruner, 1996, p. 149). Therefore, the reflection on the significance of the schema for the writing/reading the story is supposed to take on this educa-tional task, it shall “turn our consciousness to what narrative construal imposes on the world of reality that it creates” (Bruner, 1996, p. 149). As we have learned above, the narrative schema is embedded in the dialectic of sedimentation and innovation. It changes over time due to the intertextual mechanisms of the cultural archive and the application during writing/reading the story. The interaction with the changed cultural schema during writing/reading the story might cause assimilations or accommodations of the learner’s internal structures. Changed internal structures, for whatever the reason, might, in turn, have an effect on the cultural schema as the internal cognitive structures necessarily inter-act with the narrative schema that materializes in the text during the appropriation of the text. The reciprocal adaptive-modifying relationship between external narrative schema and the in-ternal cognitive structures implies that the practice of writing/reading the story that relies on this dynamic relationship is a constant re-writing and re-reading of the story. In the incentive domain, emotional patterns are similarly developed in the interaction with the environment. It is notable that emotions are mainly unconscious in assimilative processes while in accommo-dation they become conscious. (Bruner, 1996, p. 77) The incentive and content dimensions closely interact in learning. Emotions strongly influence the content dimension during the production of divergent knowledge. Miall (2006) has con-vincingly argued that the comprehension process during reading is guided by emotions (Cf. above: the emotionality aspect of the transaction). Illeris (2017) adds that “,[m]ore generally, the incentive aspect of learning will always affect the learning result, even if it does not influ-ence the epistemological content itself” (p. 77). On the other hand, emotions are also influenced by knowledge: “Comprehension and perception, knowledge and insight all also influence the incentive patterns. […] strong content accommodations can also be accompanied by strong ac-commodative restructurings in the incentive patterns.” (Illeris, 2017, p. 78). As far as motivation is concerned, mobilization of mental energy is a fundamental prerequisite for learning. In line with modern brain research (Damasio, 1999), emotions are a source of motivation and energy (Illeris, 2017, p. 72). Our intervention seeks to secure the drive for learn-ing by (a) generating personal relevance of the learning activities and materials, (b) evoking strong emotions like disjuncture (Jarvis, 2006) and curiosity (Berlyne, 1960), and (c) addressing conflicts (Erikson, 1968) and dilemmas (Berthelsen, 2001). Illeris (2017, p. 87) points out that high motivation secures better transfer and retention and furthers accommodative and trans-formative learning. Because of that, the incentive dimension has been taken into account during the whole design process of the model of literature education. All learning does not only have a content and incentive dimension, it is also necessarily situated both in an immediate social situation, in our case the literature classroom, and the underlying social norms and structures (Illeris, 2017, p. 91). Learning is a reciprocal process (Jarvis, 1992), i.e., the learner is both influenced by the environment and influences the environment. Illeris (2017, pp. 94-95) outlines typical forms of interaction during learning. For our model of literature, the following are relevant: (a) perception (the sense impressions of the life world and the material texts), (b) transmission (the intervention into the transaction of the learner with her environment), (c) experience43 (the self’s transaction with the life and literary stories that struc-turally conforms with Hall’s (2007) ‘active receptivity’), and (d) participation (group work in which the “learner is in a common goal-directed activity, a community of practice” (Illeris, 2017, p. 96)). 43 We hypothesize that not only experiential reading in Phase 3, but also literary analysis as practiced in Phase 4 of the model of literature education is a form of transactional experience. Analysis without the analyst is not pos-sible. However, the proportion of what the text and the reader contribute to the transaction product differs be-tween analytic reading and expressive reading. In addition, every interaction might be combined with reflection that works as a mediator be-tween the learning material and the learning outcome. In the intervention design, we followed the principles that “the more active one is and the more one becomes engaged, the greater is the chance of learning something significant” (Illeris, 2017, p. 95) and that “there is a greater like-lihood of accommodation in connection with the active and engaged forms of interaction” (Illeris, 2017, p. 96). Experience is a central form of interaction for literature education that aims to promote identity learning. Illeris (2017) regards the “concept of experience as an important holistic expression for the process of learning”. The holistic interactional process of experience is linked up with the holistic content dimension of identity in our model of learning in literature education. Jarvis (2009) presents a model of experience that helps us understand the interactional dimen-sion of learning. Learning begins with a disjuncture between the learner and her world in the situated experience (Jarvis, 2009, p. 22). Jarvis’ two premises of learning are that (a) learning necessarily starts with experience, and (b) experience is always social, and, we would like to add, writing/reading experience is always sociocultural. In the interactional dimension, the learner experiences the intersection of the self and the world at which the body functions as connector. Here we can detect a striking metaphorical identity between the Ricoeurian inter-section of the world of the reader and the world of the text during the reading transaction and Jarvis’ intersection during the learning experience. We can conclude that learning is possibly stimulated at the intersection of the self and the literary text. Jarvis (2009) distinguishes between primary and secondary experience. Whereas primary ex-perience is principally connected to sensual perception, secondary experience comes into play if the senses are relegated and cultural meanings are in focus. Jarvis explains: […] these experiences are secondary ones which occur as a result of language or other forms of mediation – secondary experiences are mediated experiences of the world. These always occur in conjunction with primary ones, although we are not always con-scious of the primary ones; for instance, when we are listening to someone speak we are not always conscious of how comfortable the chair is, and so on (Jarvis, 2009, p. 28). In our case, secondary experience is experience mediated through language. It is a complex interaction in which sensations and meaning are processed simultaneously. Figure 8 illustrates this process of secondary experience. C:\Users\grap\Desktop\jarvis_modell2.png Figure 8: Jarvis’ (2009, p. 29) model of secondary experience Jarvis (2009) explains the workings of secondary experience as follows: In Box 1, the whole person is in the life-world and at the point of disjuncture has an experience (Box 2). Having had an experience (Box 2), which might occur as a result of disjuncture, we can reject it, think about it, respond to it emotionally or do something about it – or any combination of these (Boxes 3–5). But there is a double arrow here since there is always feedback at every point in learning as well as a progressive act. What is important about this observation is that we actually learn from the experience and not from the social situation in which the experience occurs, nor from the sensation once meaning has been attributed to it. As a result of the learning we become changed persons (Box 6) but, as we see, learning is itself a complex process. Once the person is changed, it is self-evident that the next social situation into which the individual enters is changed. And so, we can return to my experiences (pp. 28-29). The possible responses to the experience that can result from disjuncture are thoughts, emo-tions, and/or actions. Experience may result in content learning (meaning-making), incentive learning (transformed emotions, beliefs, attitudes and values), and practical learning (impetus for action, Cf. Ricoeur, 1988). Learning, in turn, may bring about the changed person: “Finally, we see that as a result of learning […], we become changed persons and so only in being can we become and in learning we experience the process of becoming.” (Jarvis, 2009, p. 29) Jarvis explicates the relationship of being and becoming: For as long as I can continue to learn, I remain an unfinished person – the possibility of more growth, more experience and so on remains – or I am still learning to be me! Philosophically speaking, I only am at the moment ‘now’ and since I cannot stop time I am always becoming; paradoxically, however, through all that becoming I always feel that I am the same self. Being and becoming are inextricably intertwined, and human learning is one of the phenomena that unite them, for it is fundamental to life itself. (pp. 30-31) First, identity learning implies that the self is dynamic and unfinished, i.e., learning implies becoming. Ricoeurian ipse is capable of grasping the becoming of being, it can secure self-constant identity across change. Because we learn, we constantly need to re-write and re-read our life stories. Second, through identity learning the self can become being, which is concep-tualized here not as a phenomenon of pure bodily presence, but as identity, as a plausible inter-pretation of the self. According to Jarvis, the self has a feeling of idem-identity through ipse, i.e., it feels being the same self by means of becoming. The ‘me’ in learning to be me is, in our view, not only the feeling of sameness through becoming, but the feeling and understanding of sameness (idem) and selfhood (ipse) that result from the narrative interpretation of the self. Narrative interpretation is a learning process. In narrative interpretation, the narrative is a means of identity learning. Jarvis’ “learning to be me” can interrelate being as narrative identity (learn-ing content) with becoming as ipse (learning process). (Illeris, 2017) explains that interactional experience encompasses all the three dimensions of learning: Experience has important elements of content and knowledge, i.e., we acquire or under-stand something that we perceive to be important for ourselves. Experience also has a considerable incentive element, i.e., we are committed motivationally and emotionally to the learning taking place. And finally, experience has an important social and societal element, i.e., we learn something that is not only of significance to us personally, but is something that also concerns the relationship between ourselves and the world we live in. Thus experience is set out as the central concept in the learning conception of this presentation: experience is characterised by incorporating the three dimensions spanned by the learning conception presented here in an important way. (p. 117) During experiential learning, the learner may acquire and understand herself (content) and the other (interaction). As this learning process is relevant to the learner, she is motivated to learn, and she is highly engaged in learning (incentive). Illeris (2017, pp. 120-121) lays down quali-tative criteria for this experiential learning to take place: (a) considerable subjective signifi-cance, (b) learning as coherent continuous process in which the “single event can be understood in the context of earlier experience and future opportunities” (Illeris, 2017, p. 120), (c) for-mation of experience is socially mediated (experience in sociocultural context), and (d) the influence from the environment represents relevant societal, material and/or social structures (Cf. Negt’s (1971) exemplary learning). The intervention based on our model of literature edu-cation seeks to meet all these criteria for experiential learning. Learning materials, content and processes are supposed to be personally relevant. The cyclic architecture of the model shall guarantee that the learning process is coherent and continuous. As the learning process is trig-gered by the cultural transaction with the text that is situated in the social context of the litera-ture classroom, the formation of the experience is socioculturally mediated. Texts and contexts are selected in a way that can guarantee exemplary learning. Illeris (2017) summarizes that the “ideal experiential pedagogical processes must be about the pupils’ important, subjectively per-ceived problem areas, that are to be elaborated in a continuing experiential process based on their existing patterns of experience and governed by a forward-pointing action perspective” (p. 121). All these conditions – personal relevance, continuity of the learning process, embed-dedness in the learners’ temporal identity – are met by the model that is to be proposed in part II. We held above that interactional learning aims at developing the self’s socialization and encul-turation. Socialization is defined as a “process through which the individual acquires current societal norms and structures, thus becoming part of the society in question” (Illeris, 2017, p. 98). On the social level, socialization takes place in ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), i.e., the literature classroom. On the societal level, socialization occurs within ‘landscapes of practice’ (Wenger, 2014). We agree with Illeris’ (2017) basic hypothesis that the “situation [is] significant for the nature of the learning process and for its results” (p. 103). The situation does not only influence the processing of new impulses, but also the interpretation of existing cog-nitive structures and emotional patterns: Thus according to Lave and Wenger it is not simply that the concrete situation influences the learning that occurs, but it also has significance for which existing learning results are activated. When the learning occurs in an interaction between existing structures and new impulses […], the environment and the learning situation influence not only the learner’s perception of the new impulses, but also which existing structures are involved in the internal elaboration processes. (Illeris, 2017, p. 104) We can conclude with Illeris that the social context, i.e., the classroom as ‘community of prac-tice’ and the ‘landscapes of practice’, is the “crucial framework condition for learning” (Illeris, 2017, p. 104) As the classroom factors are essential for the design of the model of literature education, we resort to Wenger’s (1998) concept of the “community of practice” to better understand the in-teraction between the components of a social theory of learning. Wenger’s interactional theory of learning is illustrated in Figure 9. C:\Users\grap\Desktop\wenger_model.png Figure 9: Wenger’s (1998, p. 5) social theory of learning Wenger explains his theory as follows: A social theory of learning must therefore integrate the components necessary to char-acterize social participation as a process of learning and of knowing. These components […] include the following: 1) Meaning: a way of talking about our (changing) ability - individually and collectively — to experience our life and the world as meaningful. 2) Practice: a way of talking about the shared historical and social resources, frame-works, and perspectives that can sustain mutual engagement in action. 3) Community: a way of talking about the social configurations in which our enterprises are defined as worth pursuing and our participation is recognizable as competence. 4) Identity: a way of talking about how learning changes who we are and creates per-sonal histories of becoming in the context of our communities. Clearly, these elements are deeply interconnected and mutually defining. In fact, […] you could switch any of the four peripheral components with learning, place it in the center as the primary focus, and the figure would still make sense. […] The analytical power of the concept lies precisely in that it integrates the components […] while refer-ring to a familiar experience. (Wenger, 1998, pp. 4-6) We have already defined learning as an experiential meaning-making process that has identity – not only as becoming, but as the dialectic of being and becoming - as its content. What Wenger adds is that learning is a practice in a community, i.e., learning as doing and belonging also have to be taken into consideration. Therefore, our model of literature education aims to elicit the two fundamental practices of writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story that are operationalized as narrating, enacting dialogue and responding to the literary text in the model. Moreover, the community factor is carefully considered in the collaborative pro-duction of meaning and identity in phases 2-6 of the model. Illeris (2017) concludes that Wenger’s “social dimension of learning is tied to community and practice, and creates meaning and identity, and therefore learning presupposes action and par-ticipation and converts them into experience and development” (p. 106). In this sense, the model of literature education to be proposed in part II aims to elicit practices and promote collabora-tion in order to fulfil two major conditions of learning as laid out by Wenger. Illeris (2017, p. 106) rightly criticizes the Wenger model for its imbalance between the pro-cesses of acquisition and interaction. As the acquisition axis of learning is inadequately repre-sented in the model, learning conflicts resulting from an experience that is characterized by its dialectic relationship between the self (acquisition pole) and the other (interaction pole) are absent. In the model design, both acquisition and interaction are carefully considered. Conflicts, especially those caused by students’ identity defense and resistance (Cf. below), are taken into account as catalysts for transformative learning. In his analysis of the learning process, Illeris (2017) not only distinguishes three dimensions of learning, he also establishes a typology of the outcomes of the acquisition process. He differ-entiates between (a) cumulative, (b) assimilative, (c) accommodative, and (d) transformative learning (Illeris, 2017, p. 26). Illeris defines the different types by the criterion of how present impulses are linked to already established structures (Illeris, 2017, p. 36). This implies that “what has already been learned, the already established structures, is just as important for the learning outcome as the new input” (Illeris, 2017, p. 36). In cumulative learning, the learner does not have any developed mental structures to which new impulses from the environment can be related (Illeris, 2017, p. 37). In assimilative learning, new impulses from the environment are incorporated as additions to the already established mental structures (Illeris, 2017, p. 38). In accommodative learning, already established mental structures are restructured so that the learner can link new impulses to them (Illeris, 2017, p. 39). In transformative learning, “several important schemes are reorganised at the same time and with relation to all three dimensions of learning or, in a more direct formulation, when the learning involves the identity or self-under-standing of the learner (Illeris, 2014)” (Illeris, 2017, p. 42). Illeris (2017) summarizes his general understanding of the four different main categories for learning, transfer, and application possibilities: Through cumulative learning, delimited, repetition-oriented knowledge or behavior is developed that can be used in situations that are the same as the learning situation in a decisive way. Through assimilative learning, knowledge or behavior oriented towards application to a subject (or scheme) is developed and can be used in situations that bring the subject or behavior in question to the fore […]. Through accommodative learning, understanding - or interpretation-oriented knowledge or personal pattern of behavior - is developed which can be flexibly applied within a broad range of relevant contexts […]. Through transformative learning, personality-integrated and transversal identity ele-ments are developed on the basis of which associations can be made and used in all subjectively relevant contexts. (p. 47) Learning can be regarded as appropriate when the learner is “in a position to flexibly alternate between the learning types and to activate the type of learning that is relevant in a given situa-tion” (Illeris, 2017, p. 46). We will now address Illeris’ taxonomy in detail. Cumulative learning is peripheral to upper secondary students because a great number of mental schemes have already been developed. In adolescence, constant linking to these established structures occurs. The difference between assimilation and accommodation is rooted in Piaget’s learning theory which is centered on the concept of learning as a process of equilibration: The individual strives to maintain a steady equilibrium in his or her interactions with the surrounding world by means of a continuing adaptation, i.e., an active adjustment process by which the individual adapts himself or herself to his or her environment, as well as attempting to adapt the environment to meet his or her own needs. This adapta-tion takes place in a continuing interaction between precisely the assimilative and the accommodative processes, which tend to balance each other all the time. Assimilation is about taking in something in an already existing structure. […] In learning, this is about incorporating new influences in established patterns of movement, potential ac-tions, structures of knowledge or modes of understanding. In accommodation it is the receiving organism that changes itself in order to be able to take in influences from the environment […]. In learning this is about breaking down and restructuring established patterns of movement, potential actions, structures of knowledge or modes of under-standing in accordance with new impulses. (Illeris, 2017, p. 35) The continuous development of structures in assimilation can be regarded as additional learn-ing (Illeris, 2017, p. 38). Illeris (2017) summarizes the functionality, outcomes, and transfer possibilities of assimilations: In assimilative learning, the learner adapts and incorporates impressions from his or her surroundings as an extension and differentiation of mental schemes built up through earlier learning. The learning products are typically knowledge, skills and experiential opportunities that can be activated in a broad spectrum of situations with certain specific common characteristics, and thus the products can, to a certain extent, be adapted to altered situations with new learning so long as they are subjectively related to the same scheme. In its ‘pure’ form, assimilative learning is characterised by a steady and stable progressive development in which the learning products are constructed, integrated and stabilised. (p. 38) Assimilative learning guarantees a “steady and stable progressive development”. As we have laid out above, the world and its norms and conditions are changeable. Therefore, more flexible types of learning are required (Illeris, 2017, p. 39) to be able to cope with this unstable envi-ronment. It is accommodations that allow these adaptations by partly or wholly reorganizing existing structures: It is a form of learning we can activate when we are in situations in which impulses from the environment cannot immediately be linked to the existing schemes due to some in-consistency or other, something that does not fit. To create the necessary context, we can carry out a whole or partial breakdown of the relevant schemes and, by effecting a change or restructuring, create the basis to allow the impulses to enter in a coherent way. (Illeris, 2017, p. 39) Accommodative learning is transcendent as it goes beyond the given. An example of the expe-rience of inconsistency between the environment and the mental structures is the interpretation of the foregrounding elements in reading/writing the literary story. We can assume that these elements might trigger accommodation whereas backgrounding elements bring about assimila-tion. It is notable that assimilation and accommodation are not separate processes. Flavell (1963) describes their relationship: Adaptation is a unitary event, and assimilation and accommodation are merely abstrac-tions from this unitary reality. – Some cognitive acts show a relative preponderance of the assimilative component; others seem heavily weighted towards accommodation. However, ‘pure’ assimilation and ‘pure’ accommodation nowhere obtain in cognitive life; intellectual acts always presuppose each in some measure. (pp. 48-49). Although assimilation and accommodation are mutually dependent, it is, according to Illeris, still worthwhile to treat them separately in theory because we can see “their different funda-mental conditions and the qualities in the learning to which they give rise” (Illeris, 2017, p. 41). From an incentive perspective, we need to hold that accommodation processes are more de-manding than assimilation or cumulation, they need more mental energy. However, they lead to better results as far as retention and transfer are concerned (Illeris, 2017, p. 42). Like accommodation, transformative learning involves change to the given mental structures and emotional patterns, but it is more far-reaching (Illeris, 2017) as several schemata and pat-terns that are relevant for the learner’s identity are restructured. Regarding poetics, transform-ative learning can be associated with Aristotelean catharsis which transforms the self by means of emotions. Transformative learning is directed at both the cognitive and the emotional aspects of the self, and the transformation process through writing/reading the story is both cognitive and emotional in nature. Transformation is demanding, it might even include psychological pain. The learner “only be-comes engaged in [it] when faced by a situation or challenge exceeding what one can manage on one’s existing personal basis, but which one unavoidably must win over in order to get fur-ther – i.e., a crisis that is often existential in nature (Illeris, 2017, p. 43). As we have learned from Erikson (1968), adolescents are likely to face such crises which are a potential source of transformative learning. Crisis might trigger transformations, but transformations themselves are critical processes that are highly emotional: Cognition has strong affective and conative dimensions; all the sensitivity and respon-siveness of the person participates in the invention, discovery, interpretation, and trans-formation of meaning. Transformative learning, especially when it involves subjective reframing, is often an intensely threatening emotional experience in which we have to become aware of both the assumptions undergirding our ideas and those supporting our emotional responses to the need to change. (Mezirow, 2000, pp. 6-7) As the transformational process directly affects the learner’s identity, this kind of learning ex-perience might be perceived as intimidating. The interpretation of oneself is called into ques-tion. If the challenge that transformative learning poses can be met, Illeris (2014, p. 160) speaks of progressive transformative learning by which personal limitations and difficulties can be overcome and qualitatively new possibilities are developed for the self. If, however, the trans-formations are too demanding, the learner might withdraw from the situation (regressive trans-formative learning) or she might set new and more realistic goals (restoring transformative learning) (Illeris, 2014, p. 160). In any case, the teacher is supposed to support and guide the learner during transformation processes. Let us now turn to the question of how transformative learning is executed by the learner. With reference to Mezirow (1990, 2000), Illeris (2017) explains the functionality of transformative learning: Transformative learning is about being conscious of, considering and reviewing one’s meaning perspectives and the habits of mind that follow from them. This typically oc-curs when one discovers in one or other connection that the meaning perspectives do not fit with what one experiences or does. Then dissonance or a dilemma arises which one feels one must solve, and this takes place first and foremost through reflection, lead-ing to revision or transformation of the meaning perspectives, i.e., through transforma-tive learning. (p. 59; my emphasis) According to Mezirow (2000), the knowledge and understanding that is gained by learning is structured in accordance with meaning perspectives that are the “key frame of reference for our creation of meaning” (Illeris, 2017, p. 59) and that are developed in childhood and youth and mostly function unconsciously as they govern our modes of understanding. To become con-scious of these meaning perspectives, students engage in the practice of writing/reading the life story in phases one and two of the model of literary instruction. During reflection that might be triggered both by writing/reading the life story itself or by reading/writing the literary story, students consider and possibly re-consider their meaning perspectives. If transformative learn-ing takes place, existing meaning perspectives that are fundamental elements of the learner’s identity are reviewed. We hypothesize that reflection might be a mediator between the immediate perception and ex-perience of dissonance and transformative learning. Brookfield (2000) maintains that reflection is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of transformative learning. He advances the idea of critical reflection that might lead to transformation. What is crucial for this critical reflection is “that one constantly questions one’s own problems and reasons, that one questions the assump-tions and reasons of others, and that one questions the contexts that set the stage for the situa-tions and matters to which one relates” (Illeris, 2017, p. 61). We aim to practice Brookfield’s critical reflection that questions the self’s meaning perspectives about oneself, the social and cultural other, and the situational contexts. Students are asked to engage in the reflective prac-tice as outlined by Boud et al. (1985) which is marked by the interplay of action, experience, and reflection during the learning process. As stated above, transformative learning is directed at the learner’s identity, it “most exactly can be understood and defined as ‘all learning that implies a change in the identity of the learner’ [Illeris, 2014, p. 40].” (Illeris, 2017, p. 45). Jarvis (2009) postulates that it is the whole person that learns: Human learning is the combination of processes throughout a lifetime whereby the whole person – body (genetic, physical and biological) and mind (knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, emotions, beliefs and senses) – experiences social situations, the per-ceived content of which is then transformed cognitively, emotively or practically (or through any combination) and integrated into the individual person’s biography result-ing in a continually changing (or more experienced) person. (p. 25) As it is the whole person that self-referentially learns, we are in need of a theory of the person, i.e., the learner in her psychological and social dimensions (Jarvis, 2009, p. 32), to be able to understand the content dimension of learning. In line with Illeris (2003), we propose to concep-tualize the self’s embodied consciousness as identity which serves as the target area of cognitive and emotional learning. We argue for identity as content dimension of transformative learning because it ”spans all the dimensions of learning and mental processes: the cognitive, the emotional, and the social as well as the environmental and societal situatedness of this totality” (Illeris, 2014, p. 160). Identity as compared to personality and self is the most holistic concept because it comprises both the relationship to oneself (individual level) and to the other (social level) (Illeris, 2017, p. 129). Thus, identity can be regarded as the link between the individual and the cultural, social, and societal contexts (Illeris, 2014, p. 161). As identity has an interac-tional dimension, it is compatible with the notion of learning as outlined by Illeris (2017). Be-cause of its interactional nature, identity can be both linked to the transactional writing/reading process and to the interactional learning process. As far as learning is concerned, the individual dimension of identity, i.e., “the experience of a coherent individuality and a coherent life course” (Illeris, 2017, p. 130), corresponds to the acquisition process and the social-practical dimension, i.e., “the experience of a certain position in the social community” (Illeris, 2017, p. 130), matches the interaction process (Illeris, 2003, p. 366). From this it follows that the con-gruence of identity processes (identity as doing) and learning process (learning as doing) ensure the compatibility of the two constructs. In addition, identity meets one more fundamental pre-condition for learning. As the identity concept that was outlined above is dynamic and flexible, learning can take place. As a result, Illeris (2017) integrates the concept of identity into his theory of learning: Thus, from the point of view of learning, identity development can be understood as the individually specific essence of total learning, i.e., as the coherent development of mean-ing, functionality, sensitivity and sociality, and in the learning figure [Figure 10] its core area can be placed around the meeting between the two double arrows that illustrate the two simultaneous processes of learning […] (p. 130) C:\Users\grap\Desktop\illeris_graph_1.png Figure 10: The position of identity in the structure of learning (Illeris, 2017, p. 131) According to Illeris (2014), transformative learning is essential for the adolescent’s identity development: […] transformative learning during youth becomes by degree the means of development and learning concerning the various elements of the identity, at first through very un-steady trials but gradually by means of more consistent thinking and behaving. To deal with transformative learning in youth is both important and demanding for the learners as well as for those who try to help and support them. (p. 159) Therefore, “[c]onfusion is almost a matter of course, and the requirement is to be able to live with this confusion, to be able to manage and handle the incoherent, changing and always risky world of which one is a part” (Illeris, 2003, p. 368). As outlined above, identity formation during adolescence is complicated by fragmentation and dissolution trends. Illeris (2003) thinks that narrative might be a solution to these identity chal-lenges: One of these perceptions focuses on the life story or the individual biography as that which holds the individual together mentally and which thus can be said to form a type of identity (Alheit, 1994; Antikainen et al., 1996; Dominicé, 2000). The self-understand-ing of the late-modern person is held together by his/her perception or narration of his/her life story. The narration is neither a precise nor a truthful account of the actual life course, but a history developed through the constant interpretation and attribution of significance assigned to events and contexts which one subjectively finds important – in the same way as the identity is a more or less coherent entity which, however, constantly develops and is reinterpreted. (pp. 369-370) In conclusion, Illeris ties transformative learning to the individual’s identity, and one form that might be given to identity is the narrative. This interplay of narrative, identity, and learning is the fundamental idea that underlies the design of the model of literature education. At this point, we will briefly remark on Illeris’ (2014) structural concept of identity and its compatibility with narrative-practical identity as proposed with regard to Ricoeur (1992). Illeris (2003) takes Erikson’s (1968) identity theory as a starting point. In his interpretation, Erikson so unambiguously positions identity as something which one acquires oneself, develops, builds up, constructs – or learns. One has, naturally, some genetic dispositions. Identity cannot be just anything at all – but is nonetheless strongly marked by the learning pos-sibilities offered by the life of the individual and the way in which the individual relates to them. The theory also provides a clear picture of identity as a stable formation, which at the same time is susceptible to influence, fundamentally developed through a crisis-laden process that is transformative in nature and the central development process dur-ing the period of youth. [….] Even though there have been clear general changes in the nature of the identity – so far-reaching that some researchers today are of the opinion that the very term is misleading – it is still a process of this comprehensive nature that is the central rationale of learning in the period of youth. (Illeris, 2003, p. 368) Although genetic dispositions are not denied, identity is learned to a large extent. This learning is constrained by the possibilities that are opened up to the learner in her interaction with the cultural and social other. As far as the structure of identity is concerned, identity is both stable and flexible, i.e., it is susceptible to learning which might take the form of transformation during adolescence. Despite considerable societal and social changes, the notion of identity is upheld because it emphasizes that the learning process affects both the cognitive and emotional, and both the individual and social dimensions of the learner. Illeris (2014) aims at establishing “a simple and up-to-date model of the typical identity struc-ture (in Western countries) with consideration for transformative learning” (p. 155). He sticks to the idea of a core identity, or a “biographical identity that ‘normal’ people develop and try to maintain in spite of all tendencies toward instability and fragmentation” (Illeris, 2014, p. 155). The core identity is constituted by “fundamental identity elements such as gender, family rela-tions, environmental conditions, appearance, characteristics, temperament, desires, emotional-ity, and so on and the idea of being a unique and specific person takes form” (Illeris, 2014, p. 156). During adolescence, this core identity is still restructured. Illeris proposes two more layers of identity that are situated around this core identity: (a) the personality layer, and (b) the pref-erence layer. The personality layer mainly deals with the interactional dimension of identity. It is “not so much about the relationship with oneself but rather about how one relates to others, communities and groups, important issues and instances, significant events, and incidents—overall to the outside world, society, and environment of which one is a part” (Illeris, 2014, p. 156). Mezirow’s (2000) meaning perspectives that are changed during transformations are sit-uated at this level. On the personality layer, changes due to sociocultural and societal conditions can be detected. Here is where transformative learning mainly takes place. Finally, the layer of preferences is formed by “all the many things and issues we meet in our everyday life that are meaningful and of some importance to us but not very crucial matters” (Illeris, 2014, p. 157). Routines and automatic reactions in different situations are examples of the preference layer. To sum up, “identity is a complex structure and […] our inclination to make changes in ele-ments of the identity mainly depends on how close to the core identity the changes are subjec-tively experienced to be (Illeris, 2014, p. 157). Illeris (2017) comments on the compatibility of core identity and narrative identity: I do not think that there is any clash between the perception of a core identity and the biographical approach, but only different points of view as the core identity typically includes an essence of the life story and, at the same time, also an essence of the notions of the individual concerning the future. However, from the point of view of education, in this connection it is important to realise that the life story approach can easily come to emphasise the retrospective view because the life story is, of necessity, retrospective. When this is the case, the focus is unilaterally on the background for further develop-ment while the dynamic, progressive factors that can provide the development with power and direction lie in current problems and future perspectives. In his biographicity concept, Peter Alheit is also endeavouring to cross this barrier by noting the interaction between the life story and the current challenges. The initiative does not lie in the ques-tions about ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where do I come from?’, but in questions such as ‘What could be better for me?’ and ‘Where do I want to go?’. (p. 134) We agree that the notions of core identity and narrative identity are compatible. Although the life story is continually reinterpreted, idem-identity can be considered as a more or less stable core. However, we object to the misconception that the life story is retrospective in nature. As we have extensively argued above, temporal ipse-identity encompasses present, past, and fu-ture, and future-oriented initiative is a major component of narrative identity. As a result, nar-rative identity as ipse addresses the question of who I am, and in its temporality it comprises both the questions of where I come from and where I want to go. In the following, we will ask ourselves how identity learning might take place in writing/reading the story. First, we need to hold that writing/reading the story is compatible with Illeris’ learning theory. The transactions of the self with itself (writing/reading the life story) and with the cul-tural other (reading/writing the literary story) constitute the interactional dimension through which acquisition in the writer/reader might take place. As we target the identity of the learner by our model of literature education, we assume that, in addition to assimilations and accom-modations that possibly occur, the acquisition might be transformative in nature. Our model is aiming to enhance self-understanding by engaging students in writing/reading their life stories and in reading/writing literary stories. Based on Ricoeur’s (1992) description of the reading process and its outcome, self-understanding through writing/reading the story is considered as the double detour through the cultural signs. As outlined above, we are well aware of the limitations of this indirect mode of knowledge. Self-deception (Straub 2019a) and the limits of tellability (Thomä, 1998) reduce the epistemological power of writing/reading the story. Ricoeur (1988) hypothesizes that insight into the self is generated through reading literary fic-tion: The self of self-knowledge is the fruit of an examined life, to recall Socrates' phrase in the Apology. And an examined life is, in large part, one purged, one clarified by the cathartic effects of the narratives, be they historical or fictional, conveyed by our culture. So self-constancy refers to a self instructed by the works of a culture that it has applied to itself. (p. 247) The self is educated through the cultural texts that the reader connects to herself. The narrative can bring about self-understanding by an interplay of emplotment and the mimetic activity of generating metaphorical reference. The literary story “reveals a deeper and more radical power of reference to those ontological aspects of our being-in-the-world that cannot be spoken of directly. Seeing as thus not only implies a saying as but also a being as. Ricoeur relates this power of poetic imagination to creatively redescribe and reinvent being to the narrative power of ‘emplotment’” (Kearney, 1989, pp. 16-17). Ricoeur develops his idea of the enlargement of the horizon of existence with regard to Dagognet’s (1973) concept of ‘iconic augmentation’: “literary works depict reality by augmenting it with meaning that themselves depend upon the virtues of abbreviation, saturation and culmination, so strikingly illustrated by emplotment” (Ricoeur, 1984, p. 80). The effect of narrative on the self is that it “augments my power of being-in-the-world” (Kearney, 1989, p. 17). Narrative can lead to insight into the self because the imaginative poeitic play on the principle is exercised during reading/writing the literary story. Self-understanding might also be achieved during writing/reading the life story. Habermas and Köber (2014, p. 158) distinguish various forms of understanding that can be developed during the experience of writing/reading the life story: (a) an increase in knowledge, (b) general in-sights that result from “the individual abstract[ing] from a single experience to a general rule of how the world works” (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 158), and (c) personal insights. It is the personal insights that are potentially self-modifying and that we aim to promote through the model of literature education. Personal insights are provoked by specific experiences and regard the workings or depth of one’s own (or another person’s) personality or the validity of a higher value that should be adopted. This is the most consequential insight because it profoundly affects the view of oneself or one’s basic values and therefore also the way one understands one’s life story […] These insights are the hallmark of a life narrative or AR [autobiographical reasoning] that aims at knowing oneself. (Habermas & Köber, 2014, p. 158) This form of self-implicating understanding affects the learner’s “view of oneself” and – we would like to add – the view of the other. Therefore, personal insights that are generated by expression of the life narrative and its reflection during autobiographical reasoning have an effect on identity. Alheit (2009) argues that the learner might acquire self-understanding during writing/reading the life story through biographical learning. He postulates that important learning can only be understood in relation to the biography of the learner, i.e., her life story (Alheit, 2009, p. 116). Alheit provides us with a phenomenology of biographical learning. He formulates the condition that life is constructed within the dialectic of autonomy (subjectivity) and heteronomy (struc-ture) (Alheit, 2009, p. 124). Life construction is thus an interactional process which is compat-ible with Illeris’ learning theory. It is Alheit’s (2009) basic assumption that life contains the “potential of ‘unlived life’ (Weizsäcker, 1956)” (p. 124), thus establishing one more dialectic that we know from the Ricoeurian concept of identity (1992): the dialectic between actual life and potential life that is essential for agency. If life is seen in its potentiality, “[w]e possess the chance to identify the surplus meanings in our experience of life and to appropriate them for a conscious change in our self- and world-referentiality” (Alheit, 2009, p. 124). We have argued above that the dialectic between actuality and potentiality is bound to the capacity of imagination. Imaginative activity that can detect “surplus meanings” might bring about transformations. Alheit calls this imaginative activity ‘biographical learning’. He explains: Knowledge can only be genuinely transitional if it is biographical knowledge. Solely when specific individuals relate to their lifeworld in such a way that their self-reflexive activities begin to shape social contexts is contact established with that key qualification of modernity, what I have termed elsewhere ‘biographicity’ (Alheit, 1992). Biographi-city means that we can redesign again and again, from scratch, the contours of our life within the specific contexts in which we (have to) spend it, and that we experience these contexts as shapeable and designable. In our biographies, we do not possess all conceiv-able opportunities, but within the framework of the limits we are structurally set, we still have considerable scope open to us. The main issue is to decipher the ‘surplus meanings’ of our biographical knowledge, and that in turn means perceiving the potentiality of our unlived lives. (Alheit, 2009, p. 125) Biographicity as capacity to repeatedly redesign the fundamental shapes of our life within con-texts that are themselves shapeable is reminiscent of the faculty of writing/reading the life story which allows the writer/reader to continually re-interpret her identity. In both concepts, self-reflexivity is not exclusively self-referential, it has an impact on the other. The relationship between the self and the other is reciprocal, the self and the other mutually influence each other. The process of biographical learning that we operationalized as writing/reading the story refers to both oneself and the other. As a result, the learning process is (a) reflexive, it “follows its own individual logic that is generated by the specific, biographically layered structure of expe-rience” (Alheit, 2009, pp. 125-126), and (b) interactive/socially structured. We can conclude with Alheit that biographical learning is “both a constructionist achievement of the individual integrating new experiences into the self-referential ‘architectonic’ of particular personal past experiences and a social process which makes subjects competent and able to actively shape and change their social world (Alheit & Dausien, 2000)” (Alheit, 2009, p. 126). In analogy, identity learning through writing/reading the life story and through reading/writing the literary story comprises acquisition and interaction. The learner transforms given mental structures by means of imagination. These transformations are triggered by the sociocultural context, and these transformations rebound on the sociocultural context. In short, society and culture shape identity, and identity shapes society and culture. A theory of learning that is to be applied in literature education needs to encompass possible barriers to the expected learning. In the following, we will discuss the transformative potential of possible barriers. Illeris (2017, p. 148) discerns barriers in every learning dimension: (a) content: mislearning, (b) incentive: defense, and (c) interaction: resistance. As a consequence of these barriers, intended or possible learning does not occur. In the following, we will address the different types of barriers in detail. Illeris (2017) subsumes barriers to knowledge acquisition under the notion of mislearning: “Mislearning is about learn-ing that does not correspond to what was intended or what was communicated as to content, i.e., mainly errors in relation to the understanding of others, but sometimes also to the intentions or efforts of the learner her- or himself.” (p. 149) Lack of concentration, inadequate explana-tions, and misunderstandings are regarded as sources of mislearning. In the incentive dimension, “[…] learning is prevented or distorted by largely unconscious men-tal mechanisms serving to protect the individual against learning which […] can be threatening, limiting or in some other way places a strain on maintaining mental balance” (Illeris, 2017, p. 150). Various forms of defense mechanisms are distinguished: (a) rejection: the learner does not let the impulses from the interactional processes into her consciousness, (b) blocking: a subjectively important rejection that is repeated, and (c) distortion: the unacceptable impulse is distorted in something acceptable (Illeris, 2017, p. 151). For example, Piaget’s (1962) ‘dis-torting assimilation’ is a defense mechanism that is relevant for our pedagogical endeavor as prejudice can be understood by means of it. Overcoming defense takes a lot of mental energy. A “high degree of security, permissiveness and motivation is required to get over this defence, for to a certain extent it is need for the maintenance of self-worth and identity” (Illeris, 2017, p. 152). On the other hand, progressive, even transformative learning might take place through overcoming defense. General defense mechanisms are operative in late-modern society “that we all have to develop in order to maintain our mental balance in the face of a world that is mentally overwhelming for the individual in many ways” (Illeris, 2017, p. 152). Illeris lists various defense mechanisms, two of which are relevant here: (a) defense mechanism against the volume of new influences and impressions, and (b) defense mechanism against the steady flow of changes (Illeris, 2017). The defense mechanism of everyday consciousness (Leithäuser, 1976) addresses the potentially overwhelming volume of and change through new influences from the environment. Let us start with the threatening amount of environmental impulses. According to Illeris (2017, p. 153), everyday life is fragmented. A variety of social contexts that all seem to have their own systems of understanding impact on the learner who feels that these social spheres are unconnected. As a result, meaning is dispersed. In this situation, routines trigger need repression and postponement. This internal constraint allows the functionality of the self. In addition, these routines “free us from the necessity of keeping ourselves open and candid in every one of the innumerable situations we come across in our everyday life” (Illeris, 2017, p. 153). Thus, routines are a form of distancing from the sociocultural context. Practical routines have their mental counterpart in habits of mind, i.e., everyday consciousness: Corresponding to the practical routines we must also, therefore, rationalize our con-sciousness, and this typically occurs through the development of an everyday conscious-ness that has taken over the place where, previously, coherent religions or other ideolo-gies structured our conception of the diversity of our everyday lives. But just as every-day life has been fragmented into a continuous succession of situations, everyday con-sciousness is not a coherent conception like the ideologies, but is, rather, characterised by fragmentation, stereotypes and unmediated contradictions […] (Illeris, 2017, p. 153). This everyday consciousness contains a “semiautomatic, selective defence against the volume of learning impulses we meet in our everyday lives” and implies “a mental defence against the constant stream of changes we are faced with […]” (Illeris, 2017, p. 165). In our view, the narrative schema might give form to the incoherent and contradictory elements of everyday consciousness. In contrast to Leithäuser’s concept, narrative is a coherent set of principles that might enable the learner to select and synthesize relevant impulses from different sociocultural contexts. Therefore, we argue that identity defense is not only operative when the learner is faced with overwhelming change (Cf. below), but also when she is confronted with a vast vol-ume of input. As we laid out before, the schema can both integrate differences in individual time and social space. Due to the routines and structures of everyday consciousness, the learner can cope with over-whelming impressions. However, she is confined to these practical and mental patterns. For transformative learning to take place, we need to cross the boundaries of habitualized practices and mental schemes. In our conception, the poietic play on the principle can achieve this, thus bringing about accommodations and transformations. Everyday consciousness also includes a defense against changes which are both a learning op-portunity and a strain. Illeris (2017) postulates a type of defense that protects the identity of the self. This “identity defence is established in the form of mental barriers that can catch the in-fluences that may threaten the established identity” (Illeris, 2017, p. 155). This identity defense might be a major barrier to learning: “Thus, identity defence can, in general, be characterised as the most profound and usually also the strongest defence mechanism against learning which, as a rule, is intended by others but not, or only partly, accepted by the person in question.” (Illeris, 2017, p. 156) As stated above, we think that the identity mechanism works both against threatening change and the threatening amount of new impulses. In our view, this defense mechanism might protect the identity against social fragmentation and temporal dissolution by applying the narrative schema. The poietic play on the schema, however, is a fertile source of learning. Defense must be delineated from resistance: In concrete situations it can often be difficult to distinguish between resistance and de-fence against learning, and they can coexist, but there is a deep, fundamental difference that consists in the fact that defence is something that is built up before the situation in which it is expressed, a preparedness that is at one’s disposal, while resistance is some-thing that is mobilised in certain situations where the individual is faced with something that she or he either cannot, or will not, accept. (Illeris, 2017, p. 160) Whereas defense is independent of the situation, resistance is bound to the situation. If the learner resists, she cannot accept the given contexts, conditions, and understandings. As a conflict between oneself and the context, resistance often triggers a defensive accommo-dation process, e.g. the student feels she cannot understand something. But resistance might also lead to accommodations of a more offensive nature with far reaching results, partly because the resistance potential can be a very strong incentive which, in a constructive process, can unite with the life fulfilment potential in an effort to find and develop alternatives to those conditions perceived as unacceptable. […] mental resistance can also encourage learning to a high degree and even be the motive force in a very far-reaching and trans-gressive learning process (Illeris, 2017, p. 162). We can conclude that resistance has the potential for accommodative and transformative learn-ing: […] the learning processes that get their energy from the resistance potential will typi-cally be of a predominantly accommodative nature as well as being strongly emotionally obsessed. This has to do with the overcoming of considerable obstacles for life fulfil-ment, and it will typically involve a reorganisation of both cognitive structures and emo-tional patterns. (Illeris, 2017, p. 161) As far as learning is concerned, resistance will “typically take other paths than the generally recognised and intended ones but can be an important part of personal and societal develop-ment” (Illeris, 2017, p. 165). This means that transformations can be triggered, but not be guided and their outcome not be planned by an intervention in the learning process. Still these trans-formations are essential insights into the self: “Nevertheless, it is often in connection with re-sistance, or at least elements of resistance, that the most important transcendent learning occurs. Personal development in particular […] often occurs through a process characterised by re-sistance.” (Illeris, 2017, p. 162) Institutional education is very important with regard to resistance as school often forms the only context where participants have a realistic opportunity to allow their re-sistance to unfold and to adapt it in a constructive and progressive manner, and that this can be the source of the most far-reaching potential for learning. On the other hand, frustrated resistance will typically be converted into defence and blockings that can hin-der further learning (Illeris, 2017, p. 163). Illeris holds that resistance is probably something that “mostly belongs to the period of youth and can typically play a very important role in the identity development that has its central point in this period. By means of resistance, for example, decisive development and recognition of one’s own opinions, potentials and limitations can take place (Illeris, 2017, p. 163). As the literature classroom is a typical site of resistance with upper secondary students, the model of literature education aims to address these resistances in order to trigger accommodations and transformations that are possible responses of adolescents to their resistances. Illeris concludes that “[…] in principle, new learning can also be a direct part of resistance, while defence must be broken down or transgressed for significant new learning to take place.” (Illeris, 2017, p. 164). Narrative identity defense can be transgressed in the poetic play on the principal that is exercised during writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the story. We believe that creativity can break down defense. In addition, transactional resistance is tack-led in reflection. Finally, let us summarize how learning in writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story shall be promoted by a pedagogical intervention based on a model of literature education. Figure 11 illustrates the two learning processes. Figure 11: Learning through writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story The learning process is situated in a sociocultural framework. This framework encompasses (a) the social context, i.e., the literature classroom (Cf. Wenger’s (1998) communities or practice), (b) the societal context, i.e., the social structures and norms (Cf. Wenger’s (2014) landscapes of practice), and (c) the cultural context, i.e., the texts, intertexts and other cultural artefacts (Cf. Ricoeur’s (1984) traditionality conceptualized as intertextual archive). The learning processes of acquisition and interaction are represented by the red arrows in figure 11. The interactional dimension of learning coincides with the transactional processes between (a) the learner and the life story in writing/reading the life story (transaction I), and (b) the learner and the literary story in reading/writing the literary story (transaction II). It is these transactions where literature education intervenes. Through transaction I, the narrative identity, i.e., the world of the learner, is established. The intervention aims at a transfer of the world of the learner to transaction II (dotted green arrow) in which it is supposed to fuse with the world of the text. The model of literature education seeks to promote learning about oneself and the other, i.e., identity learning that comprises both the content and incentive dimensions of learning. Identity learning is regarded as a “specific type of transformative learning characterised by the involve-ment of self-experience and self-relationing, i.e., the individual relates to him- or herself” (Illeris, 2017, p. 68). In addition, also the experience of and the relations to the other are essen-tial. Although transformative learning is the main focus of the intervention, effects on personal development (assimilations) and a partial restructuring of the self (accommodations) in the con-text of the other are to be expected. The basic Ricoeurian (2005b) capabilities of narrating and being imputed are to be promoted. The faculty of narrating enables the writing/reading the life story and the reading/writing the literary story, and the faculty of being imputed allows the learner to develop self-esteem and autonomy (insight into the self) as well as solicitude and respect (insight into the other). By a joint enhancement of narrating and being imputed, expression-reflexivity can be tied to respon-sibility so that meaning-making in expression-reflexivity does not end up in narcissistic self-ishness (Illeris, 2017, p. 108). As far as form is concerned, coherence (integration of social positions), and self-constancy (integration of present, past, and future) are to be taught. Moreover, the model of literature education seeks to enhance understanding of formal aspects of the text through analytic close reading. As the focus of writing/reading the life story is on the text content, we primarily seek to develop text understanding in reading/writing the literary story. In conclusion, we would like to emphasize that the promotion of imagination is at the heart of the given model of literature education. Writing/reading the story is an instance of the poietic play on the principle that can trigger transformative learning. It is the transformation of mental connections that constitutes identity learning. These transformations can occur in the sche-matic-synthetic interplay of productive and creative imagination. The two stages of our model of literature education attempt to engage the learner in this inter-play of productive and creative imagination. Writing/reading the life story is a transaction of the self with its own story. This practice that we termed interpretive expression above involves two processes: (a) expression, and (b) reflexivity as mirroring process (Illeris, 2017, p. 65). In writing/reading the life story, narrative expression, i.e., the writing component, is dominant here (dark green). In addition, the learner reflectively interprets, i.e., gives meaning by observing, comparing and evaluating, the life story (reading component in light green). Reading/writing the literary story that we termed expressive interpretation above encompasses (a) reflection of the cultural text which is the dominant reading component (dark blue), and (b) expression of the learner (writing component in light blue). In both transactions, writing and reading are not separate, but closely interconnected processes. The agentic status of writing/reading is ‘active receptivity’. The theoretical insights into how learning might take place through the fundamentally imagi-native practices of writing and reading are now to be applied in designing a model for teaching literature whose effects on the learners will be empirically tested. Part II Part II comprises the description of the model of literature education, the validation study, and the intervention study. 6 The model 6.1 Structure Structurally, the model draws on Kreft’s and Frederking’s phasic models of literary education and Goodson’s and Gill’s spiral process of narrative learning. Both Kreft (1977, p. 379) and Frederking (2001, p. 98) postulate three key student operations, each ascribed to a phase: 1. students’ subjective encounter with the text and their realization of preconceptions, 2. objective analysis of the text, 3. application of the text to the students’ life44. The phasic structure is seen as a resolution to the problem of how to reconcile the seemingly opposing didactic principles of student-orientedness and text-orientedness (Frederking 2010, p. 440). We adopt Winkler’s (2015, p. 162) approach that aesthetic experience and analysis are elicited separately first. Sub-sequently, these two processes are linked up and their reciprocal interdependencies are ex-plored. In our model, experiential reading (phase 3) in which the attentional focus is balanced between the text and the student is followed by formal analysis (phase 4) in which the text features occupy center stage. Finally, ideas from the students’ individual reading experiences and from analysis are combined during the literary discussion (phase 5). The issue of the reader’s attentional focus will be taken up when the workings of qualitative attention as disin-terested interest (Stolnitz, 1960) on a continuum of distance and proximity (Bullough, 1912) are outlined in the validation study. 44 As Kreft differentiates between personal and social applications, his model comprises four phases. Goodson and Gill (2011) conceptualize the process of narrative learning as a “spiral of con-struction and reconstruction in a cycle of narration, collaboration and location” (p. 125; my emphasis). The cycle denotes that the structural arrangement is non-hierarchical, all phases are interconnected. ‘Location’ provides a narrative interpretation in the final phase, and deepened understanding reenters the narrative process and is elaborated in the new act of narration (Good-son & Gill, 2011, p. 129). The spiral represents the “endless flux” (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 130) of narrative learning. By adopting this structure, the various phases of the NDR-model are interrelated and the concept of learning is dynamized by defining it as a cumulative process of endless mediation between transformation and consolidation (Cf. Ricoeur’s dialectic of inno-vation and sedimentation) that does not end with the completion of one cycle of the NDR-model. As a result, the given model is devised as spiral phasic model of literary education. The spiral might be understood as a variation of the sequence model; the cycle repeats itself at increasingly higher levels. Illeris (2017) point out that “[a]ll these circle and spiral models have the disadvantage that they indicate a ‘smooth’, evenly progressive sequence – in contrast to the uneven sequence of reality with jumps in learning that are accommodative in nature […]. They also have the unfortunate tendency to indicate that it is the same type of sequence that repeats itself the whole time” (p. 142). As we have outlined in part I, we are well aware of the detours, cutoffs, and impasses of students’ learning paths. We also know that each cycle of the learning sequence is unique and not a mechanical iteration of the same ideas and structures. The spiral model is a simplification of real learning that aims to highlight that the learning process is cu-mulative in nature and that each cycle is an imaginative variation of the given NDR-model. 6.2 Identity-orientation The given model continues the tradition of identity-oriented literature education. The focus on identity in the teaching of literature is also manifest in the Austrian curriculum. I have already made reference to the objective of self-discovery. In addition, students shall reflect on their roles and their own identities during the reading process. In the field of relational identity, they are expected to deal with experiences of alterity. Identity development is intended in creative writing. The impact of media, especially social media, on the students’ identities shall be ex-plored. To conclude, there is ample evidence that the curriculum forces us to take identity into consideration when we design an intervention in literature education. (Neue Lehrpläne AHS-Oberstufe: Deutsch) In the following, I will revisit the tradition of identity-oriented literature education in a parasitic reading to find what is relevant for my theoretical framework. 6.2.1 Identity concepts in literature education As the identity concepts underlying identity-oriented literature education have major implica-tions on how educational interventions are designed, this heterogeneous discursive field is re-viewed first. So, let us ask again what the nature of identity is. Referring to Neisser’s (1988, 1991) aspects of the self, Gallagher (2013) proposes a pattern theory that might organize this complex discursive field by “help[ing] to clarify the various interpretations of self as compatible or commensurable instead of thinking of them in opposi-tion, and [by helping] to show how various aspects of self may be related across certain dimen-sions” (p. 1). Self is called a cluster concept. A “certain pattern of characteristic features con-stitutes an individual self” (Gallagher, 2013, p. 3). Gallagher suggests a tentative list of eight identity aspects (Gallagher, 2013, pp. 3-4): (a) minimal embodied aspects, (b) minimal experiential aspects, (c) affective aspects, (d) intersubjective aspects, (e) psychological/cogni-tive aspects, (f) narrative aspects, (g) extended aspects, and (h) situated aspects. The author holds that no one feature is constitutive of identity in an essentialist sense, the pattern cannot be reduced to one aspect for logical reasons (Gallagher, 2013, p. 4). The question of how the aspects can be combined so that they constitute a particular pattern that counts as self remains unanswered (Gallagher, 2013). In part I, we have advocated a notion of identity that is located at the intersection of the personal and social dimensions of the self and covers various aspects from Gallagher’s list. The personal dimension of the concept proposed in part I addresses (f) narrative and (d) intersubjective/dia-logical aspects, and the social dimension includes (h) situational aspects. In our view, (a) bodily and (b) experiential aspects have to be intertwined if experience is considered as necessarily embodied (Cf. Ricoeur’s (1992, p. 150) corporeal condition of narrative). Both aspects can be treated from a narrative stance. The first-person perspective is ubiquitous in the personal narra-tive which also allows actions in the peri-personal space. Mineness of the experience is a central feature of ipse-identity, and ipse also accounts for the person’s agency. In our model, personal-ity traits (which are partly (c) affective in nature) and continuity as (e) psychological/cognitive aspects are explained within a narrative framework. In Gallagher’s sense, we see these different aspects of the self as compatible. On closer exam-ination of the model proposed in this thesis, a covert hierarchy of aspects is disclosed: narrative, intersubjective/dialogical and situated aspects are super-ordinated. Narrative seems to serve a fruitful integrative function in the field of identity aspects, and in combination with a social dimension as outlined by Côté and Levine (2002), it is capable of addressing most aspects of Gallagher’s pattern theory, at least to some extent. But this theoretical solution to the problem of dissonance within the discursive field does not amount to a proof of the practicality and validity of the proposed notion. The effectiveness of the heuristic figure of thought, the socio-narrative identity (Cf. part I), is to be empirically proven in the field of literature education. In contrast to my identity concept, Kreft (1977) and Frederking (2010) as well as Beach et al. (2015) and Thein et al. (2017) mainly resort to the situated manifestation of identity, thus seri-ously limiting the scope of literature education to mainly social aspects of identity. Habermas’ (1974) model of identity development which is, in Mead’s (1927/1968) sense, in-teractional underlies Kreft’s identity-oriented literature education. Social roles, social norms, social expectations and social interactions are the heuristic framework in which Habermas un-folds his theory of identity development. Analogously, Frederking (2001, p. 94) highlights the importance of Mead’s identity theory for literature instruction. Therefore, a prevalence of the interactional dimension of identity with a primary focus on the external influencing factors is evident in the German strand of identity-orientation. In consequence of their sociocultural approach (Holland et al, 1998), Thein et al. (2017) reject the static and autonomous self and conceptualize identity as relational. In their view, identity serves a synthetic function on the interactional plane, it can consistently link up the multiple social selves scattered over diverse social worlds. Beach et al. (2015) define identity “as the performance of practices grounded in social and cultural history and improvised upon in par-ticular social situations through the positioning of the self and other” (p. 5). This definition draws on Hyland (2012) who perceives that: [i]dentity not belonging within the individual person but between person and within so-cial relations; as constituted socially and historically (Vygotsky, 1978). Identity is not the state of being a particular person but a process, something which is assembled and changes over time throughout interactions with others […] who we are, or rather who we present ourselves to be, is an outcome of how we routinely and repeatedly engage in interactions with others on an everyday basis. (pp. 2-3). Here, identity is a socially determined practice which is iteratively performed, but which has a unique manifestation in the singular event that is brought about by improvisation. Through the performative act of positioning, identity is constructed. According to the position metaphor, “identities are produced in and through not only activity and movement in and across spaces but also in the ways people are cast in or called to particular positions in interaction, time and space” (Moje, 2009, p. 430). Power relations within the ‘figured worlds’ (Holland et al., 1998) are thought to shape positionings. Although temporal traces can be revealed in the sociocultural history that grounds the changes over time, the spatial and relational anchoring of the argumen-tation is prevalent. Ego identity underlying personal identity (Côté & Levine, 2002) is thrust aside, identity is principally an effect of the dominant social world.45 45 This marginalization of ego identity is to be radicalized in Gergen’s idea (1991) of the related self (see below). Beach et al. (2015, pp. 18-24) distinguish five key practices that are relevant for the construction of identity in literature education. They define such identity practices as “those specific actions that students employ to acquire competencies, defined as those abilities, knowledge, and skills constituting identity construction” (Beach et al., 2015, p. 16). A few lines down, identities are constructed “through acquiring and employing these identity practices” (Beach et al., 2015, p. 16). Let us try to disentangle the two quotes. Citation one says that practices are students’ ac-tions which they perform in order to acquire an ability to act which in turn constructs identity. Citation two states that identity is constructed by the practice. This raises the question whether it is the practice itself or the ability to act which students acquire through the practice that con-structs identity. A second question ensues: How does learning take place? During the acquisi-tion of competencies as agency, or during the acquisition of practice as act? This lack of con-sistency, however, does not obliterate the basic performative message: By practicing identity, identity is constructed. This strictly performative idea is embellished: By practicing identity in a specific way, the specific ‘identity as’ - the identity which fulfils the expectations of a prede-termined social role - is constructed. The authors continue that “[t]hese practices are mediated through uses of language, embodied performances, texts, images […]” (Beach et al., 2015, p. 16). We already know that the text has a mediating function from Ricoeur (1992). It is noteworthy that, by fulfilling the mediating function, literature becomes compatible with identity construction. By attributing this function also to performances and images allows us to treat significant identity displays among adoles-cents analogously to narration. Krammer (2013) elaborates on the performative aspect of identity. In his view, identity is “we-der die Summe der Merkmale, die ein Individuum ausmachen, noch eine Sammlung freistehen-der Attribute, derer sich das Individuum beliebig bedienen kann, sondern vielmehr eine perfor-mative Konstruktion, die permanent neu erstellt und aktualisiert wird" (Krammer, 2013, p. 130). Identity is not the sum of traits or a collection of attributes the individual can choose from, but identity is an act which is permanently acted out, and which is revised when performed in the particular event46. Krammer (2013) emphasizes the constructive nature of performative identity in his reference to the concept of (un)doing identity (Krammer, 2013, pp. 8-9). Although ‘doing identity’ is mainly determined by social factors (orientation towards the group’s knowledge and expectations) and cultural factors (scripts), it is not a totally inactive act on the part of the indi-vidual. Undoing identity means the deconstruction of identity norms, thus reexamining the po-tentialities of agency.47 46 We already know this performative figure of thought from the identity concept as put forward by Beach et al., (2015), see above. 47 I will cover the performative approach to identity in more detail in my analysis of the transformative aspect of literature. Krammer (2013, p. 45) also takes up the Humean tradition of identity as illusion by conceptu-alizing identity as fiction. The identity constructions do not fulfil any natural or epistemological conditions, but they have historically developed and are socioculturally formed. According to Krammer, literature underscores this conception. Texts write down identities and account for them, thus reproducing and reflecting identity knowledge, and they are also fields for experi-mentation for possible identities (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 148), thus generating identity knowledge. Again, we can find the reactive-active pattern of identity towards the external (Cf. Hall’s (2007) ‘active receptivity’). As outlined in Part I, Ricoeur (1992) explains how the organizational structure of narrative is applicable to the constitution of the self in order to create coherence. Remember: life is like a story, not a story. It is a comparison, not a metaphor. By resorting to literature as a piece of evidence for his hypothesis of identity as fiction, Krammer suggests an analogy of the per-formativity of the literary text and identity performance. Life is like a performance. If literature is studied from a narrative stance as I do throughout my thesis, conceptualizing identity as pri-marily narrative is preferable. Krammer, however, views both literature and identity from a performative perspective. The line of reasoning is very similar to Ricoeur’s, but he uses a dif-ferent lens. Following Gallagher (2013), I consider narrative and performative identity constructs as com-patible. Narrating is a speech act and therefore not only semiotic but also performative. Perfor-mances, on the other hand, are inherently semiotic processes. With regard to agency, both no-tions share a strong constructive component. In addition, both narrative and performative con-cepts of identity can be classified as flexible, and both allow for multiplicity. Linking narrative and performative stances could be particularly useful in explaining adolescents’ media stories on social networking sites. Krammer (2013, p. 129) seemingly adds one aspect to the identity concept through his reading of discourse theory. He supports the claim that difference must be predominantly sought within identity, not between identity (Trinh, 2010, p. 163). But this idea is not new to the narrative paradigm. Ricoeur’s (1992, p. 141) synthesis of the heterogeneous recognizes the discordant elements within concordance on the level of the emplotment of life. To conclude, the interactional approaches to identity-oriented literature education partly miss the agentic aspect of personal identity which is, in my view, constitutive of identity develop-ment in adolescence. Although phases 1 and 3 in Kreft’s (1977) and Frederking’s (2010) models are identity-oriented, they mainly trigger reactive responses to the text and fail to activate the students’ production of their life stories. But what can the performance paradigm accomplish in the field of identity-oriented literature education? First, Austin’s speech act theory (1962) can explain how performative language creates the diegeses. The problem of reference that has troubled the discourse of mimesis for so long seems to vanish. In addition, meaning is no longer necessarily linked to the intention of the individual, but to cultural and social norms. To sum up, literary language is both liberated from the author’s intention and the representation of the world. Second, performativity shows us how cultural and social conventions shape identity, or, to cite a different jargon, how the power of discourse molds identity, and how the citation of the norm can transform the individ-ual and culture itself. But performativity also poses problems. First, the reality status of the performatively con-structed world of the story is precarious. Whereas Austin’s act constructs a new permanent social reality, the reality of the story world is temporary, dependent on the reader’s application. Moreover, performativity is instantaneous. This specific type of temporality is incompatible with the concept of literature as act. Second, the competing models have different implications for the question of representation. In Austin’s view, literary language creates a self-reflexive diegesis, representation is exchanged for performativity. On the other hand, the imitative aspect of representation sneaks in through the back door by the influence norms exercise on constructs they shape in Butler’s concept. So let us consider the tensions between the performative and the constative for a moment (Culler, 2000, p. 512). Iser (1993) has a historical view on the relationship of constative mimesis and performance: “Performance has to compensate for what the classical concept of mimesis lost when both its connection to a closed world order and its intimate relation to the dignified object of represen-tation were broken off.” (p. 287) In modern literary criticism, the notion of representation has become questionable. Representation is no longer equaled with the passive imitation of nature or rigidly organized societies. Ricoeur (1981) ventures to “form the paradoxical idea of a pro-ductive form of mimesis” (p. 29), thus connecting performativity and representation. Although his concept of a tripartite mimesis is grounded in an imitation of action, he stresses the proces-sual nature of mimesis which comes to a close in the reader. Reference in this view is non-descriptive, mimesis produces its own world it refers to (Iser, 1993, p. 290). Performativity and representation are not dichotomous (Häsner et al., 2011, p. 70), but complementary. Represen-tation is performative in the sense that it is constructive, not imitative; and performance is ref-erential in the sense that it is embedded in cultural representations, it does not create ex nihilo. To sum up, narrativity and performativity are different stances on the text. From the narrative standpoint, we see representations, structure, the sign, and the meaning as a reference to the absent. From the performative standpoint, we see presentation, process, the material, and the simulation of presence. With reference to de Man, Culler (2000) states that “the moments that show us language at its most characteristic are utterances that exhibit a paradoxical or self-undermining relationship between the performative and constative, between what they do and what they state” (p. 510). Of course, meaning and the workings of rhetoric can diverge, but they need not. If they clash, we can differentiate them more easily. There can only be fertile tension if we both see the constative and the performative, if we do not substitute the one for the other, if we do not superimpose the one onto the other, and if we connect them on the intratextual level of syntax, like Culler does, and on the level of the text reception. Häsner et al. (2011, pp. 84-87) coined the notion of functional performativity to address text effects beyond meaning. Whereas from the constative stance the readers cognitively decode signs, the performative standpoint allows them to experience sensual and emotional effects of the material texture. By combining the two views, both the noetic meaning and the aisthetic effect48 can be grasped. In this spirit, the intervention employs practices of analysis during which meaning is deciphered, and it fosters aesthetic experience during which effects are pro-duced. By interweaving narrative temporality and performative spatiality, the tension of the constative and the performative is palpable. 48 The aisthetic effect is brought about by the production of presence (Gumbrecht, 2004). Presence is a spatial category which denotes the proximity to the object. This is highly reminiscent of Heidegger’s (1996) de-distanc-ing: “De-distancing means making distance disappear, making the being at a distance of something disappear, bringing it near. Da-sein is essentially de-distancing. As the being that it is, it lets beings be encountered in near-ness.“ (p. 97) After we have reviewed different identity concepts from the field of literature education, let us briefly turn to the prescriptive notion of identity as student. The idea of the prototypical student in identity crisis (Erikson, 1968) is still covertly operative. Beach et al. (2015, p. 6) hold that universal view of adolescent identity as deficient status must be abandoned, and Krammer (2013, p. 13) confirms this view. Students’ actual identities are supposed to be described before the intervention starts, they shall not be standardized on abstract grounds. To be true to its label, identity-oriented literature education must take the individual’s identity seriously although identities are homogenized by cultural processes. Therefore, Thein et al. (2017) demand that areas of inquiry shall start with students’ local identity experiences. They suggest beginning the process of developing identity-focused literature instruction by conduct-ing exploratory ethnographic interviews and observations to learn about the students’ identities and how their social contexts shape their identities (Thein et al., 2017, p. 78). Collecting quan-titative data might be an alternative to the authors’ qualitative approach. In the validation study, data on reading habits and orientations were collected, but the study fails to address character traits. Djikic et al. (2009) and Kuijpers et al. (2019), however, measure ‘openness to experience’ (McCrae, 1987) and have proved that traits are relevant in the field of reading fiction. The claim that the design process in literature education shall start with students’ identity ex-periences is in line with the findings of Breen et al. (2017) that there is “a tendency for congru-ence between the themes that stand out as personally salient for us in books and on screens and those that are dominant in our life stories” (p. 256). We see in the text what is dominant in our experiences. The congruence of dominance in life with salience in texts corroborates the design principle of personal relevance which is assumed to be one factor in the influence stories exer-cise on the self. This principle that also has implications for text selection will be outlined be-low. 6.2.2 Social effects on identity What we learned from the sociocultural stance is that identities are constructed within a social context. Therefore, identity concepts must be revised due to changing social parameters (Frederking, 2010, pp. 429-435). An open structure of identity (Straub, 2019) is regarded as the appropriate answer to the three trends of individualization, pluralization and medialization49 (Krammer 2013a, pp. 26-27). 49 Although media products are cultural in nature, medialization is, according to Gergen (1991), to be treated as social phenomenon. Beck’s (1986) influential individualization theory says that there is an increasing tendency of the individual having to organize social life in late modern societies. Life scripts have lost their normative power, resulting in a multitude of biographical possibilities. Socialization patterns available to the individual multiply because regulatory significance of norms for different social and cultural settings is minimized. As a consequence of this process of social pluralization in which alterity enters stage, it is the individual’s task to synthesize divergent experiences into a consistent biographical identity by way of narration, performance and self-presentation without reference to socially confirmed horizons of meaning. In this self-organized learning process, a unique, fragile biography is constructed. This biography needs to establish not only social con-sistency, but also permanence across temporal change. As we have outlined in part I, narrative thus can fulfil a twofold integrative function: continuity across changing life trajectories and consistency of different social situations (Habermas & Reese, 2015, p. 173). In conclusion, individualization and pluralization prioritize a specific paradigm of biographical learning which aims at creating temporal and social coherence. Gergen (1991) has very early on suggested that the extensive use of socializing technologies increasingly endangers the concept of the authentic self. He holds that the new technologies mediate the self’s relationships with itself and others. His discovery that the self’s existence is inevitably related to external images is accurate for contemporary Western adolescents. The necessity to conform to emergent medial life scripts which run counter to the pluralization mechanisms described above leads to a dependency of the self on social norms. In addition, the logic of the new interactional media requires the pictorial enactment of the self not just to con-form to conventions, but to be recognized, be “liked” by others so that the identity drafts are validated. Gergen (1991) summarizes the impact of this social saturation: “[It] furnished us with a multiplicity of incoherent and unrelated languages of the self. For everything we ‘know to be true’ about ourselves, other voices within respond with doubt and even derision” (p. 6). Whether the population of the self by the external images and the concomitant need of approval for these images renders our life stories incoherent, as Gergen argues, or the media life scripts provide us with new opportunities for creating coherence, further research must show. Gergen distinguishes three stages of societal transition due to media use. In successive order, the self experiences itself as (a) a strategic manipulator, (b) a pastiche personality, and (c) a relational self. First, the strategic manipulator is alienated from itself and others, roles are acted out for social gain, relationships are multiplied through technology, face-to-face encounters become less important, the self loses the security of a unified self. Second, the pastiche person-ality is characterized by a lack of the biographical dimension: “All [rewards] are possible if one avoids looking back to locate a true and enduring self, and simply acts to full potential in the moment at hand” (Gergen 1991, p. 150). Life scripts are disempowered (Cf. pluralization), many forms of self-expression are possible in which the boundary between the real and the presented self are negligible. This multiplicity does not put strain on the self, on the contrary, the self enjoys the vast opportunities of liberation from cultural norms and from the narrow interpretation of self based on consistency and continuity. Third, the relational self is a product of its encounters with others. As a result, the individual is “a participant in a social process that eclipses one’s personal being” (Gergen 1991, p. 156). Identity must be permitted by the other, heteronomy is total, the personal dimension of identity is obliterated. Gergen, however, defends his ‘emancipatory’ concept of the relational self because self-centredness disappears and alter-ity no longer poses a problem but is equated with identity. Côté and Levine (2002) detect that Gergen was “correct in his identification of the pervasive effects of advanced technologies on social relationships and people’s experiences” (p. 20). They argue that the description of the saturation process is appropriate: “Westerners have moved from having the potential for a rich interior life with little external stimulation to having the potential for an exterior life with little internal integrity” (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 29). But they are skeptical of his utopian claims about the relational self because inner resources are no longer relevant and self-determination is totally excluded from the concept, thus opening the doors for manipulation of the self during identity construction. For our case, it is of minor importance whether the description of the succession of stages closely mirrors actual social change and at which stage the majority of today’s adolescents are. What matters here is that we realize from Gergen’s analysis of the different forms of self-experience that the saturation process has a deep impact on identity construction. Contrary to Gergen’s view, the interior dimension, however, must not be excluded from a theoretical model which aims at comprehensively describing the workings of identity although students increasingly tend to be occupied with their exterior me-dial lives. I would like to make one final remark on medialization. Habermas and Reese (2015, pp. 194-195) hypothesize that the nature of the new forms of biographical self-presentation (e.g. micro-blogging) has an impact on autobiographical reasoning. It can be concluded that the way stu-dents express themselves influences their temporal arrangement of the life narrative. Therefore, the challenges of temporality and performance posed by the given societal trends must be seen in their reciprocal interrelations. What do we learn from these social trends for the design of the theoretical model? The societal processes impact on the possibilities and ways adolescents author their self, and they must be supported when they make the “reflexively organized endeavour” of “sustaining […] coherent, yet continuously revised, biographical narratives” (Giddens, 1991, p. 5). Relationships are many, but many are not real. The pictorial history is rich, but life is all about present perfor-mance. On the one hand, traditional life scripts vanish, on the other hand, adolescents have to conform to the new media scripts. Identity is the project of the individual, but the individual is entangled in the net of recognition. Enactment is other-oriented joy, self-expression a burden-some opportunity, a constructive liberating act on the verge of self-effacement. Antinomies seem to be ubiquitous in adolescents’ identity projects. The present intervention tries to take up the challenges of individualization, pluralization, and medialization. The first cycle deals with real relationships and their meaning for our identities. In autobiographical writing, students explicitly engage with the temporal dimension of life. In addition, students construct identities in their narrative projects that reflect the new media scripts, forms of enactment and the concomitant recognition effect. 6.2.3 Cultural effects on identity Ricoeur’s (1992) ‘detour by way of objectification’ (p. 313) is an indirect mediated path to the self as an alternative to immediate reflection on selfhood (Venema, 2002, p. 411). By means of narrative literature, which is a privileged form of objectification, identity can be explored. Before we investigate the influence of literature on identity, I need to remark on the fact that the theory of literature education scarcely takes the reciprocal nature of the relationship of lit-erature and identity into account. The connection is perceived as unidirectional, the question of what the reader’s identity means for the response is neglected. In the field of the scientific study of literature, Kuijpers et al. (2019) have explored if character traits predict a specific form of reading experience, namely absorbed reading. With regard to the ‘congruence of dominance in life with salience in texts’ assumption explicated above, readers predominantly see in the text what is important in their lives, thus reiterating the effect of identity on literature on a thematic plane. This has an implication for literature education. By opening up new perspectives on life through identity work (phases 1 and 2 of my model), hitherto hidden layers of the text are possibly revealed. Now, we will shift direction and consider the question of how literature influences the reader’s identity. Before entering the tradition of identity-oriented literature education, we will take two glimpses at literary theory that might be relevant here. Jauss (1982, p. 90) argues that the emo-tional and cognitive response to a literary text during the aesthetic experience necessarily leads to the reader being involved in a reflection of her qualitative identity, i.e., her relations to herself and the world. Jauss’ claim that a specific form of experience inevitably causes some impact on the reader’s identity calls for empirical investigation as it, if true, would have a major impli-cation for literature education in the way that students must be given the opportunity to experi-ence texts aesthetically. Therefore, the effects of experiencing a text in the aesthetic mode (Cf. phase 3 of the NDR-model) on the reader’s identity will be measured in the given intervention study. Brokerhof et al. (2018) propose a theoretical model that attempts to explain how fictional nar-rative experience impacts the dialogical self. They establish their theory on the basis of the Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans, 2001). As the label implies, Hermans highlights the im-portance of dialogue among the different social I-positions, but he upholds the unity of the self by resorting to a “multivoiced, narratively structured self” (Hermans, 2014, p. 139). This nar-ratively structured I has the “capacity imaginatively to endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relation between positions can be established. The voices function like interacting characters in a story” (Hermans, 2001, p. 248). The narrative overtones cannot be ignored, nar-rative provides the structural function of the coherent plot, and the I-positions work as charac-ters in this plot. So, the difference between the Dialogic Self Theory and Ricoeur’s narrative identity is in focus. Whereas narrative identity theory highlights the narrative organization of identity, Dialogic Self Theory stresses the dialogic interaction of different social positionings. As narrative identity has a dialogical dimension, the ‘synthesis of the heterogeneous’, and Di-alogic Self Theory has a narrative dimension, the structure of the I, the two theories are com-patible, and the findings of Brokerhof et al. (2018) can be applied within the narrative paradigm. The authors elaborate on three pathways through which cultural stories influence identity: (a) personal pathway: Fictional characters become a role model or possible I-position, thus adding a fictional role model or a possible self. It can be assumed that the personal pathway is closely linked to the process of identification. (b) cultural pathway: Narrative themes are incorporated in the self, narrative structures of fiction are used for constructing identity. (c) reflective pathway: The narrative defamiliarizes readers from their daily routines (Miall & Kuiken, 1994), thus triggering a deeper understanding of the I-positions and an active search for alternatives to dominant I-positions. (Brokerhof et al., 2018, pp. 35-44) What we learn from Brokerhof et al. (2018) for the design of our model is that we should pro-mote students’ identification with characters so that they enter the personal pathway. Students compare their lives to the ones in the story world in phase 4. In addition to the analytical ap-proach, students perform identification creatively when they engage in their narrative projects in phase 6. Furthermore, thematic relevance should guide text selection. This precept is em-braced in the design principle of personal relevance. The analysis should also be directed to narrative models that are applicable to identity construction. These models are investigated in an intertextual analysis of various cultural artefacts in phase 4 and their personal relevance is examined during the literary discussions in phase 5. Finally, defamiliarizing text stimuli should be critically reflected, what is exercised during the reflection phase (Cf. identity practice no. 4, Beach et al., 2015). In the following, I will briefly summarize what the leading exponents in the field of identity-oriented literature education think about the effects of literature on the reader’s identity. Sumara (2002) confirms that knowledge about one’s identity is not primarily gained through introspection, but through “focused attention given to someone else’s life” (p. 155), literary engagement being an example of this “someone else’s life”. Engagement is characterized as “interpretive pedagogical practice” (Sumara, 2002, p. 21) which “functions to create experience of self-identity” (Sumara, 2002, p. 8). The act of reading is regarded as Foucauldian ‘technology of self’ that “contributes strongly to how they [in our case the students] understand themselves, their relations with others, and their contexts” (Sumara, 2002, p. 160).50 The interpretations as results of the students’ practice “participate in the ongoing development of the reader’s self-identity” (Sumara, 2002, p. 29). In sum, Sumara expounds three effects of literature on identity: (a) literature creates the experience of identity, (b) literature adds to our understanding of iden-tity, and (c) literature plays a part in identity development. 50 It must be noted that Sumara’s practice is reminiscent of Beach et al. (2015). The focus, however, is on the hermeneutic process of interpretation that the practice entails. 51 This is highly reminiscent of Greenblatt’s (1980) dictum: “Self-fashioning is always, though not exclusively, in language” (p. 9). Kreft (1977, p. 11) highlights the importance of literature for the identity development as ex-plicated by Habermas (1974). As the formation of a coherent identity is no longer a natural process guided by norms integral to society, pedagogical intervention in language arts classes have to support identity construction (Kreft, 1977, pp. 217-218) by developing students’ cog-nitive, linguistic, interactive and aesthetic competences (Kreft, 1977, p. 85). Herwig (1980) explains why literature education lends itself to the goal outlined by Kreft. Her argumentation is based on Krappmann’s (1969) distinction of four abilities which further the construction of a coherent identity in his model of ‘identity balance’: (a) empathy, (b) role distance, (c) ambi-guity tolerance, and (d) self-representation (Krappmann, 1969, pp. 132-134). As far as empathy is concerned, narrated life can be understood from the subjective first-person perspective of characters. In literary discussion, not only the characters’ views, but also other students’ stances can enhance perspective taking and empathy (Herwig, 1980, p. 26). In addi-tion, responses to literary texts are occasions for self-presentation which might trigger self-insight (Herwig, 1980, p. 28). Herwig underlines the importance of literary discussions in which students can voice, reflect on and discuss their subjective viewpoints. Spinner (2001) extends the repertoire of self-representation in literature education by advocating a creative writing ap-proach to identity-orientation. In his view, identity is constructed in51 and through language. Students’ personal texts are regarded as objectivations of the self in which they recount their experiences, wishes, dreams in diverse situations and forms (Spinner 1980, p. 74), thus creating their verbal selves by means of narrative. Reading texts may also result in the experience of alterity (Herwig, 1980, p. 25). Here two levels of this experience of alterity must be distinguished: (a) alterity of the characters and the diegesis, (b) fundamental alterity of literature itself due to its specific configuration and linguis-tic status as a cultural form. In the face of alterity, students can be taught to employ strategies of resolving ambiguities. Furthermore, students can experiment with different roles if they adopt a stance of openness to alterity, thus distancing themselves from their habitual behavior in real life. Implications for the design of the model need not be ignored. Literary discussion and the pro-duction of creative texts are essential methods of how literature might exert its effects on iden-tity. Autobiographical writing is the basis for the intertextual comparison of the life story and the literary text by which self-insight is possibly yielded. Furthermore, openness to the experi-ence of alterity seems vital for identity construction. Teaching students how to switch to an experiential mode of reading which opens up the reader to the text is thus a prerequisite for role distance and ambiguity tolerance. In contrast to Kreft (1977), Thein et al. (2017) hold that literature should not be treated “as a tool for identity development, but as a platform for exploring socioculturally constructed dis-courses and narratives that inform the continual negotiation52 of identity as one is positioned and positions oneself in and among various social, cultural, and institutional contexts” (p. 74). The paradigm shift from developmental psychology to discourse theory is evident in the quote. Although social interactions are undoubtedly essential for identity learning, i.e., identity must be constructed in social encounters, one need not diminish the developmental temporal axis to iterative succession (Cf. “continual”) without any teleological trajectory because biographical change necessarily happens in time and does not necessarily subvert the narrative purpose of continuity. Development does not imply the accomplishment of a specific prototypical identity (Thein et al., 2017, p. 71), but capacity change (Illeris, 2017) under the condition of coherence. 52 I would like to emphasize the precarious state of the metaphor of “negotiation” as its meaning is not explicated by the authors. It is unclear how the exchange process as denoted by negotiations is to be understood in the realm of identity. (a) Alternative perspectives: This practice inspires the practice of dialogue as out-lined below and is employed in phases 2,4, and 5. (e) Identity development over time: Students work on the processes of identity learning when they retell their stories from phase 1 during the reflection phase. (Beach et al., 2015, pp. 18-24) (b) Connections across people and texts: This practice is implemented during expe-riential reading in phase 3 and during the contextualized analysis in phase 4. (c) Identity across different social worlds: This practice is realized in phase 2. Nar-rative in interaction focuses on the social embeddedness of identity, the multi-plicity of selves across the social spheres and the integrating function of narra-tion. (d) Critical analysis of texts and world: The question of how society and culture support or limit the students’ identity construction is addressed in the reflection phases on narrative change. Let us know investigate how the metaphorical “platform” influences the reader’s identity. Ac-cording to Beach et al. (2015), “students gain a conscious and critical awareness of how they and others are positioned in a range of social situations” (p. 2). This consciousness is a pre-requisite for “imagining new ways of constructing, responding to, and critiquing texts that might redisposition identities” (Beach et al., p. 7). A double influence of the text is discernible. First, the reading of the text reveals that identity is constructed, performed, and negotiated through language (Beach et al., p. 2). Second, new types of response emerging from a changed awareness of identity are potentially transformative. The effect of literature on the reader is not produced by the reader’s identification with charac-ters and the analysis of their psychological development, but by the “study of history, culture, and institutions portrayed in literature that fosters an understanding of how identities are shaped and shift through changes in institutions, cultured values, and generational values” (Beach et al., 2015, p. 23).The description of values and power structures raises the readers’ conscious-ness of how they are positioned in the social world. Literature poses a challenge to the everyday understanding of identity and makes the readers reflect on their social positions. Beach et al. (2015, p. 7) argue that new ways of response that are grounded in this heightened awareness might cause the reader’s transformation. This raises the question of how this effect might be produced in literature education. Beach et al. (2015, p. 16) hypothesize that we construct identities by employing identity practices which are, in turn, mediated by texts. Literature therefore exerts an indirect effect on identity through identity practices. The five key identity practices to be implemented in class are relevant for my intervention design: The material products from identity practices are termed “displays of competence” (Beach et al., 2015, p. 17), These displays demonstrate the use of certain identity practices.53 53 Analogously, the artefacts which the participants produce in the present intervention are considered manifesta-tions of the practices of narration, dialogue and response. 54 Quoting identity is an instance of the concept of ‘doing identity’ outlined above. Beach et al. (2015, p. 7) claim that response to literature is potentially transformative, but they do not explain how these changes in identity are produced. Krammer (2013, pp. 11-12), who leaves the emporium and enters the stage, explains how the transformation is brought about in reference to Butler (1991, 1993ab). It must be noted here that the concept of performance is revised by Butler. Whereas Austin (1962) rethinks what language is, Butler proposes a model of thinking about crucial social processes, e.g. the importance of the corporeal act and the nature of identity. She tackles the questions of how identity is constructed and what role social norms play in that construction. In addition, she does not conceive of the performance as the accom-plishment of a singular act if felicity conditions are met, but she defines performance as the repetition of conventional procedures. This modification does not leave the common ground of the citation of the norm that is essential for both Austin and Butler, but the change of the prag-matic paradigm must be kept in mind when we delve into Butler’s process of transformation. Performative acts (which include, according to Krammer (2013, p. 130), speech acts, enact-ment, embodiment) do not only simultaneously designate and perform the act, thus creating a reality by naming it, but they also alter the world. For identity, this means: By doing identity, this identity comes into being, and this identity changes. The doing is the enactment of the conditions. The conditions are socially established ways of being. Socially established means that the condition is based on social conventions, habitual ways of doing something in culture. Butler (1993b) summarizes: “Performativity is a matter of repeating the norms by which one is constituted […]” (p. 22). Due to its entanglement in cultural and ideological systems, identity is interpreted as the effect of discursive practice in which enactment can bring about change. But the transformative effect still remains obscure in Krammer, therefore I will attempt at hav-ing Derrida (1982) explain it. First, we must assume that identity can be treated analogously to the sign. Treating identity as a culturally determined concept, this condition is fulfilled. By quoting identity (locutionary act), identity is performed (illocutionary act).54 General iterability of identity is a prerequisite of its performative enactment (Derida, 1982, p. 325) and allows the act of citation through which identity is appropriated. Derrida (1982) says: “Every sign […] can be cited, put between quotation marks; thereby it can break with every given context, and en-gender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashion.” (p. 320). The act of cita-tion marks the break from the original context, thus opening up a variety of possibilities for recontextualization. So, the act of quotation is the emancipatory moment in which identity itself turns agentive and constructs itself. Performative identity is poietic, iteration does not mean the repetition of the same, but the imitation without original (Butler, 1991, p. 203) as a self-reflex-ive act. To conclude, identity is a cultural process, it creates itself and transforms itself by being quoted. In other words, the quote brings the quoted into being and possibly transforms it. Iden-tity is regarded by Butler as a necessary task “which is never quite carried out according to expectation, whose addressee never quite inhabits the ideal s/he is compelled to approximate” (Butler, 1993a, p. 231). Thus, the quote initiates the singular event in general citationality. In the event, the quote has the potential of transformation because of the gap between the expected and the imperfect approximation of the expected (Culler, 2000, p. 515). By invocating the reader in the perlocutionary act of quoting, the individual participates in the cultural archive of identity. Within the performative framework, the self commits the locution-ary act of quoting identity, but the act that is performed by quoting, the illocutionary act, is not determined by the intention of the self, it is not an external representation of an interior act. It is determined by social and linguistic conventions (Culler, 2000, p. 507). In this manner, quot-ing identity potentially shapes the individual. Simultaneously, identity is transformed in the process of decontextualization and recontextualization and reenters the cultural process in a modified form. In this manner, quoting identity shapes identity itself. Performativity endorses the idea of permeability of the social and cultural spheres, material textures are disseminated across different social and cultural contexts. In the field of literary theory, Greenblatt (1988, pp. 1-20) describes this process as circulation of social energy.55 Analogously, self-fashioning 55 As “social energy” is hard to operationalize within the field of education, the idea of a circulation of knowledge (Sarasin, 2011, pp. 159-172) is preferable. functions without regard for a sharp distinction between literature and social life. It in-variably crosses the boundaries between the creation of literary characters, the shaping of one’s own identity, the experience of being molded by forces outside one’s control, the attempt to fashion other selves (Greenblatt, 1980, p. 3). Permeability implies that (a) circulating texts can leave a cultural imprint on the reader during application, and (b) identity construction is an interplay of domains that are not, as the interplay already suggests, isolated: culture, social forces, the other, the self. What do we learn from the performance paradigm for our model? Cultural processes are essen-tial in identity construction because they shape our negotiations of identity and our positioning in the social world. Students must understand how doing identity constructs and transforms our experience of identity (Beach et al, 2015, p. 23). Students must be encouraged to build critical awareness of the social circumstances, cultural forms and cultural techniques that play a major part in the construction of identity. Norms, values and power structures must be discussed. Therefore, contextualized reading strategies are inevitable to disclose the embeddedness of identity in culture. The performative description of the workings of identity explains the double effect of the iden-tity quote on the reader and the culture. The study of the transformative aspect of performative identity is compatible with Illeris’ (2017, pp. 42-45) concept of transformative learning which was addressed in part I. The traditional framework of performance has a far-reaching implication for the self’s agency which is limited to the locutionary act whereas the illocutionary act is mainly other-directed. Seemingly in contrast to this, Thein et al. (2017) argue that the effect of literature, the height-ened awareness of one’s positioning in the world, “allows students to become active participants in their identity negotiations, determining, for instance, how particular positionings may con-strain them and how those positioning might be transformed” (p. 71; my emphasis). Beach et al. (2015, p. 8) hypothesize that student engagement will increase if students read literature in terms of identity. The question must be asked how illocutionary passivity and active engage-ment can be reconciled. Speech act theory distinguishes the perlocutionary effect from the illo-cutionary act. Whereas illocution is heteronomous, perlocution as transformative act empowers the readers by attributing them more agency.56 By splitting up the act into its aspects, passive illocution and perlocution that enables agency are no longer contradictory. 56 In the field of narrative inquiry, Adler (2019) discovered that a higher sense of agency is constitutive of narrative change. This finding substantiates the claim that transformation and agency are correlated. In the same line, Beach, Johnston and Thein (2015, viii) argue that students who carry a narrow or limiting identity narrative can re-author their self by means of reading literature. “Re-authoring” conflates agency (“authoring”) with change (“re-“) that are both enabled by the response to the text. We have learned from the performative stance that the self is entangled in the other. The other is not only cultural in nature, the intersubjective ethical dimension of identity must also be considered. Based on a poetics of alterity (Wintersteiner, 2006), Krammer (2013, p. 134) de-mands that identity constructions are analyzed in their interdependencies with social structures and symbolic representations. We already know this from our analysis of Ricoeurian narrative and practical identities. Intersectional relations of categories that constitute identity (e.g. eth-nicity, language, nation, age, body, health) must be explored to identify similarities and differ-ences, thus promoting empathy, perspective-taking, and self-reflexivity. The ethical dimension appears in the practice of dialogue in our model. In addition, ethical dilemma questions are posed during each discussion session. The main effects of literature on identity can be summarized as follows: (a) literature discusses knowledge about identity, (b) literature performatively produces knowledge about identity, in-cluding temporal and structural models of identity, (c) literature potentially transforms identi-ties, (d) identity can be aesthetically experienced in response to literature, (e) literature affects personal identity development in its temporal dimension, (f) literature affects social identity negotiations in their situated dimension, (g) literature affects the encounter with the other, it promotes empathy, perspective taking, ambiguity tolerance and role distance, and (h) literature highlights the ontological status of identity as cultural fiction that retains the semblance of nat-uralness, thus exchanging correspondence (Is this the real identity?) for contiguity (How do cultural forms of identity interact?). Empirical research gives some evidence for the hypothesized influence of literature on identity. The list below is not extensive, findings were selected on the basis of relevance for the given research project. Djikic et al. (2009) have proven that art can cause significant changes in self-reported experi-ence of one’s own personality traits as measured by the Big-Five Inventory under laboratory conditions, and emotion change mediates the effect of art on traits. In addition, Mar et al. (2011) show how affect and mood influence text selection, how the narrative evokes and transforms emotions, and thus influences a person's aesthetic experience while reading the text. Finally, the lingering effect of the experience on the readers’ emotions is substantiated. Djikic and Oat-ley (2014) also show that personality change can be prompted by reading literary fiction. These changes comprise improvements in abilities in empathy and theory-of-mind. Three aspects of literature contribute to such changes: (a) literary texts are simulations of selves with others in the social world, (b) taking part in this type of simulation can produce fluctuations that are precursors to personality changes, and (c) changes occur in readers’ own ways based on indirect communication. Miall and Kuiken (2002) argue that aesthetic and narrative feelings interact to produce meta-phors of personal identification that modify self-understanding. Catharsis represents one form in which aesthetic and narrative feelings that were evoked during reading modify the reader. Correspondingly, Kuiken et al. (2004) suggest that a specific type of reading experience termed expressive enactment “penetrates and alters a reader’s understanding of everyday life” (p. 172) by means of metaphorical self-implication. Furthermore, Fialho (2012) discerns a relationship between literariness and self-modifying reading experiences. In the qualitative paradigm, Breen et al. (2017) explore the intersections of cultural stories and identity via life story interviews. Based on Sarbin’s (1997) assumption that arts and media are influential and “provide the ‘raw material’ for the development of the self” (p. 244), they put forward the hypothesis that personal stories develop through the narrative ecology of the self (Breen et al, 2017, p. 243). Results are interpreted according to McAdams’ (2013) three primary components of the self: (a) the actor who is oriented to the present by focusing on the current actions in the social world; traits, skills, and social roles are features of the actor; (b) the agent who is not only oriented to the present, but also to the future because agents develop their own projects and purposes in life; (c) the autobiographical author who synthesizes experience and meaning into a coherent overarching sense of self-identity and thus brings past, present and future together. Qualitative analysis shows that reading literature influences the reader’s agency on all three levels (Breen et al, 2017, pp. 247-249): (a) Traits, skills and social roles are pre-sented in texts. Readers try on different actor selves, thus potentially influencing their idem-identity (Cf. the personal pathway in Brokerhof et al. (2018)). (b) Literature influences the reader’s personal projects. Values from the stories are related to personal values which might be the source of learning about values, reflection on the moral self. (c) Readers become aware of their current stage in the developmental process and prepare for the next stage, in our case, for adulthood. The understanding of how one’s life story might unfold is deepened in relation to the concept of biography (Habermas & Bluck, 2000). In addition, readers realize how they are conditioned by normative life scripts and how these scripts may be subverted (Cf. performa-tive transformation above). In their study, Breen et al. (2017) also discovered that literature changes the author’s interpretive lens so that the reader starts “shaping the development of a guiding life philosophy” (p. 251) which in turn fosters critical thinking. An additional finding that is relevant for the selection of identity issues for the various cycles of the intervention was that relational themes are prevalent in the life story interviews (Breen et al., 2017, p. 247). It can be concluded that literature has the following effects on identity (Breen et al., 2017, p. 252): (a) the actor reflects present self traits, (b) the agent is inspired to pursue identity goals and develop the moral self, (c) the author reflects on the life story, shapes expectations for the life story, and formulates a life philosophy. It can be concluded from the empirical research that: (a) there is an influence of literature on identity, and (b) that agency is affected by the reading of literature. 6.3 The practices The model is termed NDR-model because of the basic practices elicited by the educational intervention. Narration, dialogue and response are the key activities triggered by the model. 6.3.1 Narration By practicing narration, we understand the students’ engagement in writing/reading the life story. Goodson et al. (2010) and Goodson and Gill (2011) have outlined their concept of narra-tive learning within the framework of life stories. Their ideas will be adjusted to the require-ments of the given educational context. We do take the warning that narrative learning should not be demanded from individuals within school contexts (Goodson et al., 2010, p. 133) seri-ously. Narrative learning is highly personal as it belongs to the domain in which individuals have freedom to learn (Rogers, 1969). Therefore, students were not pressured to hand in their personal narratives and to work on their stories in narrative encounter. In their case study, Goodson et. al (2010) have proven that narrative learning is significant for people and “can be an important vehicle for personal agency and identity construction” (p. 132). By narrative learning, Goodson and Gill (2011) do not understand the “transmission of cogni-tive abilities and content. Rather it is an interplay of to-and-fro dialogic encounters at the core of which is enhanced understanding of oneself, others, one’s place in the world and a course of action more aligned with one’s values, beliefs and worldview” (p. 88). Narrative learning aims at obtaining insight into the self and the other and is therefore in line with the objectives of the given intervention. Understanding is a meaning-making process (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 78) that cannot be reduced to the receptive acquisition of knowledge. The storying of a personal narrative is itself “a site of action and learning” (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 110). Goodson and Gill call narrating “primal learning” (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 110). When constructing a personal story, students are deeply engaged in self-development; narrating forms “an important part of a learning process of transforming understanding” (Good-son & Gill, 2011, p. 58). Bruner’s (1990) narrative mode of thinking theoretically underpins narrative learning. As out-lined in part I, this mode of thinking does not work with abstract and depersonalized cognitive systems, but it is rooted in the individual’s identity. Temporal coherence of the life story can only be established by intertwining past experiences, present positioning and future perspec-tives. On the sociocultural plane, other-directed identities (Cf. cultural identity scripts and social identity norms) must be distinguished from an autonomous sense of self (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 121). If narrative pedagogy succeeds in teaching the students the lessons of temporal and social coherence, it possibly unfolds its empowering effect: it gives the students additional agency. Goodson and Gill (2011, p. 115) list capabilities that narrative learning wants to increase. The following are relevant for this intervention: care for oneself and others, openness, having a direction in life, rich inner life, emotional ability. Learning from the narrative angle thus in-volves “understanding oneself appropriately, shifts in each individual’s ways of being in the world that are more suited to his/her nature and dispositions, embedding in a web of relation-ships with the self and other (Arendt, 1998) as well as acting in accordance with each person’s specific missions in the world” (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 115). The empowering effect implies that narrative learning has transformational potential. In con-trast to Mezirow (2000), transformation is not conceptualized on the cognitive level only. Re-lational identity and emotions play a crucial role in holistic growth (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 115). Moreover, narrative learning does not rely on the prerequisite of the experience of diso-rientation dilemmas, for instance feelings of ambiguity, uncertainty and paradox (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 117). Transformation takes two forms: (a) transformation in the narrower sense as constant shift in the individual’s narratives, (b) consolidation of the narrative which allows a sense of temporal and social coherence (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 121). Apart from the con-ceptual confusion, narrative consolidation and narrative change can be regarded as learning objectives of equal importance. When students tell and discuss their personal stories, they employ the narrative mode of think-ing. By authoring their past from the perspective of the present, they attempt at creating capa-bilities for the future (Nussbaum, 2011). So narrative learning is centered round human deve-lopment, not knowledge transfer (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 114). It does not only appeal to cognitive thinking alone, but it adopts a holistic approach to learning which encompasses emo-tional, corporeal and cognitive aspects. Most certainly, the “mystery of the self” (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 123) is at the center of narrative pedagogy. The narrative encounter is the key element of narrative pedagogy. As the encounter denotes, narration is not primarily seen as a textual structure, but as a contextualized communicative performance. The story is told by someone, and someone listens. So, the narrative is retrieved from the impersonal atemporal intertextual archive and returns to the domain of intersubjectiv-ity. And there, it is immediately coupled with dialogue. Goodson and Gill (2011) describe the nature of narrative encounter as follows: 1. encounter requires attentiveness to the other, and otherness 2. encounter unfolds something new about the other, but also about the ‘other’ or the ‘unfamiliar’ of oneself 3. encounter has embedded in it the interplay of social and historical traditions 4. encounter involves different language(s) i.e., different modes of expressions which play a part in enabling the fusion of horizon [sic]. (p. 78) In a hermeneutic effort, the storyteller, having finished his narrative soliloquy, and the listener advance a new understanding of self and other in a situated interaction. They hear the “third voice”, the metaphorical outcome of Gadamer’s fusion of horizons (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 79). Gadamer (1975) tries to “examine the hermeneutical phenomenon [i.e., text understanding] through the model of conversation between two persons” (p. 386). Goodson and Gill transfer the hermeneutical epistemology back to the social encounter. The couple of reader and text secretly turns into a triangle: two people who are alternately speaker or listener discuss the personal narrative of one or both of them. This is a change of the interactional setting, so we need to check if the notion of the horizon is applicable to the narrative encounter. Gadamer (1975) says: Every finite present has its limitations. We define the concept of “situation” by saying that it represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Hence essential to the concept of situation is the concept of “horizon.” The horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point. Applying this to the thinking mind, we speak of narrowness of horizon, of the possible expansion of horizon, of the opening up of new horizons, and so forth. (p. 313) Text response is certainly different from narrative encounter. In the latter, three horizons are fused in the narrative encounter: the storyteller’s, the listener’s, and the story’s. The relation of the storyteller’s and the story’s stance is fraught with problems. Based on our premise that the personal narrative is not a descriptive, but a poietic mimesis of action, storyteller and story cannot be equated. The stance that the storyteller adopts towards his own story and the stance of the story towards the storyteller’s life demand in-depth research, but this would go beyond the scope of this thesis. But it must be noted that sending a concept to a different area cannot be done in a nonreflective way. Still, the metaphor fulfils its epistemic function. Understanding can be explained as the “expan-sion of horizon, […] the opening up of new horizons” through the synthesis of different stand-points, the fusion. The fusion is “not a melting together in which all tensions are laid to rest but an attentive to-and-fro between the person and the otherness of that which addresses him/her” (Gadamer, 1975, p. 313). Gadamer’s dialectic method is retained in the “to-and-fro” and yields new understanding. In the sociocultural process of narrative encounter, the structural aspects of the narration are only foregrounded when narrative quality is assessed by the criterion of the sophistication of emplotment (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 60). Personal narratives differ in quality, and narrative quality is “central to our understanding of narrative potential for personhood and agency” (Goodson & Gill, 201, p. 68). Let us now consider what we understand by narrative quality on the structural level before we return to the narrative process. Goodson and Gill (2011, p. 69) distinguish closed narratives from open narratives. Whereas closed narratives revolve around a central script which repre-sents the core identity of a person, which permits only little narrative change and which deter-mines future agency, open narratives allow far-reaching narrative change, they lack a dominant script, and their emplotment is highly elaborated. The closed narration has a limiting effect on the person, the open one a liberating effect (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 65). From the typology of narratives follows that the application of cultural scripts is an indicator of narrative quality. Brooker (2005, p. 103) maintains that life stories resemble cultural scripts, i.e., plots from literature. These plots shape personal narratives unconsciously. McAdams (1993) shares the opinion that archetypes influence personal stories, but these scripts are possi-bly reconfigured in the ‘personal myth’: “[…] through our personal myth, each of us discovers what is true and what is meaningful in life. In order to live well, with unity and purpose, we compose a heroic narrative of the self that illustrates essential truths about ourselves.” (McAd-ams, 1993, p. 11). Storytelling is an exploratory enterprise in McAdams’ sense, it is a construc-tive action based on cultural norms aiming at insight into the self. The function of storytelling is twofold: the storyteller shall find teleology and coherence in life. Let us consider coherence once again because this concept has been heavily criticized by post-modernist thinkers. In short, they think coherence is an illusion. Goodson and Gill cite an ex-ample of this line of reasoning: Adopting the postmodern story notion, we could view the self as an untamed story, a story that consists of a heterogeneous collection of horizontal and sometimes ‘monstrous’ story elements that persons tell about themselves and that are not synthe-sized into one coherent story from which they derive their selfhood. This vision – the narrative as a postmodern story – is related to the postmodern ideas that the self has no stable core but is multiple, multivoice, discontinuous, and fragmented. (Serimijn et al., 2008, p. 636) To begin with, this account of the postmodernist story of life seems flawed from a postmodern-ist view because there is an underlying representational relation of text and life that is mostly denied in this line of thinking. But we will set this thought aside; our issue here is coherence. Keupp (1999) has convincingly proven that a coherent identity is possible although life is frag-mented from a sociological perspective. Goodson and Gill (2011) formulate the postmodernist dilemma between the poles of multiplicity and coherence: “the more ‘decentered’, ‘frag-mented’, ‘multiple’, and ‘shifting’ the self is, the more urgent the need to develop some kind of coherence towards meaningful and united actions in the future” (p. 150). We might conceive of the products of narrative poiesis as illusionary in nature. What we have learned from Ricoeur (1984) is that narrative reference is non-descriptive, the story is false according to the corre-spondence theory of truth. In this sense, coherence is an illusion. But it could be a necessary illusion because it is indicative of narrative quality, and, as we have learnt above, narrative quality in turn predicts the potential of identity and agency. We can conclude that the more coherently and the more autonomously from cultural scripts we can author our personal stories, the higher narrative quality is. Here ‘narrativity’ comes into play which is defined as the interpretive process by which we understand the distinctive manner in which we interpret, recount, employ and perform our stories (Goodson & Gill, 2011, p. 58). Understanding the way we tell our stories is a prerequisite for the reconstruction of our stories. Therefore, narrative consolidation and narrative change depend on narrativity, the knowledge about the “distinctive manner”, the knowledge about the form of our personal stories. By discussing narrativity, we have left the story’s structure and have reentered the process of storytelling. Goodson and Gill (2011, pp. 85-86) have proposed a stage-model of narrative en-counter: 1. narration (preparing and sharing narratives of the individual’s live as lived), 2. col-laboration (providing feedback, posing questions about meanings in the story), and 3. location (collaboratively interpreting and analyzing individual stories, locating individual stories in their temporal and social contexts). Goodson and Gill (2011, pp. 125-130) also outline tentative suggestions on how the narrative learning process can be facilitated. They suggest a reflection phase before students construct their personal stories. This pre-active phase addresses questions of identity construction and identity development and may comprise creative activities. It is striking that the authors do not elaborate on any teaching strategies on how to promote the writing process itself. After the reflection phase, narratives are shared, and the teacher is supposed to contribute her own story. The narrative encounter is conceived as dialogue between the teacher and the students. Stories and interpretation are exchanged and collaboratively revisited. The goal of the narrative en-counter is a new understanding of one’s life and new interpretations of events. The methods of open questions and active listening are applied. At the stage of location, the stories are contex-tualized. Students again do this collaboratively. During this phase, the individual learns to dis-tinguish personal and social dimensions of identity. It is essential that learners decide on which further goals to pursue. The teacher has to adopt a non-judgmental approach to the learner’s narrative and to accept that a student’s life story is her own responsibility. Educators may also further a more abstract understanding of the personal stories during the narrative encounter. This process of ‘theorization’ of the personal story may potentially lead to a concept of a good life which contributes to students’ well-being. Goodson and Gill (2011, p. 140) maintain that narrative encounter cannot be proceduralized. We admit that open dialogues cannot be planned in advance and teachers need to behave flex-ibly in such learning situations. Nevertheless, we need to criticize that the operationalization of narrative learning remains vague. Apart from a few remarks on the educator’s stance towards the students and a sketch of the learning process, the authors provide no teaching methods and learning strategies that can facilitate the learning process. Moreover, the process of narration itself is not elaborated on. The primary focus is on dialogue about narration, not on narration itself. Goodson’s and Gill’s model was adapted to the given classroom conditions. As adolescence sees the emergence of the life story (Habermas & Reese, 2015), we shifted the focus from dia-logue to narration. At this stage of the identity development, the primary aim of narrative learn-ing is to increase the students’ capacity to author first drafts of their life stories. Therefore, narrativity was promoted by teacher feedback which took thinking forward. For ethical reasons, the narrative encounter was limited to private conversations between the student and the teacher. Sensitive topics were discussed between the storyteller and the listener, and as a result students redrafted their personal narratives. In addition, general identity issues which were per-sonally relevant but not intimate were explored in narrative interactions. Narrative learning was operationalized in phases 1, 2 and 6 of the NDR-model. First, the stu-dents are introduced to the identity issue in a creative writing task. Then the writing prompt which asks them to construct a story on the identity issue is discussed. Ways of constructing personal narratives are offered by the teacher, creative writing strategies are adopted. Second, the teacher reads the stories and asks the students to join in a private discussion in which the educator aims at promoting the student’s narrativity and probes critical incidents in a supportive manner. Third, the students redraft their initial stories in the reflection phase after the comple-tion of one cycle of NDR-intervention. Students can decide for themselves whether to hand in their narrative products in order to pro-tect their personal rights, they are allowed to redraft their stories on their own after a general introduction to the ways of how to reflect on and reconstruct their own stories. In the given intervention, all the participants chose to confidentially discuss their stories with their teachers. In phase two, students experience real world narrative interactions. Based on an interview guide, they elicit contextualized narratives from their interlocutors. Then they explore the sto-ries according to an analytical matrix. In sum, phase one aims at promoting insight into the self, phase two intends to enhance insight into the other. Although conversations take place in both phases, narrative encounter is, as we will see in the next section, very different from what will be described as dialogic teaching. In conclusion, narrative learning is fostered during the narrative project. Students create an ep-isode of a fictional character’s life story. They co-construct the character’s narrative identity and are supposed to learn how narrative change can be brought about by reauthoring the em-plotment of one’s life in the face of a difficult situation. The narrative project also instigates identification with the character which shall enable students to realize how writing a story – one’s own life story or the story of a fictional character - influences identity construction. 6.3.2 Dialogue Resnik et al. (2015) hold that “participation in discussion is a core act57 of learning” (p. 11). The way we talk to each other during lessons does not only affect how we learn, but also influ-ences the learning outcome. The following effects of high-quality talk are listed in the relevant literature: better recall, advancement of higher-level thinking (Wilkinson et al., 2010); deep understanding of complex concepts, improvement of cognitive performance, better retention, (Resnick et al., 2010); better performance in standardized tests (Resnick et al., 2015); growth of intelligence (Resnick & Schantz, 2015); significantly improved general learning activities 57 Act is not used in its performative meaning. Here act denotes a habitual cultural practice that must be social-ized (Resnick et al., 2010, p. 172). (Resnick et al., 2018); higher ability to transfer knowledge (Wilkinson et al., 2015; Resnick et al., 2015), cognitive advancement (Alexander, 2015), and higher agency (Resnick et al., 2010; Alexander, 2018). In the field of literature education, Wilkinson et al. (2010) claim that discus-sion fosters “students’ high level comprehension of text” and that dialogue mediates between the text and the reader’s learning (p. 143). Resnick and Schantz (2015, pp. 444-447) advance three theories that possibly explain the effect of a specific type of classroom talk on the growth of intelligence: (a) Specific skills of argu-mentation can be transferred to new contexts. (b) The students’ identities as learners change, they acquire a positive view of their intellectual capabilities. (c) Students are socialized into a culture of argumentation. First, some skills have the potential to be useful in a variety of domains of knowledge. Specific forms of reasoning that are fostered in discussion-based literature education can be adopted in other fields. Engaging in meaning-making, considering alternative perspectives and co-con-structing knowledge and understanding might be likely candidates for transfer (Wilkinson et al., 2015, p. 43). Second, dialogic discussion can potentially change students’ identities as learners by providing them with a sense of agency and mastery (Resnick & Schantz, 2015, p. 446). Yeager and Walton (2011) hold that a change of narrative identity, i.e., the stories that students tell about themselves as learners, affects achievement. Third, students are “socialized into communities of practice” (Resnick et al., 2010, p. 180). A specific form of reasoning causes students to “hold themselves accountable with a culture of argumentation” (Resnick & Schantz, 2015, p. 447). This culture supports the students to de-velop their ability to think by practicing the skills and habits of argumentation (Resnick et al., 2018, p. 17). The effects are produced by a particular kind of classroom talk which will be specified with reference to Alexander’s (2020) general framework and the generic models of Accountable Talk (Resnick et al., 2018) and Quality Talk (Wilkinson et al., 2010). In contrast to narrative learning, dialogic learning has been operationalized in detail by these authors. To guarantee a systematic view of the field of dialogic teaching, we adopt a three-tier model organized accord-ing to the level of abstraction: 1. framework, 2. generic models, and 3. the proposed intervention based on the NDR-model. Alexander (2020) defines dialogic teaching as follows: Dialogic teaching is a pedagogy of the spoken word that harnesses the power of dia-logue, thus defined, to stimulate and extend students’ thinking, learning, knowing and understanding, and to enable them to discuss, reason and argue. It unites the oral, cog-nitive, social, epistemic and cultural, and therefore manifests frames of mind and value as well as ways of speaking and listening. (p. 128) Dialogue supports cognitive learning. Dialogue facilitates the cultural practices that constitute dialogue. Dialogue reveals both a stance and specific modes of interaction. Dialogue does all this if it is cultivated - “harnessed” - by pedagogy. First, the pedagogical stance and the educa-tional principles of dialogic teaching will be outlined, then we will elaborate on the language game of dialogue. Alexander (2020) summarizes the pedagogical stance of dialogue in the final report of the 2016–10 Cambridge Primary Review: Enacting dialogue. To help students grasp that learning is an interactive process and that understanding builds through joint activity between teacher and student and among stu-dents in collaboration, and thereby to develop students’ increasing sense of responsibil-ity for what and how they learn. To help students recognise that knowledge is not only transmitted but also negotiated and re-created; and that each of us in the end makes our own sense out of the meeting of knowledge both personal and collective. To advance a pedagogy in which dialogue is central: between self and others, between personal and collective knowledge, between present and past, between different ways of making sense. (p. 129) The pedagogical stance is formulated not as a perspective on the subject, but as goals to be achieved by performing an action, in this case the enactment of dialogue. Dialogue has, first and foremost, a mediating function. It synthesizes the dialectics of self and other, personal and collective, present and past. Furthermore, it serves an ethical function. Students shall be guided to self-directed agency and responsibility for their actions. Dialogue supports the students to become aware of their positionings in the world. In contrast to the sociocultural approach by Beach et al. (2015), this positioning comprises not only the spatial and social dimensions, but also the temporal situatedness of human beings. Finally, dialogue is of a distinct epistemic na-ture. Students realize that understanding is achieved intersubjectively, and knowledge for-mation is substantially interactive. Interaction indicates that knowledge is not simply trans-ferred, but it is re-created and negotiated. Alexander’s label of the stance highlights its per-formative status; dialogue is enacted. Meaning is constructed in the meeting of the self and the other on the one hand and the meeting of different epistemic modes on the other. The meta-phorical “meeting point meaning” again alludes to the integrative function of dialogue. Alexander’s educational stance of the framework must not be confused with the stance the reader takes towards the text in a literature discussion in Quality Talk (Wilkinson et al., 2010, pp. 148-149). Here, three stances towards the text are put forward: a. efferent (retrieval of in-formation), b. expressive (emotive connections to the textual experience), and c. critical-ana-lytic (interrogation of the text). These stances are not mutually exclusive. Having adopted both the efferent and expressive stances is a precondition for the shift to the critical-analytic stance (Wilkinson et al.,2010, p. 149). It is noteworthy that the given stance has implications for the control the educator exercises during the discussion (Cf. Alexander’s repertoire 2 below). Ac-cording to Wilkinson et al. (2010), the ideal framework for literary discussion is “shared control between teacher and students, in which the teacher has the control over choice of text and topic but the students have interpretive authority and control of turns” (Wilkinson et al.,2010, p. 149). Let us now consider how the dialogue shapes the design of the NDR-model and which stance the respective phases adopt. Dialogue occurs in all phases. However, we must distinguish be-tween the soliloquy of internal dialogue and the external dialogues among different interlo-cuters. Internal dialogues during the writing of the autobiographical narrative (phase 1) and during the personal response to the literary text (phase 3) are not covered here because dialogic teaching is explicitly concerned with external dialogues. Table 4 gives an overview of the ex-ternal dialogic activities in the NDR-model and the functions these activities serve. Table 4: Dialogic activities and stance Phase Dialogic activity Functions of the stance Mediating Ethical Positioning Epistemic 1 Feedback Self – self Present - past Self-direction Responsibility Temporal Social Narrative and dialogic 2 Narrative in interaction Self – other Personal - col-lective Other-oriented-ness Social Exploratory 4 Group work: analysis Self – other Self - text Respect Social Dialogic and analytical 5 Literary discussion Self-self Self – other Self - text Respect Self-direction Temporal Social Dialogic rea-soning 6 Narrative project Self - other Self – fictional other Respect Self-direction Responsibility Temporal Social Narrative and dialogic All phases in which students engage in external dialogues serve the mediating, ethical and po-sitioning functions of dialogue. What is novel is that there is also meditation between the self and the fictional other when students create a story in the narrative project. Phase two enhances a different form of ethical stance. When students conduct interviews, they learn how to be other-oriented and how to listen intensely. The ethical category of respect was added because it is a basic attitude for group work, and it is compatible with the framework of dialogic teaching. Social positioning takes place on various levels. In phases four and six, students negotiate their positions within the community of practice. On the other hand, social positioning is not re-stricted to the school setting in phases one and two. It is literary discussion which offers the most opportunities for students to position themselves: (a) They can position themselves tem-porally within the context of their life stories, (b) They can position themselves socially within the community of practice, (c) They can position themselves socially outside the community of practice. Narrative in interaction does not fulfil the epistemic function of dialogue. Eliciting a personal story from a real other is different in nature from dialogic teaching and is therefore not treated as a dialogic practice. Phases one, three and six represent hybrid forms of reasoning. Narrative and dialogic modes of reasoning are combined in phases one and six, phase four heavily draws on analytical reasoning. In conclusion, only the literary discussion is purely dialogical as far as the epistemic function is concerned. Let us now return to Alexander’s framework. From his educational stance, he formulates six principles that determine dialogic talk and that shall guide the design of classroom talk. Dia-logue shall be: (a) collective Dialogic teaching is a site of collaborative learning. Students and teachers are willing to learn together. This principle is tautologous, the idea is already expressed in the stance. (b) supportive Students are allowed to express ideas freely. Teachers adopt a non-judgmental ap-proach to students’ contributions. The main idea is that teacher and student help each other to reach common understanding. Whereas collectiveness addresses the organiza-tional form, supportiveness deals with the interlocuters’ attitude towards the other. (c) reciprocal Students listen to each other, share ideas, ask questions and consider alternative view-points, and the teacher ensures that they have ample opportunities to do so. Reciprocity adds the aspect of agency to the organizational form and the attitude. (d) deliberative Students seek to weigh and integrate different perspectives by discussing various argu-ments. The goal is to work towards substantiated positions and outcomes. Deliberate-ness is a teleological force. (e) cumulative Students connect new understanding to their own prior knowledge and to the knowledge of others in a way that the principle of coherence is not violated. This is reminiscent of Illeris’ assimilative/accommodative learning as outlined in part I. (f) purposeful Classroom is not only teleological in the sense that students seek to resolve different points of view. On the educational meta level, specific learning goals are pursued. (Al-exander, 2020, pp. 131-133) Alexander highlights that cumulation is central to the notion of dialogic thinking, and the idea has found its way into the spiral structure of the NDR-model. However, cumulation is the most difficult principle to enact because it “makes demands, simultaneously, on the teacher’s profes-sional skill, subject knowledge and insight into the capacities and understanding of each of his/her students” (Alexander, 2020, p. 132). Therefore, the teacher has to “match discourse to learner while respecting the form and modes of enquiry and validation of the subject being taught, seeking then to scaffold understanding between the student’s and the culture’s ways of making sense” (Alexander, 2020, p. 132). The teacher has to fulfil the needs of the student under the given epistemic and contentual conditions. “[M]utuality in feedback and questioning” (Alexander, 2020, p. 132) is inevitable to meet the challenges posed by cumulation. Purposefulness means that dialogue is a means to an educational end. In line with the general framework, Wilkinson et al. (2010) regard dialogue as a cognitive sociocultural tool (p. 143) and Resnick et al. (2010) think of it as a “primary mechanism for promoting deep understanding of complex concepts” (p. 173). In analogy with narrative learning, we would like to add that dialogue is not only a tool for learning, but a learning process itself. Internal and external dia-logues are means of knowledge and knowledge itself. Doing dialogue is an end in itself. Wilkinson et al. (2010) also formulate three general principles of dialogue. First, dialogue is supposed to promote inter-thinking, i.e., that we “collectively make sense of experience and […] solve problems” (Wilkinson et al., 2010, p. 156). Collectiveness reemerges here, and the “inter” of inter-thinking is deliberative in nature. Second, the conflicting demands of maintain-ing a clear structure and yet being responsive to students’ contributions need to be balanced. This act of accommodation between the inherent structural quality of dialogue and responsive-ness towards students reminds us of the cumulative principle. Finally, responsibility must be gradually handed over to students. Alexander’s ethical function of the dialogic stance is invoked here. On closer consideration, we do not learn anything new from Wilkinson et al. (2010) on the level of the general framework. On the other hand, they contribute two principles on the level of the generic model, i.e., the discussion of literary texts that are employed in the given intervention: (a) texts are selected that permit a variety of interpretations on a topic with which students have some familiarity, (b) the discussion is started with an authentic interpretive ques-tion that is of crucial importance to the text (Wilkinson et al., 2010, pp. 154-155). Let us return for a moment to the ethical aspect of the educational stance and the principles. Resnick et al. (2018) take up the issue of responsibility and hold that dialogue is accountable. At first glance, the idea of the responsibility of talk seems untenable, but after consideration of Alexander’s principles it becomes clear that the authors rely upon the same metonymic mech-anism of exchanging the speaker for the spoken, i.e., the student for dialogue in order to abstract necessary features from a contingent situated performance. For instance, it is the student who acts deliberatively, not the dialogue which is inherently deliberative. In the same way, “students hold themselves responsible” (Resnick et al., 2018, p. 17), it is not the dialogue which is re-sponsible. After having addressed the linguistic enigma of responsible talk, let us return to the educational principles. Resnick et al. (2010, pp. 180-187) propose three accountabilities: (a) accountability to the learning community, (b) accountability to standards of reasoning, and (c) and accounta-bility for building on each other’s ideas, so they act collectively, reciprocally and cumulatively. Accountability to community is similar to the discourse feature of exploratory talk (Wilkinson et al., 2010). Second, students are responsible for applying the logic of reasoning. They need to connect ideas, search for premises and draw conclusions in a plausible way. Accountability to standards of reasoning is comparable to the epistemic conditions of the cumulative principle. Third, students are responsible for getting the facts right and making evidence explicit. The discourse feature of elaborated explanation (Wilkinson et al., 2010, p. 151) bears resemblance to the accountability to knowledge. Whereas Resnick and Schantz (2015) think that the focus of ‘accountable talk’ is “on reasoning and knowledge rather than its forms of expression” (p. 447), Alexander (2015, p. 435) demands accountability to language itself. The former attempt to increase students’ agency by accepting students’ contributions irrespective of language accuracy. Alexander, however, recognizes the importance of language for the quality of the classroom talk. To conclude, the principles underlying Alexander’s dialogic teaching, Accountable Talk and Quality Talk are overlapping, with Alexander providing us with the most comprehensive set of principles. Accountability as the ethical correlate to agency complements Alexander’s princi-ples that guide students’ actions. The principles of careful text selection and text-relevant open-ing questions direct the genre of literary discussion. It must be noted that all phases from the NDR-model are purposeful, they pursue specific learn-ing goals that are outlined in the next section. Phases four, five and six adhere to all principles as set out by Alexander. Feedback in phase one is collective and supportive, but not reciprocal. The teacher guides the student in the process of reconsidering his/her episode of the life story, but is not guided by the student in her construction of narrative identity. In addition, the feed-back is supposed to be deliberative. Cumulation need not result in narrative change, but can also result in the consolidation of one’s life story. Eight repertoires are central to Alexander’s framework. Let us begin with a philosophical spec-ulation about the nature of the rule and the relationship between rule and game which is intended to inform the understanding of the repertoire. With reference to Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (1958), Mehan and Cazden (2015, p. 20) ascertain a shift in the classroom lan-guage game when dialogic teaching is implemented. In § 23, Wittgenstein states that by using the term ‘language-game’ he wants to “bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of lan-guage is part of an activity, or of a form of life”. Analogously to the speech act theory, the language game is concerned with language use, not the structure of language. Mehan and Cazden are right to qualify dialogue as a manifestation of the language game. When we teach dialogue, the connection of game and rule seems important. We will start out with the hypoth-esis that the practice of the game is inherently influenced by its own rules. Wittgenstein (1958) expounds his theory on the rule and the game in § 54: Let us recall the kinds of case where we say that a game is played according to a definite rule. The rule may be an aid in teaching the game. The learner is told it and given prac-tice in applying it. - Or it is an instrument of the game itself. - Or a rule is employed neither in the teaching nor in the game itself; nor is it set down in a list of rules. One learns the game by watching how others play. But we say that it is played according to such-and-such rules because an observer can read these rules off from the practice of the game—like a natural law governing the play. Basically, there are two ways of learning the rule: (a) The rule is explicitly taught and applied. Thus, the game is learned via the rules. (b) The rule is deduced from practice and imitated. Thus, the rules are learned from the game. In either case, rules and the game are closely con-nected.58 58 These options of learning the game via the rule and learning the rule via the game are reminiscent of what we laid out with regard to the learning of the schema in part I. There, we proposed that the narrative practice might be learnt via the schema, or that, alternatively, the schema might be learnt via narrative practice. Before we return to the teaching of the dialogue, let us consider the nature of the rule. Wittgen-stein (1958) resorts to metaphorical thinking in § 85: A rule stands there like a sign-post.—Does the sign-post leave no doubt open about the way I have to go? Does it show which direction I am to take when I have passed it; whether along the road or the footpath or cross-country? But where is it said which way I am to follow it; whether in the direction of its ringer or (e.g.) in the opposite one?—And if there were, not a single sign-post, but a chain of adjacent ones or of chalk marks on the ground—is there only one way of interpreting them?—So I can say, the sign-post does after all leave no room for doubt. Or rather: it sometimes leaves room for doubt and sometimes not. […] The metaphoric signpost gives us some direction, but its deictic reference is not universally valid. Doubt is on the way, which is the necessary condition for agency and accountability within the game. Alexander’s repertoires (2020, pp. 133-164) are of this “signpost” nature. They offer orientation, a “range of options” (Alexander, 2020, p. 133) for the enactment of the dialogue, but they do not preclude the interlocuters’ capability for action: “The other side of the repertoire coin […] is agency” (Alexander, 2020, p. 133). In addition, Wittgenstein teaches us that dialogue (the game) and repertoires (the rules) are interdependent. We learn how to use the normative repertoires from practicing dialogue, and we learn how to practice the dialogue from using the normative repertoires. Alexander proposes eight repertoires that aim “to help the teacher to engage with essential as-pects of classroom culture and organization, appropriate forms of student and teacher talk, the moves with which these are typically associated, and further moves in the key areas of ques-tioning, extending, discussion and argumentation.” (Alexander, 2020, p. 126). As the reper-toires are clearly and extensively explained in Alexander (2020), there is no need of summariz-ing and annotating them here. Instead, we will select and comment on those ideas we found valuable during the design process of the given intervention. The first repertoire establishes norms of the interactive culture which are derived from the gen-eral principles. These ground rules are felicity conditions for the practice of dialogue. Commu-nicative norms regulate the interactions among interlocuters. Alexander gives the following examples of such norms: “‘we listen carefully to each other’, ‘we make eye-contact with the person who is speaking or whom we are speaking to’, ‘we don’t interrupt or talk over someone else’, ‘we don’t dominate the discussion’, ‘we encourage others to speak’, ‘we give each other time to think’” (Alexander, 2020, p. 138). Deliberative norms control how specific modes of reasoning are exercised, for instance “we state our position as clearly as possible’, ‘we try to distinguish between fact and opinion’, ‘we give reasons or evidence for what we claim’, ‘we are prepared to challenge what has been said, but also to say why’, ‘we state our position but are also prepared to modify it in the light of others’ questions and comments’” (Alexander, 2020, p. 138). Epistemic norms are content-related. Terminology and knowledge about literary structure and history regulate the dialogue. In the given intervention, teachers and students discussed and agreed upon communicative norms. Deliberative norms for dialogic, narrative and exploratory reasoning were practiced in the lessons prior to the intervention. Participants had acquired the necessary terminology and knowledge about literature by the start of the study. The second repertoire defines the interactive setting that might facilitate or inhibit dialogue. In line with Wilkinson et al. (2010, p. 139), we opted for the teacher-led literary discussion for the first cycle of the intervention. To enhance accountability, the organizational form was altered to student-led group work in the second cycle. An individual setting (teacher and student) was employed in phase one, groups in phases 4 and 6 were student-led. Small groups comprised of four to six students were used in phases 4, 5 and 6. Discussions lasted for 30 to 45 minutes, feedback sessions for around 25 minutes and group work for up to 150 minutes. Discussions were held in horseshoe arrangement, group work in cabaret arrangement. Repertoire 3 covers the character of learning talk. Alexander defines the functions of learning talk and their respective constituent acts. An overview is presented in Table 5 (Alexander, 2020, pp. 143-144). Table 5: Functions, students’ activities and constituent acts of learning talk Function Students’ activities Constituent acts Transactional manage encounters and situations ask, answer, instruct, inform, ex-plain, discuss Expository narrate, expound and explain tell, narrate, explain, describe, ex-pound, expand Interrogatory ask questions of different kinds and in diverse contexts bid, ask, enquire, answer Exploratory venture, explore and probe ideas suggest, venture, speculate, solilo-quise, hypothesise, probe, clarify Deliberative reason and argue reason, ask, argue, question, hy-pothesise, challenge, defend, jus-tify, analyse, synthesise, persuade, decide Imaginative contemplate and articulate what might be speculate, visualise, soliloquise, tell, describe, envisage, create Expressive put thoughts into words, nuance ideas, articulate feelings and responses narrate, speculate, qualify, argue, insist, wonder, exclaim Evaluative deliver opinions, form and articulate judgements opine, estimate, assert, argue, judge, justify Alexander (2020, pp. 143-144) Each of the dialogic activities of the NDR-model pursue more than one function. In the follow-ing, only the major functions and their constituent acts, which served as operators of the tasks, are indicated: • phase 1 (autobiographical story) – expository, expressive: narrate; imaginative: re-cre-ate • phase 4 (text analysis) – exploratory: hypothesize; evaluative: opine • phase 5 (literary discussion) – deliberative, expressive: argue • phase 6 (narrative project) – imaginative: create All the dialogic activities that the NDR-model triggers are transactional, i.e., students have to manage encounters and situations themselves. The teacher is partly responsible for talk man-agement during feedback sessions and literary discussions of the first cycle. Narrative in inter-action which has been qualified as non-dialogical in nature requires student talk to be interrog-atory. In sum, the NDR-model elicits all forms of student talk. Teacher talk is the fourth repertoire in Alexander’s list. It is assumed that teacher’s talk shapes the students’ capacity to learn and understand through dialogue (Alexander, 2020, p. 144). Therefore, teachers need to have a repertoire of teaching talk that encourages students to per-form the speech acts covered in the section above. Dialogic teaching privileges four forms of teaching talk (Alexander, 2020, p. 145; Cf. Table 6): Table 6: Relevant forms of teacher talk Teacher talk Teachers’ Discussion exchanging ideas and information, uncovering and juxtaposing view-points Deliberation weighing the merits of ideas, opinions or evidence Argumentation making or testing a case by reference to reasons or evidence Dialogue working towards common understanding through structured questioning, probed and elaborated responses and an interactive dynamic that strives to be collective, reciprocal and supportive as well as cumulative, deliber-ative and purposeful Alexander (2020, p. 145) It does not come as a surprise that all dialogic principles outlined above reappear in the defini-tion of dialogue. This kind of teacher talk is pertinent in the literary discussion. During the feedback session, the teacher resorts to discussion. The group work in phases 4 and 6 is dialogic on the part of the students. These activities are student-led, accountability shifts away from the teacher. The teacher only takes part in the talk if she is consulted for support. Teacher talk in this case is deliberative. Teacher talk is further explicated in the generic models. Resnick et al. (2010, p. 180) propose prototypical accountable talk moves: (a) revoicing, (b) asking students to restate someone else’s reasoning, (c) asking students to apply their own reasoning to someone else’s reasoning, (d) prompting students for further participation, (e) asking students to explicate their reasoning, and (f) challenge or counterexample. These accountable talk moves enhance students’ collabo-rative understanding (i.e., dialogue) and elaboration of explanations (i.e., argumentation). We will return to these strategies when we consider the importance of extending (repertoire 6). Wilkinson et al. (2010, p. 155) advise the teacher to summarize what has been discussed, which is very close to revoicing. In addition, they suggest modeling moves which should result in an imitation by the student. Teachers reinforce good student talk, and they are supposed to share ideas and not only ask questions. The application of these moves from Accountable Talk and Quality Talk were trained in the teacher workshop before the start of the intervention. Both the teacher and the student talk repertoires include a subset of questioning moves. Within the dialogic framework, students and teachers are both responders and inquirers. Questioning is subjected to the general regime of norms outlined above (Alexander, 2020, p. 147). Accord-ing to Nystrand et al. (1997), the character of the question is decisive for what kind of student talk is performed. They distinguish between test and authentic questions. Wilkinson et al. (2010, p. 151) think authentic questions serve the purposes of dialogic teaching. This type of question-ing does not prespecify answers and mirrors the teacher’s interest in students’ own thoughts. Questions are classified into three groups according to purpose (Alexander, 2020, pp. 148-149): (a) initiating, (b) probing, and (c) expanding. Each category has several subdivisions. Initiating comprises seven subcategories: 1. recall/review what has been previously discussed or learned (shared knowledge question59), 2. elicit facts or information, 3. elicit reasons, 4. elicit observa-tion or opinion, 5. elicit deduction (e.g. intertextual response question), 6. invite reflection or speculation (high-level thinking question), 7. invite affective empathetic response (affective response question). Subcategories of probing are testing and clarifying the thinking behind a response and inviting evaluation. Expanding the initial discussion also encompasses sustaining or developing a line of reasoning through sequential questions. 59 Some of the purposes can be linked to the discourse tools as proposed by Wilkinson et al. (2010, p. 151), which are added in parentheses. In phase 1, teachers ask authentic questions which initiate open reflection about narrative change and consolidation. They refrain from questions with evaluative implications. Students were trained before the intervention to adopt questioning strategies in group work that elicit text hypotheses, reasons and evidence. These strategies probe into lines of thinking and that invite evaluations. In addition, they adopted moves that triggered the articulation of affective responses to the text. During literary discussions, teachers were instructed to ask authentic questions exclusively. Authentic questions cover: (a) the domain concept, i.e., how the text addresses the identity issue of the respective cycle, (b) a dilemma the character is facing, (c) the intertextual response of the students, (d) the affective response of the students, and (e) the reflexivity about the personal relevance of the text. In cycle two, the student discussion leaders were provided with a set of authentic questions which they could use or on which they could model their own questions. Discussions leaders practiced to apply moves that served the purposes of initiating, probing and expanding which aimed at giving students the opportunity to extend their answers. The main objective of the questioning moves is to promote elaborated explanations and exploratory talk (Wilkinson et al., 2010, pp. 151-152). Alexander (2020, pp. 152-153) adopts the repertoire of extending from Michaels and O’Connor (2012). These talk strategies aim at “open[ing] up the conversation and support[ing] student participation, explication and reasoning” (Alexander, 2020, p. 151). The principle of cumula-tive learning underlies these talk moves. O’Connor and Michaels (2019) pursue four goals: First, in order to have an academically productive discussion, one must be able to get students to say something; to make a contribution that can be heard and understood. […] Second, one must be able to get students to orient to one another and truly listen. […] Third, the discussion must reach beyond superficiality. We have encountered many teachers who say that their students will talk, and they will listen to one another, but the discussions are boring and don’t grapple with the real issues. So the third goal is getting students to dig more deeply into their own reasoning. Fourth, the ultimate goal is to get students to work with the reasoning of other students—to share their own reasoning and to take in what others are saying, allowing it to change their own thinking or to sharpen their argumentation. (p. 172) Willingness to say something and to listen deeply can be regarded as prerequisites to extending. Goals three and four are comparable to elaborated explanation and exploratory talk (Wilkinson et al, 2010). Students are asked to give reasons and provide evidence for their views. Their contributions shall be challenged to enhance students to deepen their reasoning. In addition, students are supposed to add on the contributions of the other interlocutors and to agree or disagree with them. Different perspectives are compared. Finally, students shall explain what others mean. To sum up, specific questioning moves enable students to engage in extending their thoughts. The employment of extending strategies is highly indicative of students’ agency in dialogue. So, finally, let us return to our metaphor which was supposed to clarify the relationship of the repertoires and dialogue: The rule signposts the way. At first sight, the way clashes with the game: What is the way in the game? Does the metaphor turn into catachresis? First, the signpost tells us something about the nature of the rule. It is non-predictive. Second, the way the signpost tells us can be transformed into the way we play something. Space becomes modality. The rule shows the player how to play the game. The rule enables the player to actively participate in the game. The rule enables the player to play the game well. As it is the objective of this section to theoretically underpin the given model and not to lay down criteria by which various forms of talk can be differentiated, repertoires 7 and 8 are not covered here. Alexander’s framework allows us to systematically describe the nature of the phases of the NDR-model that employ external dialogic reasoning. In addition, Resnick et al. (2018) teach us the ethical lesson that accountability must shift to the students for dialogical thinking to take place. Wilkinson et al. (2010) provide us with a model of literature discussion that guided both the design and the evaluation of this phase. To sum up, dialogic talk permeates the various phases of the NDR-model to a variable extent, with the literature discussion being a paradig-matic manifestation of dialogic teaching. 6.3.3 Response Response to the literary text is the third practice that is elicited by the NDR-model. By response, we understand the students’ engagement in reading/writing the literary story. The teaching of response will be operationalized on the basis of the phenomenological description of the reading process in part I. At this point, we must decide if and how literature education shall intervene in the process of transaction. Subsequently, we must address the implications of this decision for the attentional focus and the outcome of the transaction. To guarantee the non-instrumentality of reading as advocated in Stolnitz’ (1960) theory of disinterestedness, literature education is bound to not interfere. However, we have already learned from transaction theory that the reading process itself is necessarily contaminated with the reader’s personality. Second, non-instrumentality is incommensurable with teaching based on learning objectives. We can conclude that an inter-vention is justified only if it serves a clearly defined and substantiated purpose. In other words, the purpose limits the scope of the intervention. We can hold that interventions need to be justified by the purpose they serve. So let us begin the operationalization of the practice of response with the learning objectives. The primary goals of this intervention are to promote insight into the self, insight into the other and text understanding. The learning objectives are situated at the outcome level of the Kuiken-Douglas model. Self-insight is an aesthetic outcome, text understanding is an explanatory outcome. Kui-ken and Douglas (2017) hold that enriched social understanding (i.e., insight into the other) is likely to follow the reading mode of integrative comprehension and can therefore be classified as explanatory outcome. In order to produce these desired effects, students need to engage with the literary text in a specific way. This is where literature education can intervene. The intervention shall foster a specific engagement of the reader with the text. As the intervention seeks both aesthetic and explanatory outcomes, two independent phases of text response were included in the NDR-model. In Phase 3, students are supposed to engage in a reading experience that is a modification of the aesthetic reading paradigm. Students shall be guided to adopt the reading mode of expres-sive enactment. First and foremost, they are supposed to metaphorically fuse with the characters to feel what is the same across self and other (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 231: Pre-enactive Empathy) and to find sameness in the interplay of the text’s semantic categories and their epi-sodic personal memories (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 233: Self-implicating Givenness). As a personal response is to be elicited, the instructions are kept to a minimum. Students are required to read the text and comment on passages that they find striking or evocative60 (Kuiken et al., 2004, p. 182). We ask students to focus on striking linguistic elements because engagement with foregrounded elements furthers aesthetic awareness according to Fialho (2019). In addi-tion, students have to comment on passages that inspire their imagination. Reflection on imag-ination is vital because of its significance for transactional continuity and coherence. Finally, students are required to annotate associations with autobiographical memories that are evoked by the text. Association is a paradigmatic case of transaction. The APA Dictionary of Psychol-ogy defines association as “a connection or relationship between two items (e.g., ideas, events, feelings) with the result that experiencing the first item activates a representation of the second”. In our case, the text experience actives the representation of life in the form of the autobio-graphical life story. It is noteworthy that Phase 1 of the NDR-model elicits personal narratives 60 Evocative is used in its double meaning according to the Cambridge Dictionary here: making you remember or imagine something pleasant. that have a thematic relationship with the text that is read in Phase 3. It is assumed that autobi-ographical memories that were objectified during the writing task in Phase 1 are possible links for the associations triggered during Phase 3. These associations that are regulated by the dia-lectic of aesthetic and personal relevance are a key component of learning in the NDR-model. Associations between the text and the reader’s memories are hypothesized to bring about ac-commodative and transformative learning of the self. The assumption that associations predict learning in the form of self-insight is confirmed in our replication of the Kuiken-Douglas model (Cf. validation study): Self-implicating Givenness significantly predicts Self-perceptual Depth. This modification of aesthetic reading has implications for the attentional focus. When the reader attends to striking elements, the attentional focus is on the world of the text and the reader’s attitude is supposed to be disinterested. The inspiration of imagination initiates the attentional shift towards the reader. Linking the text with personal memories is a form of con-textualization that exhibits a balanced distribution of attention. Aesthetic and personal relevance are in equilibrium. Phase 4, on the other hand, requires the student to engage in Integrative Comprehension (Kui-ken & Douglas, 2017). They shall understand the narrative plot and the characters within the plot (Cognitive Perspective-taking). Moreover, students are supposed to evaluate the con-sistency of the situation model of the text and the schema-driven world knowledge (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 233: Generalizing Realism). In order to advance text understanding, the lit-erary text is closely read (Bears & Probst, 2013). The plot and its coherence and continuity as well as the characters are analyzed. The intratextual analysis of the text is complemented by an intertextual reading (Baßler, 2005). The selected text is contextualized in three ways: (a) Anal-ogies with and differences from a thematically related text are analyzed. (b) Affective and cog-nitive states of characters across various texts are compared. (c) Similarities between the die-gesis and the real world are explored. Finally, tentative hypotheses on the text’s meaning are formulated and later taken up in the literary discussion (phase 5). Attention in Integrative Comprehension is directed in a similar way to Expressive Enactment. During the analysis of the plot, attentional focus is on the world of the text. When the creation of continuity and coherence is reflected, the reader’s contributions must be taken into consid-eration. The understanding of characters by means of “perspective coordination” between reader and character (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 231) requires distributed attention between the world of the reader and the world of the text. When similarities of the world of the text and the real world are explained, there might be a need to extend the attentional focus beyond the personal sphere of the reader. General knowledge of the sociocultural world might be applied in the comparative interpretation of the world of the text and the world of the reader. Finally, the implications of the phenomenology of the reading process must be examined. We learned that both continuity and coherence of the world of the text are created by tentative syntheses. This means that every effort to interpret time and plot is necessarily preliminary. This assumption underlies the explanation-centered activities that the students are involved in. In phase 4, the students formulate tentative hypotheses which they have to defend in the litera-ture discussions. In phase 3, students realize the importance of the reader’s memories for the refiguration of time. Moreover, they explicitly work on how their imagination frames the die-gesis. The most important insight into the nature of the reading act is the fact that the text is turned into an experience. This is true for both Expressive Enactment and Integrative Comprehension. It must be highlighted that contextualized analysis and interpretation of the literary text are also an experience in which the reader actively engages in, she does not merely reproduce the given. Therefore, both phases 3 and 4 comprise activities in which the students consciously bring in their world. This approach does not only guarantee the accessibility of the text, but it also teaches the students that text experiences and real-life experiences are compatible. Iser’s life-likeness which is grounded in the balancing act of the alternating involvement in and observa-tion of the experience is one example of the permeability of the reading experiences and the social experiences. Compatibility and permeability are prerequisites for the contextualization of the reading process. Contextualization is understood as method to raise the students’ aware-ness of the transactional nature of the reading process. The following contextualizing strategies guide the design of the response activities: (a) the contextualization of the text by activating the reader’s memories in phase 3, (b) the contextualization of the text by comparing it to similar plots and characters as well as the real world in phase 4. Both contextualizing strategies heavily rely on the students’ imaginative capacities. A final remark must be made on text selection. Curricular requirements and teacher input de-termined text selection. To allow the promotion of aesthetic awareness, the selected texts were controlled for degree of indeterminacy and frequency of elements that allow foregrounding. 6.4 The phases The following ideas inspired the design of the six phases of the NDR-model: (a) Phase 1 McAdams’ (1995) life story interview motivated the design of phase 1. Students are required to write personal stories about critical events of their life stories (peak experi-ence, nadir experience, turning point, important childhood scene, important adolescent scene). They are also supposed to work on positive and negative influences on their life stories. To enhance agency, students work on alternative futures for their life stories. It must be noted that, in contrast to the life story interview, students tell their stories in written form. (b) Phase 2 Bamberg’s (2011) narrative practical approach stimulated the design of phase 2. He holds that individuals negotiate their identities in a specific form of embodied talk he calls ‘narrative in interaction’. Students are required to elicit such narratives in interac-tion in a narrative interview. Subsequently, they have to analyze how the interview part-ner positions herself in the situated story. (c) Phase 3 Kuiken’s et al. (2004) modification of the self-probed retrospection technique inspired the design of phase 3. The reader highlights passages in the literary text that he finds striking or evocative of autobiographical memories. After that, the reader comments on the highlighted passages. The technique was adapted to the high school context: 1. Stu-dents had to highlight only three passages. 2. The number of words per comment was reduced to 100. (d) Phase 4 Intratextual close reading of literary texts was designed according to the strategies of Bears and Probst (2012). The design of the contextualization tasks is founded on Baßler’s (2005) intertextual theory that claims that analyzability is dependent on the embeddedness of the text in its cultural context. (e) Phase 5 Wilkinson et al. (2010) provide the framework for the literary discussion of phase 5. The instructional frame for discussion, the discourse tools to promote productive talk about literary texts, the conversation moves and the pedagogical principles are adopted from the Quality Talk model. (f) Phase 6 Sumara’s (2002) ‘shared interpretation projects’ instigated the idea of including a nar-rative project in the NDR-model. In the narrative project, students tell a story of a fictitious character experiencing a situation that is connected to the identity issue of the given cycle. Johnston’s (2014) project called the Touchstone Text influenced the narra-tive project inasmuch as students self-select the format for their final project from a number of options. The implementation of the project was guided by Gudjon’s (2014) theory of action-oriented teaching and learning. 6.5 Design principles The following design principles have been derived from the theoretical background and the validation study: (a) Personal relevance (Frederking 2010; Sumara, 2002) The identity issue underlying the model cycle and the selected texts shall be personally relevant. Operationalization: Students qualitatively evaluate the proposed identity issue before the start of each cycle. (b) Narrative learning (Goodson & Gill, 2011) The model shall promote students’ narrative learning about their own identities and their social and cultural embeddedness as well as the identities of others and therefore aims at insight into the self and insight into the other. As a consequence of identity-orientedness, prototypical concepts of the students are rejected, students are seen as individuals with specific traits, attitudes and life stories. Operationalization: The identity issue is pre-narratively reflected. In phase 1, the learn-ers consciously configure their personal experiences on the given identity issue into an episode of their life story. In phase 2, students actively listen to life story episodes of significant others. In phase 3, the literary text is connected to pertinent life story epi-sodes. In phase 6, learners author the story of a fictitious character. At the end of each cycle, learners reflect on the impact of the learning outcome on their identities and pon-der over narrative change or consolidation. (c) Dialogic learning (Alexander, 2020) The model shall promote dialogic learning about the text, the self and the other. Operationalization: In phase 1, students have a narrative encounter with the teacher in which they reflect on their life story episode. In phase 2, learners elicit life concepts and life stories from significant others. In phase 4 and 6, students cooperatively perform tasks in which they need to voice opinions and discuss views. The literary discussion in phase 5 is a paradigmatic site of dialogic learning. Authentic questions shall elicit col-laborative reasoning and elaborated explanations. (d) Response learning (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017) The model shall promote students’ learning about the text, the self and the other by combining complementary modes of text engagement. An experiential-personal ap-proach is integrated with an analytical-interpretive approach to achieve both an aes-thetic and an explanatory outcome of reading. Operationalization: In phase 3, students respond experientially to the text, in phase 4 they engage in analysis and interpretation. (e) High engagement (validation study) The model should promote high engagement. It can be concluded from the results of the quantitative validation study that high engagement with the literary text predicts aes-thetic outcomes. Operationalization: All the tasks of the intervention stimulate students’ self-directed en-gagement with the self and the other (both the other person and the text). Authentic writing prompts, questions and project tasks are intended to cause personal involvement of the learner. 7 Validation study 7.1 Introduction Empirical research on the assessment of pedagogical interventions in the field of literature ed-ucation presupposes the availability of reliable and valid instruments to measure students’ re-sponses to literary texts. This study aimed to determine the dimensionality and internal con-sistency of existing measures in order to provide a psychometrically sound post facto instrument that is capable of testing the effects of instructional interventions on high school students. Miall highlights the need to examine literature education empirically in order to improve prac-tices in the literature classroom (Miall, 2011). According to Fialho et al. (2016), scientific study of literature education has mainly been conducted in three lines of research: 1. reading experi-ence (Fialho et al., 2011; Janssen & Rijlaarsdam, 1995; Miall, 2006; van Schooten et al., 2001), 2. knowledge that informs readers in their responses (Andriga, 1996; Janssen et al., 2012), and 3. growth of literary expertise (Peskin, 2010; van Schooten & de Glopper, 2003). It can be concluded that very little effort has been devoted to producing evidence-based theories on how to teach literature in upper secondary education and to test the educational relevance of these theories. With a few exceptions (e.g., Fialho et al., 2011; Shrijvers et al., 2019), instructional interven-tions in the field of literature education have not been subjected to empirical testing. In order to be able to empirically verify the impacts of instructional interventions on high school students’ reading orientations, attentional behavior, engagement, and self-insight, the psychometric prop-erties of specific subscales were tested in grades 11 and 12 of grammar schools across Austria. 7.2 Method 7.2.1 Research objectives The primary aim of this study was to analyze the dimensionality and reliability of an instrument capable of measuring readers’ engagement and self-insight in literature education. In addition, the relationships between reading orientations, the mode of attention that is specific to absorbed reading, various modes of reading engagement, and aesthetic outcome were investigated. 7.2.2 Participants The sample comprised 417 Austrian students attending grades 11 and 12 of public grammar schools: 225 female (54.0%) and 192 male (46.0%). The sample was evenly distributed between students from rural (n = 211) and urban areas (n = 206). 7.2.3 Procedure The items of the instrument were translated into German and administered during the 2019/20 school year. In order to obtain a representative sample of students in grades 11 and 12, the sample was drawn from the population of 135 grammar schools in the regions of Burgenland (96 students), Carinthia (115 students), and Vienna (206 students). Representatives of the regional education authorities randomly selected schools and classes to participate in the present validation study. Consequently, students were not selected based on their competence in literature education. The questionnaires were administered online via the EvaSys survey tool, and the data were automatically transferred to SPSS and AMOS for computation. 7.2.4 Instruments For collecting quantitative data, various five-point Likert-type scales ranging from 0 (= not at all true) to 4 (= extremely true) were used. The self-report questionnaire comprised 56 items. General reading orientations were quantified on two subscales from the Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ; Miall & Kuiken, 1995): (a) Insight Orientation (INS 1-13), and (b) Em-pathy Orientation (EMP 1-7). Insight Orientation examines shifts in readers’ understanding of the self and the other, whereas Empathy Orientation deals with projective identification with fictional characters and reflects the extended presence of these characters with the reader (Miall & Kuiken, 1995). In order to measure readers’ distribution of attention, the subscales Attentional Focus (ATF 1-3) and Narrative Presence (NAP 1-3) from the Narrative Engagement Scale (NES; Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009) were applied. Attentional Focus measures the level of readers’ distraction, whereas Narrative Presence explores the sensation that the reader has left the actual world and entered the diegesis. The Expressive Enactment (EXE 1-10) and Integrative Comprehension (INC 1-13) subscales from the Absorption-Like States Questionnaire (ASQ; Kuiken & Douglas, 2017) were em-ployed to measure alternative conceptions of absorbed reading engagement. Whereas INC items examine the process of inference-driven interpretation (cognitivist perspective), expres-sion-centered explication (phenomenological stance) is studied by means of EXE items. Each type of reading comprises various mini-scales: (a) Expressive Enactment: Set 1. Peri-personal Space, Set 2. Pre-enactive Empathy, Set 3. Self-implicating Givenness; Integrative Compre-hension: Set 1. Extra-personal Space, Set 2. Cognitive Perspective-taking, and Set 3. Realistic Conduct, Affective Realism (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017). The first set of mini-scales measures embodied space, the second set different modes of self-other relations, and the third set the verisimilitude of the textual events. In addition, the affective dimension of engagement was quantified on the Emotional Engagement subscale from the NES. In order to measure experiential self-insight, the Self-perceptual Depth subscale (SPD 1-7) from the Experiencing Questionnaire (EQ; Kuiken et al., 2012) was applied. These EQ items quantify the specific and situated aesthetic effects of reading a particular text. Although Kuiken et al. (2012) consider cluster analysis the most appropriate analysis procedure for data gathered by the Experiencing Questionnaire because they contest the context-independ-ent meaning of individual subscales, they state that the EQ is compatible with more familiar methods, e.g., exploratory factor analysis (pp. 27-28) As the focus of the present study is on the narrative and attentional components of literary reading, subscales measuring imagery were excluded. Before completing the items adopted from the NES, the EQ, and the ASQ, participants read Arthur Schnitzler’s “The Son” (1892). 7.2.5 Data analysis In this study, four steps of data analyses were conducted. First, the underlying structure of the instrument was explored using exploratory factor analysis. Second, the reliability of emergent scales was assessed. Third, regression paths between reading orientations, attention, modes of engagement, and self-insight were calculated. Finally, structural equation modelling was ap-plied in order to evaluate the fit of the full conceptual model. Although the structure of the subscales had been previously established using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), it was not appropriate to only use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) because the subscales were newly combined to address the need for an instrument that assesses peda-gogical interventions, thus potentially changing the latent structure of the data. EFA was per-formed on the full sample using SPSS version 27 after having confirmed that the assumptions for factor analysis were met and the data were suitable for this statistical procedure. Principal axis factoring (PAF) was used to extract the factors because Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) suggest applying PAF instead of principal component analysis (PCA) when the researcher is interested in a “theoretical solution uncontaminated by unique and error variability and [re-searchers] have designed [their] study on the basis of underlying constructs that are expected to produce scores on [their] observed variables” (p. 63). This was followed by oblique rotation of factors using Promax rotation. The decision on the number of factors to be retained was guided by three statistical criteria: 1. Kaiser’s criterion of eigenvalues above 161, 2. inspection of the scree plot, and 3. PCA parallel analysis using software developed by Watkins. Items with low communalities or high cross-loadings (above .32) were dropped from the initial solution. We adopted the suggestion that “if the cut-off for the number of factors is unclear, the researcher might find it useful to undertake several factor analyses with different numbers of specified factors” (Pett et al., 2003, p. 120). In addition to statistical criteria, factor interpretability and the usefulness of the solution (Pett et al., 2003) were taken into account when deciding on the number of factors to be retained. 61 Gorsuch (1983) suggests that this criterion is most accurate when there are fewer than 40 variables, the sample size is large, and the number of factors is expected to be between [n of variables/5] and [n of variables/3]. Only one condition is met in our case, as the instrument comprises 56 items and the number of expected factors is smaller than n of variables/5. As a result, this criterion must be applied with caution. After having established the measurement model by means of EFA, the reliability of the sub-scales was assessed using Cronbach alpha coefficients. Multivariate regression analyses were performed in order to explore whether reading orienta-tions predict attention. In addition, the ability of attention to predict modes of engagement after controlling for the influence of reading orientations and the ability of modes of engagement to predict self-insight after controlling for the influence of reading orientations and mode of atten-tion were assessed. In addition, the two constructs measuring self-other relations from the ASQ were compared to the Emotional Engagement subscale of the NES. In a step-wise regression analysis with Pre-enactive Empathy and Cognitive Perspective-taking as predictors and Emotional Engagement as outcome, it was determined which subscale of the ASQ is aligned more closely with affective response measured by the NES subscale. Confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation that was carried out on the full sample using AMOS Version 26 was supposed to (a) replicate evidence from the Kuiken-Douglas model (2017) that Expressive Engagement predicts Self-perceptual Depth whereas In-tegrative Comprehension does not, (b) explore the specific mode of attention during absorbed reading and how it affects reading engagement, and (c) examine whether reading orientations are related to attention and the ASQ modes of engagement. As the chi-square test was expected to be significant due to its sensitivity to sample size (Byrne, 2016), model fit was assessed by means of a range of fit statistics: a. the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR, cut-off value < .05), b. Comparative Fit Index (CFI, close to .95), c. Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI, close to .95), d. Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA, < .05), and e. Hoelter’s Critical N (CN, > 200). Due to missing values, the data had to be imputed to obtain modification indices. Apart from the calculation of the SRMR in which no missing data can be processed in AMOS, the fit sta-tistics were conducted on real data exclusively. 7.3 Results 7.3.1 Suitability of the data The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (.937) and Bartlett test of sphericity (.000) indicated that the data were adequate for factorization. According to Tabachnick and Fidell (2007), a sample size of 417 can be considered as good. A missing data (pairwise) correlation matrix was analyzed. From the inspection of P-P plots for each variable, we can infer that the data were, overall, normally distributed. Mahalanobis Distance analysis with a cutoff level of a = .001 detected 16 multivar-iate outliers. These cases were excluded from the subsequent principal factors extraction. The collinearity diagnostics revealed that all of the predictors met the assumptions (Tolerance >.10, VIF < 10). 7.3.2 Exploratory factor analysis Principal axis factoring with Promax rotation was performed through SPSS 27 on 56 items for a sample of 401 students. Principal component extraction was used prior to PAF to estimate the number of factors and the absence of multicollinearity. PAF revealed ten eigenvalues exceeding 1 (55.451% of the total variance explained), but only five factors exceeded the criterion value obtained from Parallel Analysis (Horn, 1965). Inspection of the scree plot (Cattell, 1966) sup-ported a six-factor solution (49.940% of the total variance explained). Therefore, the number of factors to retain is ambiguous. Due to low communalities, items INS 12 (.133) and INS 13 (.207) were excluded. Factor 9 (INC 2 and 3) was deleted because only two items loaded on this latent variable. As statistical and theoretical criteria yielded different results on how many factors to retain, PAF was rerun with 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 specified factors. The nine-factor solution proved the most adequate fit. The Pattern Matrix displayed a clear structure (Cf. Table 25, Appendix A). Moreover, this solution is in line with the theoretical underpinning of the given instruments. Finally, it serves the research purpose of validating a measure that is capable of assessing shifts in reading orientations, attention distribution, narrative engagement, and self-insight. In a five-factor solution, the modes of engagement measuring verisimilitude (Realism and Self-implicat-ing Givenness) and the attentional modes of Attentional Focus and Narrative Presence, which are crucial for evaluating the efficacy of pedagogic interventions in the field of literature edu-cation, were lost. In order to enhance the interpretability of the factors, only variables with factor loadings as follows were selected for inclusion in their respective factors: > .54 (factor 1), > .61 (factor 2), > .56 (factor 3), > .61 (factor 4), .58 (factor 5), > .85 (factor 6), > .59 (factor 7), > .57 (factor 8), > .55 (factor 9). Therefore, the following items were deleted: INS 1, 2,10; EMP; EXE 1,2,3; INC 1, 8, 9, 11; SPD 6, SPD 7. In accordance with the original labels of the standardized instruments, the factors are named, respectively: (i) Insight Orientation; (ii) Cognitive Perspective-taking; (iii) Pre-enactive Empa-thy; (iv) Self-perceptual Depth; (v) Empathy Orientation; (vi) Attentional Focus; (vii) Realism; (viii) Self-implicating Givenness; and (ix) Narrative Presence. Insight Orientation focuses on shifts in self-understanding and on changes in the reader’s un-derstanding of less personal matters (Miall & Kuiken, 1995). Empathy Orientation addresses blurred boundaries between the lifeworld and the diegesis: either the character is transported to the lifeworld or the reader is transported to the diegesis, without resulting in a fusion of char-acter and reader (Miall & Kuiken, 1995).62 62 According to Miall and Kuiken (1995), this factor indicates “projective identification with fictional characters” (p. 39). Our interpretation of the factor is based on a close reading of the corresponding items. Attentional Focus measures the level of distraction during engagement (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009). Narrative Presence deals with the emergence of an alternative world during the reading experience, the readers’ mental immersion in this diegesis, and the readers’ felt closeness to this alternative world in comparison with the real world (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009, p. 337). Pre-enactive Empathy and Cognitive Perspective-taking deal with the fusion of the embodied intentionality of self and other. While Pre-enactive Empathy explores the performative expli-cation of what is the same across self and other in the metaphoric shift of the reader to the characters’ perspective, the fusion in Cognitive Perspective-taking is perceived as perspective coordination analogous to the workings of simile (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 231). Self-implicating Givenness explores readers’ sensed sameness of the semantic categories of the literary text and their personal episodic recollections. This form of verisimilitude depends on readers’ imaginative variation of the interplay of text and memory. The factor Realism measures the consistency between textual representations and the schematic world knowledge that read-ers achieve during the reading process by means of inference (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 233). Self-perceptual Depth examines changes in self-perception during the reading experience. The factors Peri-personal Space (PPS) and Extra-personal Space (EPS) from the Kuiken-Doug-las model (2017) could not be extracted in exploratory factor analysis. The Peri-personal Space items loaded on the Narrative Presence factor (EXE 1: .450, EXE 2: .423; .EXE 3: .389), while EXE 2 and 3 cross-loaded on the Pre-enactive Empathy subscale (EXE2: .358; EXE 3: .397). Whereas two Extra-personal Space items (INC 2: .724, INC 3: .760) loaded on a separate factor, item INC 1 loaded on the Pre-enactive Empathy factor (.341) and cross-loaded on the Extra-personal Space factor (.303). For theoretical reasons, the subscales Peri-personal Space and Extra-personal Space were not excluded from the subsequent regression analyses and the confirmatory factor analysis, alt-hough they are not factorially independent in the exploratory factor analysis. Kuiken and Sharma (2013) emphasize the importance of the peripersonal space for self-insight. A specific kind of resonance in which “‘objectively’ different moments of felt presence nonetheless feel ‘the same’” (p. 243) is detectable within peripersonal space. Expressive explication of that self-relevant resonance may be the site of experiential disclosure, i.e., self-insight (Kuiken & Sharma, 2013, p. 244). In order to retain the symmetry of the Kuiken-Douglas model (2017), the Extra-personal Space subscale is preliminarily kept in the analysis as well. Goodness of fit indices of the measurement model in the confirmatory factor analysis will indicate whether the Peri-personal Space and Extra-personal Space subscales are to be included in the model from a statistical perspective. Following Promax rotation, 11 factors showed moderate intercorrelations (r = .04 - .69). These factors are shown in Table 7. Table 7: Pearson Product-Moment correlations between all scales Scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 INS - .476** .142** .394** .422** .352** .330** .343** .394** .336** .435** EMP .476** - .064 .392** .479** .429** .355** .433** .321** .254** .340** ATF .142** .064 - .410** .334** .114* -.005 .354** .367** .046 .130** NAP .394** .392** .410** - .708** .528** .330** .609** .505** .361** .471** PPS .422** .479** .334** .708** - .687** .448** .677** .556** .378** .563** PEE .352** .429** .114* .528** .687** - .598** .470** .422** .439** .548** SIG .330** .355** -.005 .330** .448** .598** - .329** .380** .491** .525** EPS .343** .433** .354** .609** .677** .470** .329** - .644** .349** .379** CPT .394** .321** .367** .505** .556** .422** .380** .644** - .450** .399** REA .336** .254** .046 .361** .378** .439** .491** .349** .450** - .444** SPD .435** .340** .130** .471** .563** .548** .525** .379** .399** .444** - Note. ** p < .001 (2-tailed). Scale 1 = Insight Orientation. Scale 2 = Empathy Orientation. Scale 3 = Attentional Focus. Scale 4 = Nar-rative Presence. Scale 5 = Peri-Personal Space. Scale 6 = Pre-Enactive Empathy. Scale 7 = Self-implicating Givenness. Scale 8 = Extra-Personal Space. Scale 9 = Cognitive Perspective-Taking. Scale 10 = Realism. Scale 11 = Self-perceptual Depth. 7.3.3 Reliability The Cronbach alpha values for the subscales generated by PAF exceeded the recommended value of .7, indicating adequate internal consistency (Cf. Table 8). Table 8: Descriptive statistics and reliability of subscales Subscales No. items Students’ Ratings Internal con- M S.D. Cronbach’s alpha Insight Orientation 8 1.85 .83 .86 Empathy Orientation 6 1.35 .91 .80 Attentional Focus 3 2.40 1.24 .91 Narrative Presence 3 1.87 1.07 .81 Peri-personal Space 3 1.69 1.11 .84 Pre-enactive Empathy 4 1.03 .99 .86 Self-implicating Givenness 3 1.28 1.05 .86 Extra-personal Space63 3 2.10 1.15 .82 Cognitive Perspective-taking 4 2.54 .97 .87 Realism 3 1.77 .93 .80 Self-perceptual Depth 5 1.09 .83 .86 63 Cronbach a would be .92 if item INC1 were deleted. This substantiates the results from EFA that INC 1 does not load on the same factor as INC 2 and INC 3. 7.3.4 Regression analyses In order to specify the internal conceptual structure of the proposed model, multiple regression analyses were used. First, the ability of reading orientations to predict attention was assessed. Second, six hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to explore how attention precipi-tates modes of engagement after controlling for the influence of reading orientations. Third, the influence of modes of engagement on self-insight were evaluated after controlling for the im-pact of reading orientations and attention. In the first multivariate regression, Attentional Focus served as dependent variable and Insight Orientation and Empathy Orientation as predictors. Just 2% of the variance in the dependent variable was explained by the model, with only Insight Orientation being a significant control measure (ß = .14, p < .05). Some 21% of the variance in Narrative Presence was explained by the model tested in the sec-ond multivariate regression, in which again Insight Orientation and Empathy Orientation served as predictors. Both Insight Orientation (ß = .27, p < .01) and Empathy Orientation (ß = .27, p < .01) could be identified as significant unique contributions. It can be concluded that the explanatory power of the presented regression model for Attentional Focus is highly limited, although the model is statistically significant (p < .05). On the other hand, both Insight Orientation and Empathy Orientation significantly precipitate Narrative Presence. Detailed results from hierarchical regression analyses for variables predicting forms of engage-ment can be found in Appendix B (Tables 26–31). Insight Orientation and Empathy Orientation were to some degree mutually exclusive in their ability to predict modes of engagement, whereas Empathy Orientation significantly predicted Pre-enactive Empathy and Extra-personal Space, Insight Orientation precipitated Cognitive Perspective-taking and Realism. Both reading orientations had a significant impact on Self-implicating Givenness, while Empathy Orientation was more strongly predictive of Peri-personal Space than Insight Orientation. Attentional Focus predicted embodied space subscales (Peri-personal Space, Extra-personal Space) and Cognitive Perspective-taking. It is noteworthy that verisimilitude subscales (Self-implicating Givenness and Realism) and Pre-enactive Empathy were negatively predicted by Attentional Focus, i.e., that distraction predicts these modes of engagement. Narrative Presence significantly predicted all modes of engagement. Beta values were the highest for embodied space subscales and Pre-enactive Empathy. Regression coefficients for the hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Self-perceptual Depth are shown in Table 9. Insight Orientation significantly predicts Self- perceptual Depth, whereas Empathy Orientation does not. There is no significant contribution of attention to the model. The finding that Expressive Engagement with literary texts – which comprises Peri-personal Space, Pre-enactive Empathy and Self-implicating Givenness – pre-cipitates self-insight (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 239) could be confirmed in the given regres-sion analysis. Extra-personal Space and Cognitive Perspective-taking did not precipitate Self-perceptual Depth. However, Realism significantly predicted self-insight. This result challenges the assumption that Integrative Comprehension subscales consistently do not predict aesthetic outcomes (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017). Table 9: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Self-Perceptual Depth Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß B SE B . INS 0.36 0.05 .35** 0.27 0.05 .27** 0.17 0.05 .17** EMP 0.16 0.05 .17** 0.07 0.05 .08 -0.03 0.04 -.04 ATF -0.04 0.03 -.06 -0.01 0.03 -.02 NAP 0.28 0.04 .36** 0.08 0.04 .10 PPS 0.19 0.05 .26** PEE 0.10 0.05 .12* SIG 0.18 0.04 .22** EPS -0.05 0.04 -.07 CPT 0.01 0.05 .01 REA 0.11 0.04 .12** R2 .21 .30 .47 F change R2 53.12** 25.78** 19.38** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. INS = Insight Orientation. EMP = Empathy Orientation. ATF = Attentional Focus. NAP = Narrative Pres-ence. PPS = Peri-personal Space. PEE = Pre-enactive Empathy. SIG = Self-implicating Givenness. EPS = Extra-personal Space. CPT = Cognitive Perspective-taking. REA = Realism. In addition, regression models were used to compare Pre-enactive Empathy and Cognitive Per-spective-taking to the Emotional Engagement subscale of the NES. As can be seen in Table 10, both Pre-enactive Empathy and Cognitive Perspective-taking significantly predict Emotional Engagement. This finding substantiates the assumption that “either pre-enactive empathy or cognitive perspective-taking may involve affect” (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 232). We can conclude that both forms of absorbed reading, i.e., Expressive Enactment and Integra-tive Comprehension, can have an emotional component. Table 10: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Emotional Engagement Model 1 Model 2 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß Pre-enactive Empathy 0.44 0.5 .45** 0.30 0.05 .30** Cognitive Perspective-tak-ing 0.35 0.05 .34** R2 .20 .29 F for change in R2 98.02** 53.71** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. 7.3.5 Confirmatory factor analysis Confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation was conducted on the full sample. After inspection of the modification indices, post hoc model modifications were per-formed in an attempt to develop a better fitting model. Error covariances were added only when there was item content overlap, i.e., only error terms of items loading on the same factor were covaried. The variable EMP 4 was excluded from models 2–5 because of its low factor loading on the corresponding latent variable. In Model No. 1, forms of narrative engagement as postulated by Busselle and Bilandzic (2009) predict aesthetic outcome as conceptualized by Kuiken et al. (2012). Narrative understanding from the NES was excluded from the model because it is not considered a form of engagement with the literary text, but an outcome of a specific form of engagement. The model is presented in Figure 12. C:\Users\grap\Desktop\grafik6.png Figure 12: NES narrative engagement predicting EQ Self-Perceptual Depth (Model 1) All three forms of engagement significantly predict aesthetic outcome. It should be highlighted that Attentional Focus negatively predicts Self-perceptual Depth. A considerable influence of Emotional Engagement on Self-perceptual Depth is discernible. This means that there is a strong affective dimension to the process of bringing about self-insight. In Model No. 2, the basic Kuiken-Douglas model could be replicated (Cf. Figure 13). Expres-sive Enactment predicts Self-perceptual Depth, whereas Integrative Comprehension does not. As confirmatory factor analysis revealed good fit indices for the measurement model (Cf. Table 11), the subscales Peri-personal Space and Extra-personal Space, which were not factorially independent in exploratory factor analysis, were retained in the model. C:\Users\grap\Desktop\grafik_model2.png Figure 13: Kuiken-Douglas model (Model 2) In Model No. 3, which is shown in Figure 14, attentional factors from the NES that proved to be significant predictors of Self-perceptual Depth in Model No. 1 were added to the basic Kui-ken-Douglas model, replacing their Open Reflection construct. In open reflection, a “bivalent mode of sustained and yet flexibly changing attention” (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 222) is operative. The Open Reflection subscale measures the “integration of sustained concentration and attentional reorienting” (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 234). The NES subscales, on the other hand, quantify sustained and flexible dimensions of attention separately. While Attentional Fo-cus measures the sustained dimension of attention, Narrative Presence is indicative of shifting, i.e., flexibly changing attention. C:\Users\grap\Desktop\grafik_model3b.png Figure 14: Kuiken-Douglas model + NES Attention (Model 3) Narrative Presence predicted both Expressive Enactment and Integrative Comprehension. Inte-grative Comprehension was not significantly regressed on Attentional Focus. It is worth em-phasizing that Attentional Focus was negatively predictive of Expressive Engagement in Model No. 3. Thus, the results from the hierarchical regression analysis were confirmed. The findings from regression analysis indicated that, unlike Extra-personal Space and Cognitive Perspective-taking, the subscale Realism was significantly predictive of Self-perceptual Depth. This hypothesis was tested in Model No. 4 (Cf. Figure 15). For this purpose, the first-order engagement factors were directly related to the outcome variable, and the second-order factors were deleted from the model. Model No. 4 confirmed that Realism significantly mediated the aesthetic outcome (Self-per-ceptual Depth) of deeply engaged reading, thus posing a challenge to the asymmetry of the Kuiken-Douglas model in which Expressive Enactment mediates Self-perceptual Depth, whereas Integrative Comprehension does not. C:\Users\grap\Desktop\grafik_model4.png Figure 15: Kuiken-Douglas model decomposed + NES Attention (Model 4) Kuijpers et al. (2019) discovered that the effects of personality traits on absorbed reading are mediated, inter alia, by insight orientation as measured by the Insight subscale from the LRQ. This encouraged the inclusion of two subscales from the LRQ, thus adding reading orientations to the model. Insight Orientation and Empathy Orientation were supposed to predict both at-tention and the modes of engagement (Cf. Figure 16). C:\Users\grap\Desktop\grafik_model5_2.png Figure 16: Kuiken-Douglas model + NES Attention + LRQ Reading Orientations (Model 5) Insight Orientation predicted both Narrative Presence and Attentional Focus, whereas Empathy Orientation precipitated Narrative Presence but not Attentional Focus. Empathy Orientation equally predicted Expressive Enactment and Integrative Comprehension. Expressive Enact-ment and Integrative Comprehension were not directly regressed on Insight Orientation. Nar-rative Presence predicted both forms of engagement, while Attentional Focus only positively predicted Integrative Comprehension. The finding from Model No. 2 and Model No. 3 that Expressive Enactment precipitated Self-perceptual Depth whereas Integrative Comprehension did not was confirmed. Model fit indices of all of the models are presented in Table 11. Model No. 5 is the most com-prehensive, as it comprises reading orientations, attention, modes of engagement, and self-in-sight. It explained the correlation to within an average error of .053, so the model was well-fitting on the basis of the SRMR. The incremental indices indicated reasonable fit. Byrne (2016) refers to MacCallum and Austin (2000), who strongly recommend the use of the RMSEA for at least three reasons: (a) it appears to be adequately sensitive to model misspecification (Hu & Bentler, 1998); (b) commonly used interpretative guidelines appear to yield appropriate con-clusions regarding model quality (Hu & Bentler, 1998, 1999); and (c) it is possible to build confidence intervals around RMSEA values. Values less than .05 indicate good fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1993), confidence errors should be narrow, and the p-value should be p > .50 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1996). We can conclude that the fit of Model No. 5 is good according to the RMSEA, as all requirements are met. HOELTER indices attested adequate sample size for this model. The Expected Cross-Validation Index (ECVI) default model for No. 5 was the most likely to be replicated. Table 11: Goodness of fit indices Fit Index Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 chi-square 157.695 98,002 252.351 226.999 696.587 Df 68 34 104 98 368 P .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 SRMR .0833 .0557 .0584 .0588 .0525 TLI .952 .947 .945 .950 .932 CFI .969 .972 .963 .968 .946 RMSEA .057 .069 .060 .057 .047 LO 90 .046 .053 .050 .048 .042 HI 90 .069 .085 .069 .067 .053 PCLOSE .142 .026 .044 .104 .798 HOELTER .05 224 199 205 216 238 HOELTER .01 249 229 223 236 250 Note. Model 1 = Busselle-Bilandzic model. Model 2 = Kuiken-Douglas model. Model 3 = Kuiken-Douglas model + NES Attention. Model 4 = Kuiken-Douglas model decomposed + NES Attention. Model 5 = Kui-ken-Douglas model + NES Attention + LRQ Reading Orientations. 7.4 Discussion and conclusion This study yielded an instrument with valid and reliable scores that can assess high school stu-dents’ reading orientations, mode of attention, modes of engagement, and self-insight. Nine dimensions of reading experience were extracted in exploratory factor analysis. LRQ Insight and Empathy represent habitual reading orientations. NES Attentional Focus and Narrative Presence constitute dimensions of attention as directed towards the text during absorbed read-ing. ASQ Pre-enactive Empathy, Self-Implicating Givenness, Cognitive Perspective-taking, and Realism64 are considered forms of engagement with the literary text. For theoretical rea-sons, two forms of engagement that were not factorially independent in EFA were added to the model: ASQ Peri-personal and Extra-personal Space. Confirmatory factor analysis justified the inclusion of these constructs. Finally, Self-perceptual Depth constitutes the self-implicating aesthetic outcome of engagement with the literary text. The eleven factors are investigated on the respective subscales, all of which show a satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach’s a > 0.80). 64 Kuiken and Douglas (2017) suggested two separate subscales to measure Realism (Realistic Conduct, Affective Realism). Items from these two subscales were integrated into one factor due to statistical reasons. 65 The translation of the quote is taken from Phillips (2015, p. 68). In future studies, the newly validated instrument is supposed to serve the purpose of measuring the efficacy of interventions in literature education. Therefore, the LRQ, the NES, the ASQ, and the EQ will be used as a post facto measurement to falsify the hypothesis that the instruc-tional intervention in question does not influence readers’ orientation towards and experience of literary texts (Fialho et al., 2011, p. 244). The scales adopted from the ASQ are not intended to measure alternative conceptions of absorption, but rather the effects of an educational inter-vention on participants’ forms of self-other relations and their pursuit of verisimilitude. Narra-tive Presence items from the NES will be applied to written texts instead of TV programs, again with the aim of exploring the impact of literature education on experiential engagement. Confirmatory factor analysis showed both a satisfactory measurement and a structural model. It is remarkable that Attentional Focus negatively predicted Expressive Enactment. This is most obvious in Model No. 4, which demonstrates that Attentional Focus negatively precipitated Peri-personal Space, Pre-enactive Empathy, and Self-implicating Givenness. This means that high intensity of attention on the literary text disrupts explication-centered engagement with the text. Diderot (1754/2001) already redefined distraction as a positive mind-set during the creative process: “Distraction has its source in an excellent quality of the understanding, an extreme facility in allowing the ideas to strike against, or reawaken one another.”65 According to Diderot, mind wandering enhances the making of connections of ideas that is so important during explication (Phillips, 2015). Zabelina (2018) expounds three theories of how attention is linked to creativity. The concept of “leaky” attention proves useful in the case of distraction leading to fruitful engagement with the text. Leaky attention is “of particular importance for some forms of creativity, specifically for making connections between ideas” (Zabelina, 2018, p. 164). The process of making connections, which is essential during creative engagement with literary texts, i.e., Expressive Enactment, might be facilitated by a certain degree of distraction measured by the Attentional Focus subscale. Moreover, we can infer from the regression paths in Model No. 3 that sustained attention is complemented with flexible attention in literary reading (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017). Attentional Focus measures the quantitative aspect of attention, i.e., how much attention is directed at the literary text, and is indicative of its sustainability, but is not informative regarding how attention is directed at the text. Narrative Presence, however, tackles qualitative aspects of attention di-rection by measuring the temporary shifting of the reader’s deictic center to the world of the text (NAP 1, NAP2) on a continuum from distance to proximity (NAP3). In an act of intention-ality, the diegesis is created (Westerman, 2018), and in the transaction of the reader with the text, attention flexibly shifts between the world of the reader and the newly created world of the text.66 It can be assumed that the specific way attention is directed at the text, as measured by Narrative Presence, enables expressive-centered explication and inference-driven interpre-tation. The intensity of attention on the object, however, differentially predicts engagement; low levels of distraction facilitate Integrative Comprehension, whereas some degree of distrac-tion facilitates Expressive Enactment. As Attentional Focus and Narrative Presence measure different dimensions of attention, no second-order latent factor for attention was established in the model. 66 This flexible shifting between the text and the reader already presupposes some distraction from the text. It is remarkable that participants’ scores on Pre-enactive Empathy (M = 1.03, SD = .99) and Self-implicating Givenness (M = 1.28, SD = 1.05) were substantively lower than on Cognitive Perspective-taking (M = 2.54, SD = .97) and Realism (M = 1.77, SD = .93). Thus, students in Austrian grammar schools more readily adopted an inference-driven interpretation of the em-pathetic shift than an expression-centered explication. As far as the phenomena of verisimili-tude are concerned, participants tended to seek consistency between their interpretation-driven situation model and their schema-driven world knowledge, rather than explicating the interplay of text semantics and their personal memories. The reasons for these preferences need to be understood in future research. Reading experience is dependent on the literary text assigned for reading and on the students involved. Therefore, the study needs to be replicated with different materials and populations. The present study deals with attitudinal, attentional, and experiential components of the reading process. Despite their indisputable relevance in the field of education, aspects of mental im-agery were not covered, as the present project focused on attentional shifting to the diegesis after having been created during engagement with the text, not on the imaginative creation of the diegesis itself. Finally, future research projects should take other variables into account that might influence students’ responses to literature (e.g., personality traits, reading habits, reading motivation, per-sonal bias, social desirability, attitudes to teachers). The model established in confirmatory factor analysis has some educational implications. First, the curriculum objective of self-insight can be accomplished by having students engage in ex-pression-centered explication. They must be provided with a genuine reading experience in which the text is close to them, so that they metaphorically fuse with characters and connect the world of the text to their own memories. From Model No. 4 we learned that, contrary to the original Kuiken-Douglas model, connections that readers make between their schema-driven world knowledge and their interpretation-driven situation model of the text (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 233) can also further self-insight. Therefore, stimulating such connections might facil-itate the given curriculum objective as well. Second, it is noteworthy that both forms of self-other relations in the Kuiken-Douglas model have a strong emotional dimension that could be proven in a comparison with the NES Emo-tional Engagement subscale. It is therefore vital to allow students to affectively engage with literary texts in order to promote aesthetic and explanatory outcomes of literary reading. Third, reading orientations influence both reading engagement and reading outcome. Therefore, they need to be considered when interventions in literary education are planned. Whether ori-entations can also be affected by experiences or the impact of experience is limited to its own sphere has been explored in a recent intervention study (Grandits, 2021). Fourth, attentional flexibility seems essential for engagement with literary texts. As a result, the executive function of shifting must be trained (Meltzer, 2007) and we must allow students “leaky” attention so that they can work creatively with texts. In conclusion, it can be said that instructional interventions need to be empirically researched in order to test their learning effects on students. The proposed eleven-factor instrument might serve as a valid and reliable measure of students’ engagement and self-insight. 8 Intervention study We would like to enhance literary engagement and insight of upper secondary grammar school students in Austria through lessons that establish personally meaningful connections between the student and the literary narrative. For this reason, we aim at establishing a literature class-room intervention based on the NDR model of literary education that improves students’ nar-rative engagement and that fosters learning about themselves, others and the text. First, the design process of the intervention is described. Second, implementation fidelity is measured and the intervention is evaluated. Finally, the effectiveness of the intervention is quantitatively and qualitatively determined. 8.1 Design process Plomp (2013, p. 19) holds that development studies in education comprise three phases: 1. pre-liminary phase, 2. development phase, and 3. assessment phase. In the preliminary phase, there is a context analysis, the relevant literature is reviewed and a conceptual and theoretical framework for the study is set up. The intervention is formatively assessed in the development phase so that it can be improved according to the findings. In the assessment phase, the intervention is evaluated in order to determine whether the solution to the research problem meets the pre-determined objectives (Plomp, 2013, p. 19). Figure 17 summarizes the design process of the present study. After having explored the cur-ricular requirements of literature education in Austria, the theoretical model was set up. Design principles were subsequently derived from the theoretical model and the validation study. In order to formatively assess the intervention, teacher experts examined the prototype and of-fered suggestions which were considered for the second version of the intervention to be tested in a trial study. Expert consultations and observations of the trial study resulted in a redesign of the intervention. In the assessment phase, implementation fidelity was measured. The final version of the model was evaluated by students. The effects of the intervention were explored in a quasi-experimental mixed methods study. All assessments were based on the criteria for high quality interventions (Plomp, 2013, p. 29). Figure 17: Overview of the design process according to Plomp (2013) 8.2 Educational context In Austria, literature education is one sub-domain of German language classes alongside oral competence, written competence, text competence, and linguistic reflection. The Austrian cur-riculum demands a multi-faceted response to the text in literature education: receptive, analyt-ical, productive and creative approaches shall be adopted. Students are supposed to engage with texts emotionally, cognitively-argumentatively and productively. Apart from interpreting texts, students are expected to develop critical judgement and reflect their respective reading attitude to the text. In addition, students shall be capable of culturally and historically contextualizing texts. The curriculum also addresses the motivational aspect. Literature education shall arouse the students’ interest and they shall be taught how to derive pleasure from reading. It can, however, be inferred from the quantitative data that experiential and affective approaches are underrepresented (Cf. Research problem). This is remarkable as the validation study has given evidence to the assumption that it is explication-centered experiences that result in self-insight. Literature education based on formal analysis that is prevalent in Austrian classrooms does not trigger deeper self-understanding although the curriculum declares self-discovery one of the major objectives of literature education. In addition, a certain bias to the analytic-interpretive paradigm as expressed by Integrative Comprehension67 can be discerned in the curriculum. Perspective-taking (as measured by the Cognitive Perspective-taking subscale) and comparisons between the aesthetic world and real-ity (as measured by the Realism subscale) are explicitly mentioned in the curriculum whereas 67 The subscales were explained in the validation study report. They are adopted from Kuiken and Douglas (2017). their experiential counterparts are neglected. The nationwide standardized A-levels which in-clude an optional writing task on literary texts also exclusively focus on analysis and interpre-tation. It can be concluded from the validation study that analysis and interpretation are dominant in regular literary education (RLE) in Austria. In order to fulfil the curricular need of self-discov-ery, experiential approaches must be integrated into literature education. The current interven-tion project is dedicated to that objective. 8.3 Development phase The intervention prototype was presented to three very experienced teachers (years in service: M= 29.7, one of them regional head of German teachers) in order to discuss the relevance, consistency and practicality of the model. First, they suggested a change to the time structure in order to prevent student stress and guar-antee their attention. Therefore, the time frame was extended. Second, the thematic appropri-ateness of the first two cycles of the model was confirmed. Third, curricular requirements for text selection were discussed in the context of the design principle of personal relevance. A suitable compromise was to choose texts for the aesthetic experience in phase 3 by the criterion of personal relevance whereas canonical texts were analyzed and interpreted in phase 4. The teachers also commented on the instrument to be employed in the assessment phase. They recommended changes to the reading orientations subscales. Two items of the LRQ Empathy subscale were supposed to be excluded because students might regard them as inappropriate. Furthermore, they considered the items measuring embodied space (ASQ subscales Extra-per-sonal Space and Peri-personal Space) unsuitable for high school students. The experts also expressed the need for teacher guidelines for the implementation of the inter-vention. Next, a trial study on the prototype of cycle 1 was conducted with two classes (N=34). Each class was observed for three units when phases 3, 4, and 5 were implemented. In addition, there were four more expert consultations with teachers in order to check the guidelines, the compre-hensibility of the tasks, and practicality in general. The trial study and the expert input resulted in a redesign of the model: (a) The language of the instructions was simplified, and task operators were used that the students were acquainted with from their regular prompts. (b) A preparatory unit for students was introduced in which learning objectives were explicated, practice training took place (especially for personal commenting and discussing), and problem-solving strategies were explored. (c) Step 7 of the original model (identity display II: reflection on narrative change over time) was moved to the reflection phase of the second cycle. Finally, a teacher workshop was hosted to explain the scientific underpinnings of the model. Discussions were simulated so that teachers could apply the principles of Quality Talk (Wil-kinson et al., 2010). As teachers were involved in the development of the intervention, the workshop revealed that they had excellent knowledge of how to precisely implement the model. A comprehensive description of the final version of the intervention including a time frame is provided to allow replicability. 8.4 Comprehensive description of cycles 1 and 2 Cycle 1 – Identity issue: relationship stories Phase 1: autobiographical story The intervention starts out with a writing task. Students are prompted to write a story about a nadir with a significant other (Cf. McAdams, 1995). They focus on the plot and the internal characterization (thoughts, feelings, fears, guilt) of themselves. The guiding question is: “What does this episode tell the reader about yourself as a person?” Artefacts: students’ stories. As nadirs are personal and possibly distressing stories, students need not hand in their texts. But they have to keep them to reconsider them after the completion of cycle 1. Phase 2: identity in interaction This interactional setting of narrating is inspired by Bamberg’s (2011) conception of narrative in interaction. Students read an extract from Far from the tree by A. Solomon about horizontal and vertical identity (Solomon, 2012, p. 2). Before they interview a parent, grandparent or sig-nificant other, they self-evaluate their horizontal and vertical identities in the Solomon chart (teacher handout). Then they conduct a narrative interview (10 mins, audiotaped). Guidelines and prompts were presented in the preparatory unit. The interview is based on two questions: 1. In what ways are we similar? In what ways are we different? The main requirement of the student is to elicit stories about the given types of relational identity from the interviewee. Finally, students present their Solomon charts in class (max. 2 mins). Artefacts: Solomon chart completed with self-evaluation and interview results, audiotaped in-terviews Phase 3: aesthetic reading experience In this phase, a modified version of the self-probed retrospection technique is applied (Cf. Kui-ken et al., 2004). In a personal comment, students specify why they picked these passages. The focus of a small-group follow-up discussion are affective responses and connections between the diegesis and students’ real worlds. The teacher acts as moderator and highlights similarities and differences in students’ responses to the same or similar passages. Based on the criteria of thematic appropriateness and personal relevance, students read T.C. Boyle’s “Balto” in which the dilemma situation of a girl in the face of her father’s misconduct is explored. Artefact: students’ written comments Phase 4: text analysis teams The teacher randomly assigns the students to teams of three to four members. The groups ana-lyze and interpret Vor Sonnenaufgang by G. Hauptmann (1889; curriculum reference: drama from the period of Naturalism). The response comprises the following steps: • Aesthetic reading experience: Students personally comment on two given passages from the play (Cf. phase 3) • Contextualization 1: Students closely read a passage from Vor Sonnenaufgang by G. Haupt-mann, Act 3 and a thematically related passage from a contemporary adaptation of Vor Sonnenaufgang by E. Palmetshofer, Act 2, Scene 2. • Contextualization 2: Students choose a cultural artefact on their own and compare its form and content to the canonical text. • Contextualization 3: Texts that have already been read at school or in their free-time are compared to the canonical text. • Interpretation: Finally, students have to put forward an interpretation hypothesis on the fol-lowing prompt: Interpret the conflicts within relationships in Hauptmann’s play. Artefact: group notes on analysis results Phase 5: literary discussion Small group discussions (max. 5 participants) are held and videotaped, with a maximum length of 30 mins each. In the first cycle, teachers moderate the simultaneous discussions. A key ele-ment of the Quality Talk Model are authentic questions which the teachers are provided with: • How do you perceive the relationships among characters in the play? (domain concept) • Shall Loth abandon Helene? (dilemma question) • Which artefacts can we intertextually connect with the play? (intertextual response) • How did you emotionally respond to the text? (affective response) • What does the text mean to you as a person? (reflexivity) The teacher’s main task is to enhance elaborated explanations and exploratory talk. The discus-sions are videotaped. Artefact: videotaped discussions Phase 6: narrative project In the first cycle, the class teacher is the project head. Initially, the students are given the fol-lowing situation and task that should enhance reflection on relational identity and social respon-sibility: There is a conflict within your family. Produce a narrative in which you work on that conflict. The project objectives and the time frame are specified by the project head. The fol-lowing project products are possible: (a) theatrical performance, (b) short film, (c) photo story with accompanying text, (d) autographed cartoon, € short story, and (f) partner story. First, students are assigned to small groups by the project head. They brainstorm ideas and associations on the task. These are presented in class. Second, students form groups on their own and cooperatively plan their project with reference to the guidelines. Students are also allowed to work individually. After having produced a draft project schedule, they discuss the planning results with the project head. When the project head approves of the schedule, students start their work on the narrative project. Third, students had to realize the project until a prespecified deadline. There is a public presen-tation of the project artefacts at a school event. Artefact: narrative product Cycle 2 – Identity issue: happiness Reflection phase Students reflect on narrative change (Adler, 2019; Fivush et al., 2019) based on the story they wrote in cycle 1, phase 1. They need to address the question of how the identity work and the response to the literary texts supported or limited their identity construction (Beach et al., 2015). Before the reflection phase, students read the article “The Distant Garden: Can happiness be learned” by the German philosopher R.D. Precht (2007). They select one rule of happiness and, as an introduction to the new identity issue, they discuss whether sticking to this rule would make them happy. As the steps in the model are interchangeable, students start this cycle with phase 2. Phase 2: identity in interaction Students discover what the interviewees think about personal happiness. They have to hold five short interviews with diverse people (differing in age, sex, and cultural background). Each in-terview lasts for a maximum of five minutes and is audiotaped. The interview protocol com-prises two basic prompts: 1. What do you understand by happiness? (opening question) 2. Tell me about an event that made you really happy (narration). The interview data are analyzed, and relevant results are uploaded on the project platform. Students decide on their own how to pre-sent their results. Artefact: results file on the project platform Phase 1: autobiographical story Students produce a video in which they answer the opening question from phase two and tell the story of a high point in their lives. They need to detail the plot, describe the relation of people (Cf. cycle 1) and their actions, express their feelings and thoughts and think about how the episode influenced their lives and what the episode tells the reader about their identities. Artefact: student video Phase 3: aesthetic reading experience Students read the short story “Glück” by Ferdinand von Schirach (2009) and comment on three striking or evocative passages. Artefact: students’ written comments Phase 4: text analysis teams The teacher randomly assigns the students to teams of three to four members. The groups ana-lyze and interpret Brave New World by A. Huxley (1932; curriculum reference: dystopia). The response comprises the following steps: • Contextualization 1: Students closely read a passage from Brave New World by A. Huxley (1932) and a thematically related passage from a contemporary novel (Th. Sautner: Fremdes Land). They need to analyze analogies and differences. • Contextualization 2: Students choose desperate characters from narratives (text, film, se-ries) and explore reasons for their emotional state. • Contextualization 3: Students discuss the questions if they were happy in the diegesis of Brave New World and if there are similarities between the diegesis and their real lives. • Interpretation: Finally, students have to put forward an interpretation hypothesis on the fol-lowing prompt: Interpret how the concept of happiness is framed in the given novel. Artefact: group notes on their results Phase 5: literary discussion Small group discussions (max. 5 participants) are held and videotaped. In cycle 2, students volunteer to moderate the simultaneous discussions. The following authentic questions were debated: • How do you perceive the concepts of happiness in the two novels? (domain concept) • Shall the savage accept the given social norms? (dilemma question) • Why are characters in your artworks happy or unhappy? (intertexual response) • How has the novel Brave New World affected you emotionally? (affective response) • What does this text mean to you? (reflexivity) Finally, the students’ hypotheses as developed in phase 4 are discussed. Artefact: videotaped discussions Phase 6 is omitted in cycle 2. 8.5 Time frame Table 12 shows the basic time frame for the implementation of one cycle of the NDR-model. Table 12: Time frame of one cycle Number of Activities 1 Cycle 1: preparatory unit; cycle 2 onwards: reflection phase 1 Life story (phase 1) 1 Narration in interaction (phase 2) 2 Self-probed retrospection technique (phase 3) 3 Text analysis teams (phase 4) 1 Literary discussion (phase 5) 3 Narrative Project (phase 6)68 Total: 12 2 cycles/term = 24 TU (40 % of German lessons/term) 68 Students completed their project schedule in the three teaching units indicated in Table 12. They realised the project as a home assignment and were granted course credits for that work. 8.6 Learning objectives The primary learning objectives during the implementation of the NDR-model are given in Table 13 below: Table 13: Main competence-based learning objectives of the respective phases of the NDR-model PHASE ACTIVITIES MAIN 1 Autobiographical story • tell a personal narrative on a given identity issue, thus repre-senting one’s identity • reflect one’s identity by narrating it • analyze the plot of a personal narrative PHASE ACTIVITIES MAIN 2 Story in interaction • recount and closely listen to personal narratives in social in-teraction • respond cognitively and emotionally to the narrative of the other • discuss a personal narrative, thus integrating different per-spectives • negotiate identity issues across different socials worlds (mainly school-private life) 3 Personal comment • respond to a literary narrative cognitively and affectively in cultural interaction • analyze comments of a literary narrative 4 Analysis and Interpreta-tion • analyze literary narratives o select artefacts for intertextual/intermedial compari-son • interpret literary narratives 5 Literary Discussion • discuss analysis process and analysis results • compare personal narrative to literary narratives • compare personal identity to characters’ identities • discuss various perspectives 6 Narrative project • tell the personal narrative of the other • reflect on the other’s identity by narrating it Reflection phase • retell a personal narrative • reflect on identity development over time The operators of these learning objectives are supposed to mirror the three basic practices (nar-ration, dialogue, response) promoted by the model. Reflection is added as practice essential to the given approach. Each objective can be assigned to one or more learning domains (insight into self, insight into the other, text understanding). 8.7 Implementation measures 8.7.1 Method Implementation fidelity was explored by means of observations, analysis of students’ artefacts, inspection of teachers’ online logs, and summary minutes from weekly meetings with teachers. Audiotaped interviews from phase two, videotaped discussions from phase five, personal sto-ries from phase one, personal comments from phase three, analysis results and interpretation hypothesis from phase four, and project results from phase six were examined according to a task completion criterion: 1. Did the students successfully accomplish the task as laid out in the instructions? In addition, we analyzed teacher logs by a second task completion criterion: 2. Did the students complete the task within the set time frame? Teachers were also required to indicate difficulties with the implementation of the intervention in the log which were discussed in the weekly meetings (duration: approximately 50 minutes). In these sessions, teacher also holistically assessed students’ degree of engagement. 8.7.2 Results We can conclude that the intervention was, overall, well implemented. Inspection of the stu-dents’ performance in interviews revealed that they strictly adhered to the interview protocol and elicited the information that was required. Students also followed discussion guidelines closely and intensively engaged in elaborated explanations and exploratory talk during literary discussions (Wilkinson et al., 2010, pp. 151-152). Discussion questions were analyzed in detail because we had discovered in the trial study that teachers kept asking exam questions that aimed at testing text comprehension. During the implementation of the intervention, however, moder-ators exclusively posed the type of questions that were practiced in the preparatory unit (au-thentic questions on affective response, intertextual response, shared knowledge response, and high-level thinking questions). Task completion of personal stories from phase one was excellent. All texts were on topic and displayed a high degree of cognitive and emotional elaboration of students’ experiences. Stu-dents managed to create coherent plots and round characters in their narrative projects. The main tasks were thus fulfilled by all participants in the intervention. As the implementation of the prototype had led to an adaptation of the time frame that was more suitable for the respective age group of learners, tasks could be completed within the set time frame. Only the reflection phase that took place at the beginning of the second cycle had to be extended due to students’ need to reconsider narrative change of identity carefully. The previous testing of the prototype proved useful during the implementation. Teachers only encountered minor difficulties which they could solve without consulting the researcher. For instance, teachers had to explain technical terms, had to remind students of guidelines and had to support them with problems in understanding difficult passages of the literary texts and in devising a project plan. As a consequence, weekly meetings mostly focused on the analysis of the learning process instead of problem-solving strategies. Engagement was holistically as-sessed as higher compared to regular literature education. In conclusion, the intervention is logically designed and is usable in the settings for which it has been designed and developed. Therefore, the criteria of consistency and practicality are fulfilled (Plomp, 2013). Teacher logs and observation notes from the control group show that students did not engage in any activities that are relevant for the NDR-model, such as identity work, personal response, contextualized analysis, and authentic questions, elaborated explana-tions and exploratory talk in literary discussions. So, there was no contamination of conditions. The fact that implementation data were not quantitatively collected and analyzed can be re-garded as a limitation of the study. In retrospect, quantitative data on the completion criterion and on teachers’ perception of students’ agency could have provided additional evidence for the high fidelity of the implementation we inferred from qualitative data. 8.8 Evaluation measures 8.8.1 Method Six students from the experimental group were interviewed to elicit evaluations of the interven-tion based on the NDR-model. A short interview protocol was used for the semi-structured interviews (Cf. Table 14). Table 14: Protocol for evaluation interviews Evaluating the experience 1. What appealed to you? What did you dislike? Why? 2. How did you like the identity work? 3. How did you like the personal comments? 4. How did you like the discussions? Findings were contrasted with qualitative evaluations from five students attending regular lit-erature teaching. 8.8.2 Results All six participants evaluated the intervention and its outcome in general very positively: “Ac-tually I find the work very cool and I really prefer it to regular lessons.” (Judith) They reported that they had found the lessons very interesting and did not experience any reluctance to do the set tasks. Students emphasized that they had enjoyed the intervention because of the high level of engagement and the lack of distraction. Participants approved of working in cycles on per-sonally relevant identity issues. In addition, they liked that deep reflection was triggered by the intervention which did not occur in regular literature education and real life. Participants em-phasized that retention was better due to the intervention and that they could transfer the learn-ing outcome to real life. Identity work in phases one and two “strongly appealed” (Bea) to students because they were perceived as individuals, their life stories were taken into account, and they could work on personal relationships. Although students were surprised at having to write an identity narra-tion, they admired this task because they were given the opportunity to tell a personal story and express their feelings freely. Participants regarded the interviews as helpful because they de-veloped an understanding of what other people thought about life concepts. Comments in phase 3 were evaluated very positively. Students found them very helpful because they could establish personal connections with the literary text. What participants liked about phase 4 was that they analyzed and interpreted literary texts in groups in which they experienced mutual support. In addition, they approved of being allowed to choose artefacts for the inter-textual/intermedial analysis themselves. Literary discussions in phase 5 “really paid off” (Mary). Although some students disliked the text, they could talk about their personal transactions with the text. Participants found that dis-cussions were well-prepared and that the strict discussion rules were helpful. Students disliked making a video of themselves. They suggested audiotaping students’ contri-butions in the future. Moreover, they found it difficult to organize group work in the beginning, but they managed to establish a mode of practice with the assistance of teachers. Participants regarded text selection as vital for the whole implementation of the intervention. Therefore, the criteria of personal relevance for students and of curricular alignment must both be considered when texts are chosen. In addition, transfer of the NDR-model from the engage-ment with texts to the field of literary history was recommended. In conclusion, the appreciation for the intervention was high, and students perceived the imple-mentation of the NDR-model as personally relevant. On the other hand, students in regular literature education found that lessons were boring and failed to kindle any interest. Text selections was criticized because texts that had been chosen by the teacher were not personally relevant to students. Participants mainly had to answer test questions and summarize the plot. They reported low levels of engagement. What they disliked the most was rote learning in the field of literary history. Literary discussions were not an inte-gral part of literature education. If discussions were held, the lack of discussion rules resulted in constant interruptions. Retention was reported as low because students did not actively engage in text response. Only if knowledge was constantly revised, it was remembered, and the constant revisions were ex-perienced as boring. What students liked about regular literature education were the authors’ biographies and stu-dents’ presentations of these biographies. They preferred text engagement to literary history. Characterization and interpretation were evaluated positively. Students liked to decipher the hidden meaning of texts and they appreciated teacher input during interpretations. 8.9 Effect measures 8.9.1 Research problem Fialho et al. (2011) discovered that methods in language arts classes “ha[ve] not been subjected to much empirical research investigation and classroom interventions are generally taken for granted” (p. 237) although “the way classes are conducted can play a role relevant to students’ responses to literature” (p. 237). Therefore, deficiencies in literary education might go unno-ticed. Fialho (2012) identifies one overlooked area of instructional weakness: literature is mainly taught “in an instrumental and mechanical way” (p. 8). The prevalent methods primarily aim at teaching students interpretation and formal analysis, thus distancing students from gen-uine literary experience (Fialho et al., 2011; Gribble, 1983; Miall, 1996). Students do not per-ceive literature as a source of pleasure (Mahling, 2016) and reading as a personally significant process (Fialho et al., 2011, Sumara, 2002). In addition, emotions (Miall, 2006) and values (Hakemulder, 2000; Koopman & Hakemulder, 2015) that are constitutive of a meaningful read-ing process are neglected in dominant approaches to literary education. The hypothesized underrepresentation of the experiential mode of reading in the Austrian liter-ature classroom could be proven in the validation study. Table 15 illustrates the differences in means and standard deviations between the two reading paradigms as outlined by Kuiken and Douglas (2017). The low scores for explication-centered response in Expressive Engagement as compared to Integrative Comprehension substantiate our assumption that analytical reading is dominant in Austrian regular literature education. Table 15: Differences in mean scores between Expressive Enactment and Integrative Comprehension Expressive Enactment Integrative Comprehensions M SD M SD Embodied space 1.69 1.11 2.10 1.15 Self-other relations 1.03 .99 2.54 .97 Verisimilitude 1.28 1.06 1.77 .93 Furthermore, narrative learning according to Goodson and Gill (2011) is rare in the upper sec-ondary German classroom. There is no “enhanced understanding about oneself and the other one’s lived experience as a person over time, one’s position in the world, and how histories, cultures and socio-political forces have helped shape who we, as human beings were, who we are now, and the journey we have travelled so far and the journey we are to travel together” (Godson & Gill, 2011, p. 177). As literary education fails to encourage students to make liter-ature significant by establishing personally relevant connections, the impact of lessons on the student is limited. We hypothesize that interaction of the self, the other and the text is crucial for the learning process. Whereas representation and performance of the self (Krammer, 2013), the relation of the self with the other (Eakin, 1999, 2008) and cultural influences on the self (Sarbin, 1997; Breen et al, 2017) are analyzed on the level of the plot, students are unlikely to link up their selves with the characters’ selves (Schabmann et al., 2012, p. 46). Thus, the learn-ing potential of fictional narratives to intersect with and build upon the learners’ lives is not fully realized (Johnston, 2014). Therefore, the objective of self-discovery through literature as stated in the national curriculum for teaching German literature in Austrian grammar schools (grades 9-12) cannot be fully accomplished when the presently dominant models and methods are applied. 8.9.2 Research questions The implementation of the model primarily aims at improving students’ narrative engagement and self-insight, trigger meaningful literary response and to foster their assimilative, accommo-dative and transformative learning (Illeris, 2017, pp. 13-14). Therefore, the following research questions will guide the study: RQ1: Is there a statistically significant change in participants’ narrative engagement and self-insight after the pedagogical intervention? RQ2: Is there a statistically significant difference in literary response scores (reading orientations, attentional focus, self-other relations, verisimilitude, self-insight) between participants of the experimental group (implementation of the NDR-model) and partic-ipants of the control group (no implementation of the NDR-model)? RQ3: How does the pedagogic intervention affect participants’ learning practices (nar-ration, dialogue, response) and learning outcome (insight into the self, insight into the other, text understanding)? 8.9.3 Research design A quasi-experimental mixed methods design was implemented. According to Creswell and Plano Clark (2018, p. 77), the qualitative data shall explain quantitative significant results in the explanatory sequential design. Figure 18 provides an overview of the procedural steps used to implement a typical two-phase explanatory design in the given study. First, a validated quantitative instrument was employed to answer research questions 1 and 2. Second, quantitative results were used for purposive sampling strategies and the design of the interview protocol. Third, interviews were conducted, discussions were observed, and artefacts were collected in order to answer research question 3. The qualitative strand aimed to explain in more depth the quantitative outcomes, to understand the impact of the intervention on par-ticipants’ experiences and to interpret how the mechanisms worked in the proposed theoretical model (Creswell et al., 2006, p. 4). Finally, interpretations of quantitative and qualitative results were integrated. Figure 18: Flowchart of the basic procedures in implementing an explanatory mixed-methods design, adapted from Creswell and Plano Clark (2108) 8.9.4 Participants The effectiveness of the NDR-model of literary instruction was tested at an Austrian grammar school which was selected based on convenience sampling. The researcher works at this school, but he does not teach the participants of the study. Four German teachers (3 female, 1male; average of 19.3 years of teaching experience) volun-teered to participate in the study with four classes. The classes were randomly assigned to the experimental or control groups. A non-probability, purposive sample was employed in the given research. The relevant criterion for sampling is fitness for purpose. As the effects on particular individuals in two specific groups are under study and the uniqueness and distinctiveness of the participants’ responses are to be explored, the given sampling strategy proves adequate. Seventh-form grammar school students were chosen because appropriate literary response is a main objective of their German curriculum, the students have already undergone basic literary instruction, and particularly low levels of engagement can be observed at this stage by teachers. In order to be able to generate a detailed description of the phenomenon in question and to prevent data overload, sample size for this study is small. Initially, 77 students took part in the study (nexperimental = 39, ncontrol = 38; 51.9 % male, 48.1 % female; 87% German as their mother tongue). One student left school, one changed classes. Four students did not provide sufficient quantitative data. One student was excluded from the study because he withdrew his consent to take part in the study after the completion of cycle 1. In conclusion, the final sample size is N=70 (nexperimental = 34, ncontrol = 36; 47.1 % male, 52.9 % female). For the qualitative study, stratified purposive sampling (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009) on the basis of the results from the quantitative study was used. The participants were selected on the basis on their scores on reading orientations, reading experiences and self-insight in the pretest. The criterion for stratification is the implementation of the model in question. A limited number of participants within the sub-groups were selected (N=5/sub-group). Typical case sampling for representativeness was employed to attain fitness for purpose. According to the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a homogeneous sample was drawn. Due to the sampling strategy, no attempt to generalize is desired. 8.9.5 Data collection 8.9.5.1 Quantitative data collection Existing Likert-type questionnaires were used to measure indicators of reading orientation, at-tentional focus, narrative engagement and self-insight. The questionnaire was validated. All the subscales are reliable (Cronbach a .80 - .87). In structural equation modelling, the model which Kuiken and Douglas (2017) proposed could in part be replicated (fit indices: TLI: .938, CFI: .956, RMSEA: .60). Reading orientations significantly predicted attentional focus, and atten-tional focus significantly predicted two forms of narrative engagement: a. Expressive Enact-ment and b. Integrative Comprehension. Expressive Enactment mediates the effects of atten-tional focus on self-insight whereas Integrative Comprehension does not. Self-report five-point Likert scales were used for collecting the quantitative data. To measure reading orientations, the Empathy and Insight scales from the Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ; Miall & Kuiken, 1995) were adopted. Some items were dropped for statistical reasons (Cf. Validation study). The LRQ was not taken as an instrument to diagnose and evaluate dif-ferent types of readers, but as a post facto measurement to falsify the hypothesis that the in-structional intervention does not influence readers’ orientation to texts (Fialho et al., 2011). Qualitative attentional focus was quantified on the Narrative Presence subscale from the Nar-rative Engagement Scale (NES, Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009). Two forms of absorbing reading engagement were measured by means of the Absorption-like States Questionnaire (ASQ; Kui-ken & Douglas, 2017). The subscales Peri-personal Space and Extra-personal Space were ex-cluded during the development phase because they were regarded linguistically incomprehen-sible for high school students. The subscales Pre-enactive Empathy and Self-implicating Givenness measured the reading mode of Expressive Engagement, Integrative Comprehension was quantified on the subscales Cognitive Perspective-taking and Realism. The Self-perceptual Depth subscale from the Experiencing Questionnaire (EQ; Kuiken et al., 2012) was included in the questionnaire to collect data on self-insight. Pretests were administered to the experimental and control groups before the intervention be-gan, and posttests were administered after the intervention ended. The order of the questionnaire items was randomized. Both pretests and posttests were administered to all participants on pa-per. Questionnaires were completed in the same room and at the same time to minimize the influence of external factors. In both the pretest and the posttest, participants read stories by A. Schnitzler. The texts were checked for length, readability, and interest level. 8.9.5.2 Qualitative data collection The qualitative study was conducted within the framework of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA; Smith et al., 2009) because this approach is compatible with the epistemological position of part I which is grounded in both phenomenology and hermeneutics. In addition, this methodology allows us to gain a detailed personal insight into participants’ experiences and their interpretations of these experiences. In line with the theoretical underpinnings of IPA, the qualitative study pursues two purposes: (a) to phenomenologically explore participants’ de-scriptions of their experiences of literature education, (b) to hermeneutically understand how the intervention affects the participants’ learning outcomes (self-understanding, understanding of the other, text understanding) and learning practices (narration, dialogue, response). Thus, IPA complements experience-focused with language-focused qualitative research. A phronetic approach (Flyvbjerg, 2001) is adopted as given the qualitative study seeks to improve literature education in general and its practices and outcomes in particular. Individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted by the researcher because “interviewing is in fact the most objective method of inquiry when one is interested in qualita-tive features of human experience, talk, and interaction (at least if objectivity means being ad-equate to a subject matter)” (Brinkmann, 2013, p. 4). Interviews were carried out in a receptive style (Wengraf, 2001). A semi-structure interview protocol containing open-ended questions to encourage detailed responses was used (Cf. Table 16). Participants were asked questions about their experience of the intervention. The questions focused on (a) the general description of the experience, (b) the personal relevance of the experience, (c) agency during the experience, and (d) the detailed description of the learning experience. The interviews were carried out in a private school room. Each interview lasted for approximately half an hour. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. The design and application of the qualitative instrument are rooted in the tradition of the focused interview. Merton and Kendall (1946) researched the social and psychological effects of mass communication. Within this framework, participants are involved in a particular concrete situ-ation. The elements, patterns, the total structure and the possible effects of this situation are analyzed beforehand. In our case, the situation is the pedagogical intervention which has been analyzed in depth before its implementation. Effects on narrative, dialogical and responsive learning as well as insight into the self and other and text understanding are hypothesized. The interview protocol was devised on the basis of this analysis of the intervention and the results from the validation study. The interview focused on the subjective experience of persons ex-posed to this pre-analyzed situation (Merton & Kendall, 1946, p. 541). Merton and Kendall hold that the primary purpose of the focused interview “was to provide some basis for inter-preting statistically significant effects of mass communications. But, in general experimental studies of effects might well profit by the use of focused interviews in research.” (Merton & Kendall, 1946, p. 542). As the focused interview seeks to interpret experimentally induced effects that were measured quantitatively, this instrument coincides with our main purpose of the qualitative study. To ensure interviewing quality, these four interrelated criteria were applied during the design of the instrument and during the interviews: 1. Nondirection: In the interview, guidance and direction by the interviewer should be at a minimum. 2. Specificity: Subjects' definition of the situation should find full and specific expression. 3. Range: The interview should maximize the range of evocative stimuli and responses reported by the subject. 4. Depth and personal context: The interview should bring out the affective and value-laden implications of the subjects' responses, to determine whether the experience had central or peripheral significance. It should elicit the relevant personal context, the idi-osyncratic associations, beliefs, and ideas. (Merton & Kendall, 1946, p. 545) Table 16: Protocol of the in-depth interview session Interview protocol Warming up questions: describing the experience in general 1. Think of the last eight weeks of literature education. How would you describe your experience of the lessons? 2. How did you perceive the texts? 3. Which feelings did the lessons evoke? Describing and interpreting personal relevance 1. Which tasks were personally relevant for you? 2. Which texts did you find significant? Describing and interpreting engagement and agency 1. How could you actively engage in the lessons? 2. To what extent could you voice your opinions, perspectives and attitudes? 3. How could you link the texts with your own life? 4. How did you react to the characters? 5. What was it like to enter the world of the text? 6. Which decisions could you take on your own? What did the teacher determine? Describing and interpreting the learning experience 1. What did you learn in the lessons? Did you learn something new? 2. How did the lessons change your thinking? Why? What was surprising? What was demanding? 3. Which new ways of responding to texts did you learn? 4. What did you learn about your own life? What did you learn about your past? What did you learn about your future? 5. What did you learn about others and the interaction with others? Did you learn anything about soci-ety in general? 6. What did you learn about the story of your life? 7. Did the lessons change you as a person? 8. How did the lessons support you in developing your skills of narrating, discussing and responding to literary texts? 9. Which activities were most helpful for your learning? In what way? 10. Which difficulties did you face in the lessons? How did the teacher/the classmates support you? 11. What did you reject emotionally? In addition, participants produced experiential reports and artefacts (narratives from phases 1 and 2, comments from phase 3; students’ notes from phase 4; project product from phase 6), which were collected by the teachers. The researcher observed the discussions in phase 5 which were also videotaped and transcribed verbatim. All the data were anonymized and treated con-fidentially. Informed consent was obtained in written form from each participant prior to the implementation of the intervention. 8.9.6 Data analysis 8.9.6.1 Quantitative data analysis Preliminary analyses were performed to assess normality and homoscedasticity. Mahalanobis Distance analysis with a cutoff level of a= .001 was applied to detect outliers. The internal consistency of the scales in the pretest and posttest was compared with the results of the vali-dation study. Although data are normally distributed in the sample and the assumption of homogeneity of variance is not violated, nonparametric tests were applied because the scores were not obtained using a random sample from the population and the observations are not independent of one another because the intervention was implemented with participants in school classes. Before the implementation of the intervention, a Mann-Whitney U test of pretest scores re-vealed no significant differences between experimental and control groups. Results for the sub-scale Realism indicated a difference that is almost significant (experimental: Md = 33.17, n =38; control: Md = 42.96, n =37, U = 519.500, z = –1.955, p = .051, r = .23). The means scores in the control group are substantially higher on this scale before the intervention is imple-mented. This must be taken into consideration when we interpret the results of the posttest. In order to tackle the question if there is a statistically significant change in participants’ reading orientations, attentional focus, narrative engagement and self-insight after the pedagogical in-tervention, a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was conducted. A Mann-Whitney U test investigated the question if there is a statistically significant difference in literary response scores (reading orientations, attentional focus, self-other relations, verisi-militude, self-insight) between participants of the experimental group (implementation of the NDR-model) and participants of the control group (no implementation of the NDR-model). The value of z from the SPSS output was used to calculate an approximate value of r according to the formula r = z / square root of N where N = total number of cases (Pallant, 2011). Follow-up analyses were conducted to explore the data in detail. A Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was carried out for individual items of the subscales Insight, Self-Perceptual Depth and Self-Implicating Givenness because the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test revealed high effect sizes for these scales. A number of follow-up analyses were performed on the posttest results. First, a Mann Whitney U test was conducted for individual items of the subscales Insight, Self-percep-tual Depth and Self-implicating Givenness because the Mann Whitney U test revealed high effect sizes for these scales. Second, convergent validity of the outcome variables was assessed by exploring correlations of the LRQ Insight scale, the EQ Self-perceptual Depth scale and the adapted Self-Other Insight scale from the newly developed Transformative Reading Experi-ences Questionnaire (TREQ; Fialho, 2019). Third, a multiple regression analysis was conducted on the posttest to explore whether modes of engagement (Expressive Enactment: Pre-enactive Empathy, Self-implicating Givenness; Integrative Comprehension: Cognitive Perspective-tak-ing, Realism) significantly predict self-insight (Self-perceptual Depth). 8.9.6.2 Qualitative data analysis In accordance with the principles of IPA, the following strategies of data analysis were applied to the qualitative data in an iterative cycle until thematic saturation was reached: (a) reading and rereading, (b) initial noting, (c) developing emergent themes, (d) searching for connections across emergent themes, (e) moving to the next case, and (f) looking for patterns across cases (Smith et al., 2009). Although a comparative approach is unusual in qualitative research (Brink-mann, 2013, p. 48), thematic differences in the experience and interpretation of literature edu-cation were investigated across groups in order to deepen our insight of how the intervention worked on the background of regular literature education based on formal analysis and literary history. So, we have to add one strategy of data analysis: (g) looking for patterns across groups. Finally, the data are presented in a coherent narrative format, citations from the data are sup-posed to illustrate each theme. In line with the phenomenological rationale of epoché, theming was data-driven. In order to draw awareness to inevitable preconceptions, the researcher’s perspective relative to the re-search topic was presented in detail in the previous sections (Elliott et al., 1999). In addition, a reflexive journal was kept throughout the qualitative research process to avoid preconception-driven misinterpretations (Denovan & Macaskill, 2012, p. 1008). Theories, measuring instruments and prior quantitative research were bracketed (Wertz, 2011, p. 125). Only in interpretation, themes were linked with the theoretical constructs of the quantitative study in order to accomplish the major objective of explaining quantitative results by means of qualitative data. In addition, we resort to Husserl’s phenomenological reduction that enables to investigate “how situations present themselves through experience” (Wertz, 2011, p. 125). Phenomenological reduction marks the shift from text to experience. As outlined above, we are interested in the transactional relationship between the text and the reader under the guidance of the intervention, and not in the text as material. Transaction is necessarily in-tentional, therefore the embodied, emotional, spatial, temporal, social and linguistic aspects of the participants’ experiences are qualitatively analyzed (Wertz, 2011, p. 126). The eidetic re-duction to essences (the themes of our IPA strategies) is highly context-bound to the current intervention, the scope is narrow (Wertz, 2011, p. 127). Hermeneutical procedures have been explained in part I and can be applied to participants’ data in the same way as to literary texts. Yardley’s (2000) quality criteria are employed to assess the validity of the given qualitative study. Smith et al. (2009, pp. 179-185) summarize the four principles for evaluating the quality of qualitative research that are suitable for IPA studies: (a) sensitivity to context, (b) commit-ment and rigor, (c) transparency and coherence, and (d) impact and importance. To fulfil the first criterion, the educational context is taken into consideration. Furthermore, the results from the analysis are related to the relevant theory in the interpretation of the results. Most im-portantly, engagement with the data is intensive, attention is also directed to the idiographic and the particular. Verbatim extracts are supposed to verify the researcher’s interpretation of the data. High attentiveness to the students during the data collection process shall prove commit-ment. In order to fulfil the criterion of rigor, interviews and the analysis are conducted thor-oughly and systematically according to the principles outlined above. The given study is trans-parent as sampling, data collection and data analysis are carefully described in the Methods section. Coherence of the narrative write-up is secured in a process of re-reading and editing. To satisfy the criterion of impact and importance, we must address the question of what the study scientifically contributes to the field. This question will be answered in the Conclusions section. 8.9.7 Quantitative study 8.9.7.1 Results Non-significant results in the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test indicate normality of all dependent variables. The Levene test revealed that all subscales, apart from Pre-enactive Empathy, do not violate the assumption of equal variance. No outliers had to be excluded from the sample. The internal consistency of the scales in the pretest and posttest is compared to the results of the validation study (Cf. able 17). Table 17: Cronbachs’ a of scales in the pretest, posttest and validation study Scale Pretest Posttest Validation study Insight .75 .91 .86 Identification .71 .87 .80 Narrative Presence .83 .86 .81 Pre-enactive Empathy .91 .90 .86 Cognitive Perspective-taking .85 .92 .87 Self-implicating Givenness .78 .93 .86 Realism .83 .91 .80 Self-perceptual Depth .86 .90 .86 The Cronbach a values indicate adequate internal consistency across the various measurements with different samples for the pre-/posttest and the validation study. A Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test revealed statistically significant changes in reading orientations (Insight Orientation, Empathy Orientation), attentional focus (Narrative Presence), narrative engagement (Pre-enactive Empathy, Cognitive Perspective-taking, Self-implicating Givenness, Realism) and self-insight (Self-perceptual Depth) following participation in the educational in-tervention. According to Cohen (1988), effect sizes are medium (r >.30) for Narrative Presence and Pre-enactive Empathy and large (r > .50). for all the other subscales. Table 18 summarizes the results of the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. In contrast to the experimental group, a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test revealed no significant changes with participants of the control group. It is noteworthy that effect size was highest for subscales measuring verisimilitude and self-insight. Table 18: Wilcoxon signed-rank test Scale Ranks Mean Sum of Z r p Insight Orientation Neg. 6 11.08 66.50 -3.827 .656 .000 Pos. 27 18.31 494.50 Ties 1 Empathy Orientation Neg. 7 16.50 115.50 -2.952 .506 .003 Pos. 26 17.13 445.50 Ties 1 Narrative Presence Neg. 9 15.67 141.00 -2.305 .401 .021 Pos. 23 16.83 387.00 Ties 1 Scale Ranks Mean rank Sum of ranks Z r p Pre-enactive Empathy Neg. 7 13.57 95.00 -2.831 .493 .005 Pos. 23 16.09 370.00 Ties 3 Cognitive Perspective-taking Neg. 8 11.69 93.50 -3.035 .537 .002 Pos. 23 17.50 402.50 Ties 1 Self-implicating Givenness Neg. 3 10.83 32.50 -4.438 .761 .000 Pos. 30 17.62 528.50 Ties 1 Realism Neg. 5 15.50 72.50 -3.448 .600 .001 Pos. 26 16.29 423.50 Ties 2 Self-perceptual Depth Neg. 6 10.50 63.00 -3.765 .655 .000 Pos. 26 17.88 465.00 Ties 1 Follow-up analyses revealed that changes were highest for the items in Table 19: Table 19: Items with highest effect sizes in Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test Item no. Item Effect size INS3 I often find my shortcomings explored through characters in literary texts. .683 INS7 I often find my own motives being explored through characters in literary texts. .650 SPD5 After reading this text, I felt that my understanding of life had been deep-ened. .663 SPD7 This text reminded me of how my past is still with me. .631 EXE9 While reading what made this text memorable, recalling experiences in my own life helped me to sense what one of the characters was going through. .698 EXE10 While reading what made this text memorable, I noticed that events in my own life seemed to mirror what one of the characters was facing. .805 In addition, the results of the Mann-Whitney U Test indicated that there was a statistically sig-nificant difference in reading orientations, attentional focus, narrative engagement and self-insight between the experimental group and the control group after completion of the interven-tion (Cf. Table 20). According to Cohen (1988), effect sizes are medium (r >.30) for Empathy Orientation, Narrative Presence, Pre-enactive Empathy, Cognitive Perspective-taking and Re-alism. Effect size is large (r > .50). Insight Orientation, Self-implicating Givenness and Self-perceptual Depth. Effect size was the highest for subscales measuring self-insight. Inspection of the verisimilitude measures shows that the effect size is considerably higher for Self-implicating Givenness than for Realism. Table 20: Mann-Whitney-U-test for posttest scores Scale Condition N Mean Sum o U Z r P Insight Orientation Experi-mental 34 48.03 1633.00 186.000 -5.016 .600 .000 Control 36 23.67 852.00 Empathy Orienta-tion Experi-mental 34 44.18 1502.00 317.000 -3.475 .415 .001 Control 36 27.31 983.00 Narrative Presence Experi-mental 34 44.82 1524.00 295.000 -3.744 .447 .000 Control 36 26.69 961.00 Pre-enactive Empa-thy Experi-mental 33 42.61 1406.00 343.000 -3.025 .364 .002 Control 36 28.03 1009.00 Cognitive Perspec-tive-taking Experi-mental 34 42.82 1456.00 363.000 -2.945 .352 .003 Control 36 28.58 1029.00 Self-implicating Givenness Experi-mental 34 46.06 1566.00 253.000 -4.238 .507 .000 Control 36 25.53 919.00 Realism Experi-mental 34 43.47 1478.00 341.000 -3.203 .383 .001 Control 36 27.97 1007.00 Self-perceptual Depth Experi-mental 34 47.40 1611.50 207.500 -4.767 .570 .000 Control 36 24.26 873.50 Figure 19 depicts the mean ranks of the respective groups on all the scales in the posttest. It can be concluded that mean ranks in the experimental group are significantly higher than in the control group. Figure 19: Mean ranks of control and experimental groups in the posttest Mean rank differences (Figure 20) between the groups shall highlight the results of the posttest analysis. Figure 20: Mean ranks differences between control and experimental groups in the posttest Follow-up analyses of scales show that differences were the highest in the items presented in Table 21: Table 21: Items with highest effect sizes in Mann Whitney U Test Item no. Item Effect size INS5 I often find my shortcomings explored through characters in literary texts. .649 INS7 I often find my own motives being explored through characters in literary texts. .465 INS8 I find that certain literary works help me to understand my more negative feelings. .489 INS11 When I begin to understand a literary text, it's because I've been able to relate it to my own concerns about life. .484 SPD1 After reading this text, I felt sensitive to aspects of my life that I usually ignore. .511 SPD2 After reading this poem, I felt like changing the way I live. .462 SPD5 After reading this poem, I felt that my understanding of life had been deep-ened. .549 SPD7 This text reminded me of how my past is still with me. .464 EXE9 While reading what made this text memorable, recalling experiences in my own life helped me to sense what one of the characters was going through. .478 EXE10 While reading what made this text memorable, I noticed that events in my own life seemed to mirror what one of the characters was facing. .512 EMP6 Sometimes characters in novels almost become like real people in my life. .464 An adapted eight-item Self-Other Insights scale that measured insight into the other was adopted from the TREQ (Schrijvers et al., 2019). The Kolomogorov-Smirnov test indicated that data are normally distributed on this scale, the Levene test revealed that the scale does not violate the assumption of equal variance. The internal consistency of the scale is high (Cronbach’s a = .94). In order to deepen the understanding of the complex of latent variables used to measure the intervention outcome, the relationship among LRQ Insight, EQ Self-per-ceptual Depth and TREQ Self-Other Insights was investigated using the Pearson product-mo-ment correlation coefficient. There is a strong, positive correlation between the three scales (Cf. Table 22). Table 22: Pearson Product-moment correlations between TREQ Self-Other insights, LRQ Insight and EQ Self-perceptual depth Scale 1 2 3 TREQ Self-Other Insights - .68** .67** LRQ Insight - .79** EQ Self-perceptual Depth - ** p < .001 (2-tailed). A Mann Whitney U test was conducted to assess differences between the experimental and control groups on the Self-Other Insights scale. The test revealed significant difference in the Self-Other insights of experimental (Md = 48.73, n =33) and control groups (Md = 21.09, n = 35), U = 108.000, z = –5.767, p < .001, r = .699. A follow-up analysis of this scale shows that differences were the highest in the items presented in Table 23: Table 23: Self-Other Insight items with highest effect sizes in Mann Whitney U Test Item no. Item Effect size ISO2 I have learned something about my relations to others. .444 ISO3 This text makes me (re-)consider how I will treat people that differ from myself in the future. .518 ISO5 The text helped me to understand the lives of people that differ from myself. .634 ISO8 Reading stories give me a better insight in how other people are. .649 ISO9 Stories help me to better understand negative feelings I have towards oth-ers. .600 ISO10 Reading stories give me a better insight into how other people are. .641 ISO11 Stories make me think whether I approve or disapprove of a certain behav-ior of others. .588 ISO12 After reading this text, I felt like changing the way I live with other people (e.g. my behavior) for the better. .716 Finally, a regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that the reading mode of Expressive Engagement predicts self-insight. Multiple regression was used to assess the ability of four control measures indicating engagement with the literary text (Pre-enactive Empathy, Self-implicating Givenness; Cognitive Perspective-taking, Realism) to predict self-insight (Self-perceptual Depth). Preliminary analyses were conducted to ensure no violation of the as-sumptions. From the inspection of the P-P plot we can infer that the data are, overall, normally distributed. The pattern in the scatter plot is linear. VIF and Tolerance scores indicate that the assumption of multicollinearity is met. The Mahalanobis Distance test revealed no outliers. The total variance explained by the model as a whole was 43.6 %69, F (4, 64) = 14.14, p < .001. In the model, only one control measure was statistically significant, with the Self-implicating Givenness scale recording a beta value of .61, p < .001. The calculation was repeated for ex-perimental and control groups separately70. In the control group, 24 % of the variance were explained by the model (F (4, 31) = 3.76, p= .013), with no significant contribution of any control measure. 33.1 % of the variance were explained by the same model in the experimental group (F (4, 28) = 4.95, p < 0.01), with the Self-implicating Givenness scale recording a beta value of .78, p < .01. 69 I report the adjusted R square values because sample size is small. 70 The small sample size of the respective groups is cause for concern here. The results are therefore interpreted with caution. Furthermore, we tested whether engagement with the literary text does not only predict self-insight (Self-perceptual Depth), but also insight into the other (adapted Self-Other Insights). Therefore, multiple regression was applied to evaluate the ability of four control measures in-dicating engagement with the literary text (Pre-enactive Empathy, Self-implicating Givenness; Cognitive Perspective-taking, Realism) to predict insight into the other (adapted Self-Other Insights). No assumptions are violated. The model explained 23.9 % of the variance (F (4, 63) = 6.25, p < .001. Again, Self-implicating Givenness is the only significant individual predictor of the outcome variable (beta = .47, p < .01). Models for the respective groups yielded no sig-nificant results. We can conclude from the regression analyses that Self-implicating Givenness is the sole sig-nificant predictor of both insight into the self and insight into the other. 8.9.7.2 Discussion In the given study, we investigated the effect of an NDR-model intervention on high school students’ engagement and self-insight. As far as the first research question is concerned, we discovered a statistically significant change in reading orientations, attentional focus, narrative engagement and self-insight of participants of the experimental group after the implementation of the intervention whereas no change could be detected in the control group which received regular literature education. We can infer from an in-depth analysis of the results that the inter-vention fostered the participants’ capacity to explore their own motives and shortcomings through literary characters. The results indicate a shift of attentional focus towards the world of the text. The intervention promoted both explication-centered and inference-driven reading (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017). As effect sizes for scales measuring changes in verisimilitude are high, we can conclude that the students learned how to associate their personal memories with the world of the text and how to compare their world knowledge with the world of the text. First and foremost, students were encouraged to engage in the transactions between their own past experiences and the characters’ present experiences. These transactions led to the participants’ insight into their temporality, especially how their past relates to the present. Finally, the inter-vention guided the students to a deeper understanding of their lives. The second research question examined differences between participants in the intervention and students who received instruction in formal analysis and literary history. Differences were statistically significant in all aspects of the reading process. Results suggest a stronger inclina-tion towards insight-oriented and empathy-oriented reading. Attentional focus shifts towards the world of the story. Participants of the experimental group also report that characters almost become like real people in their lives. This blurred boundary between the diegesis and the real world provides evidence for the shift in attentional focus. The findings from the across-groups analysis confirm that the intervention fosters both Expressive Enactment and Integrative Com-prehension. The strongest effect of the intervention on engagement can again be detected in the students’ ability to form associations between their own memories and the world of the text. The formation of associations was supported by having students intensively work on past ex-periences that are thematically relevant for their response before the engagement with the liter-ary text (White, 1995). The fact that the intervention is effective in bringing about this form of transaction is underscored by participants reporting a reading orientation that enables them to relate the literary text with their own concerns about life. A close inspection of the results indi-cates that students learned to understand their negative feelings. The participants are strongly sensitized to aspects of their lives that they usually ignore. Therefore, it can be concluded that the intervention strengthens the revealing effect of reading literature. As differences are signif-icant in the students’ desire to change their lives, we can assume that the intervention has a transformative impact on the participants. The fact that participants report higher scores on both modes of absorbed reading can be traced back to the design of the intervention. Whereas the students are required to metaphorically fuse with the characters and connect their memories with the world of the text in phase three, they infer a character’s thoughts and beliefs and compare the world of the text with the real world in phase 4. We extended the Kuiken-Douglas model in phase 4 by adding intertextual comparisons to the set of reading strategies. How this affected the reading experience of the participants needs to be clarified in the future. The shift towards the world of the text can be explained by the modes of reading the participants engaged in. As outlined above, both Expressive Engagement and Integrative Comprehension demand the reader to balance attention between his own world and the world of the text. It is assumed that the text is mainly perceived in its materiality during regular literature education. There is no transaction between the reader and the text that turns the engagement into an expe-rience. The world of the text does not come into being during formal analysis, which renders a shift to the diegesis impossible. This explains the attentional shift that participants experienced during the intervention as compared to the efferent stance (Rosenblatt, 1978) which readers adopt towards the text in formal analysis. The results from the validation study suggest that the reading mode of Expressive Enactment predicts self-insight. As self-insight is a major learning objective of the intervention, students were encouraged to engage in the metaphorical fusion with the characters and in making asso-ciations between their own past experiences and the world of the text. Regression analysis re-vealed that the formation of associations is predictive of self-insight whereas fusion with the characters is not. Cognitive perspective-taking and comparing the world of the text with the world knowledge does not contribute to self-insight. As self-insight and insight into the other are correlated in our sample, we also explored whether making associations between the world of the text and the world of the reader predicts insight into the other. While fusion with charac-ters, the inference of a character’s thoughts and beliefs as well as the comparison of the world of the text and the world of the reader do not contribute to the insight into the other, making associations between the characters’ present experiences and the reader’s own past experiences does. This has got a major educational implication. If teachers pursue the learning objectives of insight into the self and into the other, having students make connections between their past lives and the world of the text is vital. This finding adds to previous research into the effects of interventions in literature teaching. Fialho (2012) offers a typology of self-modifying reading experiences and holds that alternative teaching methods may be designed based on the knowledge about the transformative nature of experiential reading, but she does not provide an operationalization of her methods. Schrijvers et al. (2019) show that internal dialogues with stories and external dialogues with peers about stories and reading experiences in Transformative Dialogic Literature Teaching foster students’ insights into human nature. Malo-Juvera (2014) demonstrated the value of literature education in effectively addressing topics relevant to adolescents. Fialho et al. (2011) discovered that text interpretation and text experience must be regarded as complementary. These results influenced the design of the given intervention. Although Schrijvers’ et al. (2019) pursue similar learning objectives, i.e., insight into the self and other, the present study assesses an intervention that is more comprehensive in its scope because it (a) is sensitive to the text phenomena of indetermi-nacy and linguistic/narrative deviation during the text selection, (b) takes qualitative attentional focus into account, (c) aims at fostering both experiences-oriented and explanation-oriented reading modes, (d) enhances both students’ empathy and cognitive perspective-taking, (e) en-courages students to form personal associations and compare the text to social and cultural realities, (f) interconnects the practices of text response, narration and dialogue which jointly contribute to the learning outcome. 8.9.7.3 Limitations and implications for future research Contamination of conditions was avoided by the fact that teachers either taught a class in the experimental group or the control group; assignment to conditions was random. As all teachers were involved in the design process, contamination of the control group posed a threat to validity. A close inspection of the online logs and observations of the control group indicate that such an effect did not occur. Personality traits that prove to be influential in the reading process (Kuijpers et al., 2019) were neither considered during the intervention design nor measured in the quantitative study. Fur-ther research must take these traits, especially openness to experience, into account so that an intervention in literature education can be sensible to individual differences among student readers. Moreover, explanatory outcomes (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017) of an intervention in lit-erature education must be measured in the future to deepen our understanding of how different modes of reading affect the students’ learning. This would be useful in exploring how text un-derstanding is influenced by an intervention. Because of the sampling strategy, results from the present study cannot be generalized. There-fore, the present intervention based on the NDR-model needs to be replicated on a bigger sam-ple within other educational contexts, with other narrative texts and other text genres, and with students of different ages. Finally, future experimental studies are supposed to investigate the effects of the various phases in separate conditions. The ensuing qualitative study gives some indications of the effects of the particular phases. 8.9.7.4 Conclusion of the quantitative study In a social environment that is characterized by individualization, pluralization and medializa-tion, adolescents undertake the challenging task of formulating a continuous and coherent in-terpretation of identity. The present intervention seeks to support students in their identity for-mation. Since the engagement with the literary text has been specified as transaction, the inter-vention, however, focuses on the world of the text and the world of the reader in equal measure. The text need not be instrumentalized in the pursuit of identity. Instead, we take the Ricoeurian detour through literature to arrive at the self. The detour is as important as the goal. The spiral phasic NDR-model serves as the basis of the intervention. It could be demonstrated that the present intervention fosters students’ narrative engagement with the literary text and enhances insight into the self and the other. We would like to highlight the importance of the reader’s experiential transaction with the world of the text for the achievement of our learning objectives. Students’ associations between their past experiences, which have been objectified in previous identity work (phases one and two), and characters’ present experiences proved to be useful in bringing about insight into the self and the other. In the beginning, we put forward the hypothesis that the specific engagement with a specific text in a specific attentional mode will produce the desired learning outcome. If the student engages in a transaction with the lit-erary text, which is characterized by indeterminacy and linguistic/narrative deviations, and she links up her temporal and social identity with the world of the text, and the attentional focus is balanced between the world of the text and the world of the reader, insight into the self and the other might occur. 8.9.8 Qualitative study 8.9.8.1 Results of the experimental group Five main themes were identified from interviews, artefacts, and observations. Participants de-scribed their experiences of how the intervention affected: (a) engagement; (b) learning prac-tices; (c) self-insight; (d) insight into the other; and (e) text understanding. Theme 1: Engagement This theme covers how the students experienced their engagement with the learning content during the intervention. Intensity and its effects, balance between guidance and freedom, and personal connections make up the key aspects to engagement. All participants perceived themselves as highly agentive during the intervention. Compared to regular lessons, the intervention was regarded as “more thorough” (Mary), “more active” (Bea), “more real” (Sarah), and more intensive: What surprised me was that we dealt with the book once again because usually it is like this: We read a book, then the teacher asks questions, and this is it. And, yes, …, this time we dealt with the book again and again, and actually I found this good because we could deal with the book more intensively. (Bob) Mary also interpreted the experience as more intensive: “I think it was a bit more intensive, we worked less on literary history, but more with books, what I actually preferred”. Recurrent en-gagement with and focus on the engagement shaped students’ perception of the lessons. In line with the high focus on engagement, distraction was experienced as low. In addition, the intervention triggered co-operative learning: […] I participated somehow more actively than before, I think, because, in regular les-sons, I don’t know, I sometimes had the others do it for me, but this time we really worked together well, we made sure that we divided the work fairly and that we talked about everything. (Bea) The intervention resulted in a stronger sense of responsibility for one’s engagement, students were no longer willing to delegate work to their classmates. Co-operative learning was experi-enced as interesting because different perspectives were provided: […] It was simply very interesting to see how people appreciate different things, and one student comes up with more ideas on that topic, and another one comes up with more ideas on the other topic, and it was also interesting to compare things with others, what did they appreciate, because it was very different with everyone, and we also found out who had read the book closely and who simply read it very quickly. (Judith) Divergent ideas and evaluations could be compared in phases four and five. Co-operative learn-ing also revealed who had been engaged in reading before the group work. The level of pre-task engagement was assessed not by the teacher, but by the students themselves. Participants did not only perceive themselves as highly agentive, they also felt that others di-rected attention towards them: “You feel like more noticed, addressed during the lessons.” (Sa-rah) Mae elaborated on this perception: Yes, I think people listened to me more because they can give more feedback. Usually you raise your hand, but the teacher does not pick you because others haven’t said much so far, but I think, now people listened because they, I think, they wanted to know more about different things from people, just because of that, yes. (Mae) Mae’s statement underscored the reciprocity of co-operative learning. Students did not only act towards others, but they were also acted upon, i.e., others noticed and addressed and listened to them. The students perceived the lessons as demanding: “You had to think more about some [tasks], and yes, you had to put in more energy, you had to make more effort, but basically you could solve all tasks.” (Sarah) These challenging yet feasible tasks were seen as precondition for learning: “Yes, if you don’t leave your comfort zone, you cannot improve and nothing will change.” (Sarah) It can be concluded that energy and effort were necessary for change and that the demanding tasks allocated during the intervention could trigger that kind of engagement. Participants also described the effects of intensive engagement with the text: Actually I was not interested in the text before because its language was simply weird, and I did not understand it, but, the more I engaged with it, the more I actually liked it, and, I think, that’s what I will try in the future if I have to read texts again, or when I read a book in my leisure time […] (Bea) This implies that disinterest was replaced with enjoyment. This assumption is affirmed in Ju-dith’s assessment of the writing process in phase one: “Activity was high. Especially the stories that we had to tell about ourselves were fun, and you feel more like writing because you can work on your own life again.” (Judith) To conclude, engagement seemed to have an effect on enjoyment that increased if actions could be related to the agent’s narrative identity. Moreover, high engagement supported text understanding: Yes, in my opinion it was very interesting because we dealt with it very closely. When you read a book at school, you usually talk about the plot so that the teacher can check if students have read and understood the book. But this time we dealt with it more closely and we compared a lot. And that, I think, helped us to understand the book very well, yes. (Mary) In regular literature education, students’ past activity, i.e., the understanding of the text that occurred prior to the lesson, is assessed. The intervention, however, aimed at promoting en-gagement during the intervention. Understanding was not presupposed, but it was generated by enhancing activity. In addition, students did not only report better text understanding, but also better retention: “That way we dealt with the text again and again and, I think, we remembered more” (Mary). Participants repeatedly described agency during the intervention as balance between teacher’s guidance and students’ freedom: Teachers regulated the process, but we could work much more independently because of the tasks, we could bring in our own stuff or voice our own opinions. That’s what I experienced. (Mae) Bea reported that students were given “ample scope” although they had to work on assignments, and Mary stated that the process “was guided, but you still had your freedom”. Bob used a very similar formulation: “On the one hand we were guided so that you hand in everything on time, but on the other hand, I think, you were free to contribute all your ideas to the group, that gave you some freedom.” The fact that opinions could be freely voiced during literary discussions was considered as indicative of high agency. Participants experienced the learning process as self-directed because they could make autonomous decisions and they could tell their own per-sonal stories. In their view, no limitations were imposed on them. Students felt they could con-tribute something because they were allowed to choose cultural artefacts for comparison in the intertextual/intermedial analysis and they could actively engage in group work. Students experienced the engagement with the text as transaction between themselves and the text. They could personally relate to the text during the lessons: [In regular literature education] we read the book and got a question and then we forgot about it. And now we engaged much more with it, and I think it was more relevant to students, so that we could make a better connection, and that was why I enjoyed it more, yes. (Bea) Thorough engagement with the text resulted in a connection between the world of the text and the world of the reader, which in turn established personal relevance. Mary added that “you like books better if you can connect to them personally, mostly, and you understand them more easily because of that, yes, as I said, it was the connection with yourself, to some degree, this was very good”. According to Mary’s interpretation, understanding of the text was fostered by the personal connection with the text. Bea gave an example of such a personal connection: “Yes, the two friends [in the text], Loth and Hoffmann, ehm, there was the thing with Facebook or something, there I could really connect to the text because that is what I frequently do with people, stalk them and so on.” Students could also link up their behavior to the characters’ actions in the text. This was mainly triggered by phase three of the intervention in which stu-dents picked three passages and “always had a personal connection to it [the text], and this was thought-provoking.” (Mary). Judith confirmed that experiential reading in phase three sup-ported her in making personal connections. In analysis, she did not “recognize” herself in the book. Mae gave reasons why phase three was crucial in establishing personal relations with the text: (a) The texts addressed relevant identity issues that had been explored in phases one and two before. (b) This kind of task was transactional in nature, it required students to actively bring in their associations and memories. Personal connections were not only evident in text response, but also in narration: “Yes, for example, what was it called, when we had to write about the nadir-event. It really appealed to me because we could really work on our own lives.” (Bea) Sarah discovered this personal con-nection with the entire intervention: Yes, in my opinion it [literature education] was better than the years before because it seemed to me that I could simply relate more to it or that we were simply more integrated in the lessons, ehm, yes, I found it better because I simply could identify with it more (Sarah). Integration can be regarded as the result of the act of combining things so that they work to-gether. Students perceived themselves as integrated because the intervention managed to build a functional transactional relationship between learner and learning content. They identified with the program because they could understand it and because they shared its objectives. Recognizing the importance of this personal transactional relationship between reader and text, Mary explained an implication for educational practice: I personally like reading and it’s a pity that many you people do not, and I think this is probably because they do no find a connection because of, yes, various reasons, ehm, or they do not want to get involved, and this way [through the intervention] they are indirectly forced to do that, but I approve of this, so that you make connections more easily […] and are interested in it more. (Mary) The intervention enhanced personal connections, these in turn kindled interest. It can be con-cluded that making personal connections was an educational practice that produced a change in reading behavior. Participants realized that they were employing the method of comparison when they were mak-ing connections between text and life. Judith termed this method “mental associations” which accurately describes the process of making connections by resemblance (or, less frequently, by contiguity) in a transactional relation of text and reader. Participants used different metaphors to describe the process of making connections. The “par-allel” (Mary) denotes similarity. “Fusion” (Bob), i.e., the feeling “as if you were a person in the book” (Bob) made the students realize the connection of text and life and specified the position of the reader in relation to the character. The “mirror” (Mary, Judith) produced more than a copy of personal life, it illustrated the transactional process in which personal life was refracted by the diegesis. The criterion, as has been indicated above, by which the personal connection was established was similarity. Bob defined this criterion ex negativo; if there is no similarity, there is no con-nection: “Yes, this story, for example, was about a tragic event, and I didn’t have to face such a situation in the past, and then the book we had to read in which people were turned into robots, you can’t really make a connection there.” If plot and personal experience did not bear any resemblance, there was no transactional relationship. Judith supported this proposition on the level of characters: “Well, I did not relate to any character, we did not share any experiences, I did not feel any connection with a character”. Mae confirmed that idea by stating that she could establish a transactional relationship when she had the same feelings as the characters. Students did not only compare themselves and their world to the text, but also real people they know to the fictional characters: “Some real people are mirrored in characters, well, some are a bit bossy or some are rather withdrawn, yes, …, that way I could connect a few people with characters.” (Judith) The “mirror” again worked by the logic of resemblance. If the world of the text and the world of the reader were similar, the text became applicable. Bob elucidated this, again ex negativo: “Oh well, a few individual scenes were similar, but on the whole, you could not directly transfer this.” Similarity was the prerequisite for transfer, it was interpreted as the means by which the text exerted its effect on the reader. If transfer occurred on the basis of resemblance, insight into the self was possible, and text comprehension was facilitated: “Well, you can relate these passages simply to your own life, and that way you can better un-derstand what the author wrote, and then you can also feel like him.” (Mae) Here, the reader did not only fuse with the fictional characters, but also with the real writer. Judith stated that she hoped that “it will never be like in the books that we’ve read because that quite scared me.” The possibility of similarity as expressed in the simile “like in the books” had an impact on the reader’s state of feeling. As the world of the text is potentially similar to the world of the reader, the text might act as a deterrent. As the world of a contemporary text tends to bear closer resemblance to the world of the present reader, Bea stated that she was more capable of making a connection under the condition that “the text was modern, new”. It can be concluded that the criterion of resemblance must be employed during text selection if students are expected to personally connect to the diegesis. Analysis of the experiential reports revealed that the readers’ memories were also evoked ac-cording to the criterion of similarity. Participants reported that childhood memories that were rekindled during phase three mainly took the form of stories told by significant others, e.g. parents and grandparents. This perception underscored the importance of both narrative and relational identity for the experiential reading process. Students were involved in three different types of transaction during response to the text: (a) transportation and imagery, (b) affective response, (c) cognitive response. Bob described how transportation worked for him: “Yes, you enter a ‘flow’ state and you do not think about reading anymore, but everything happens more or less automatically”. The flow state can be conceived as a complete attentional focus on the world of the text which in this case was accompanied by a loss of awareness of the mental process of reading itself. Bob’s flow is indicative of the qualitative stance that readers took during experiential reading. The disinterest filter was activated, students shifted their attention to the diegesis. Participants also experienced immersion which, in a similar fashion, is evidence to suggest that the attentional focus during the reading process was on the world of the text. The transporting shift to the diegesis was paralleled by a stimulation of the readers’ imagina-tion: “Yes, I sit there and read, and then there are all the picture which are there in the book as words, and I can imagine them very well.” (Mae) Sarah linked up the processes of transportation and imagination: “Well, it’s like this, a picture appears in my mind, yes, I am a bit isolated from my environment, I would say, so I am simply lost in the story.” Transportation into the world of the story enabled students to put themselves into the characters’ position: “Yes, I could really slip into their shoes, and I could really visualize it [the situation] when I read the text. Yes. I saw myself on the mobile and thought, ‘Yes, I can picture myself there.’” (Bea). The imaginative creation of the world of the story and the reader’s deictic shift to this world allowed perspective-taking and even sympathy with the character, but identifica-tion was only possible if characters’ experiences were similar to the ones of the reader: “I must say that I could picture everything and that I felt for Irina [a character], and this moves you for sure, but I could not identify with her because I have never experienced such a moment.” (Sa-rah) Two criteria were named that facilitated attentional shifting. On the one hand, personal interest is a precondition for the students’ capacity to enter the world of the text: “I don’t feel that I can project my thoughts into what I am reading when I have to read text that I am actually not interested in.” (Bea) On the other hand, difficult literary language and complicated plots pre-vented students from shifting to the diegesis. For instance, Mae found it impossible to transport herself into the world of Brave New World because she did neither understand the language nor the plot. Participants in general did not report any learning outcome that was triggered by transportation. Only Mary found that the attentional shift made her better understand the literary text. The students also responded affectively to the text during the intervention, they were moved: I know for sure that there were a few things that touched me, for example the alcohol thing. And, yes, everything that got to do with love. […] When she [Helene, a protago-nist of Vor Sonnenaufgang] was so unhappy when he left her. When she suffered so much misfortune all at once and tried again and again to overcome it, yes, there I saw some parallels. (Mary) When students detected parallels, they were capable of feeling for the characters. Bob gave another example of this: “Feel for somebody? Yes, maybe for the man that died of a heart attack because I think a lot about my health condition, and then it came to my mind: and then it’s over, right.” Students also felt sorry for characters, for example for Bernard in Brave New World. The reason for this was that these characters could not establish a proper relational identity, they are social outsiders. In addition, participants felt sympathy for characters in a bad emo-tional state who are not responsible for their situation, e.g. being born into a family of drunkards like Helene and her sister in Vor Sonnenaufgang. This kind of affective response is reminiscent of Aristostle’s eleos which is supposed to bring about catharsis. Students, however, did not remark on any effects of this kind of engagement. Mary experienced a different kind of affective response. The intervention stimulated her to “also feel into yourself and, ehm, yes, but to ponder over it, something you wouldn’t normally do”. Emotional introspection is accompanied by its cognitive counterpart, reflection. This kind of engagement constituted a deviance from habitual practice and attested to the assumption that affective and cognitive response are complementary, not incompatible modes of knowledge: Well, this one book, Brave New World, actually deeply moved me because I find it very cruel how kids are treated, and that made me think about how kids are treated in dicta-torships because people’s rights are curtailed very much. That’s how I related it [the story] to the world. (Judith) Affective response to the literary text activated reflection on social conditions in the real world. Here, the world of the story is not associated with the personal world of the reader, but it is related to the reader’s knowledge of the world. On the other hand, adopting the character’s perspective also triggered reflection about the students’ personal lives: “Yes, I put myself in the position of the characters and, above all, I thought about how I would react, what it would be like if it happened to me, if I were in a similar situation, the situation more or less transferred to my own life.” (Sarah) Participants initially adopted the perspective of a character, experi-enced the action from this stance, and transferred the experience to their real lives. They simu-lated how they would behave in a fictional situation within the context of the real world. Identification seemed to operate on an affective plane, it is the characters’ feeling that the par-ticipants identified with. On a meta level, identification was cognitively reflected: Yes, this made me thinking again why I can identify with the characters, with what they feel. Ehm, basically I found this very good because on the one hand you have to deal with yourself, and on the other hand also with the text. So with a combination of both. (Sarah) In this quotation, identification was defined as a transactional process. Again, participants found that this process was dependent on the compatibility between text and life. If text and life are incompatible, identification does not occur: “Yes, the stories simply were not similar to my life, nothing was the same as with me, for example, therefore, I think, I could not identify.” (Bea) Students also reported an exclusively cognitive response to the text: […] sometimes I could not understand Helene. And Loth, for example, or in a way Hoffmann, because he also thinks differently, and you need to understand this because, even if I am of a different opinion, I still need to understand why he thinks that way. (Sarah) Thinking, understanding and holding an opinion are mental activities that can be subsumed under the category of the cognitive. Sarah sensed an obligation to understand why a fictional character thinks differently. From this obligation towards the fictional other, she inferred that there was a general ethical necessity for the understanding of the other in society. In the course of the analysis, cognitive and affective forms of response could be distinguished from cognitive and affective effects of response. Bea found that identification with characters supported text understanding. It must be remarked that Mary perceived the relationship of un-derstanding and identification differently, she interpreted that identification was a result of bet-ter understanding. We have already pointed out an affective effect of text response: intensive engagement resulted in enjoyment. In addition, participants were surprised at this intensity of engagement which ran counter to their expectations they had built up in regular literature edu-cation. In conclusion, participants perceived activity as intensive, they conceptualized agency as dia-lectic of freedom and guidance and interpreted engagement with the text as transactional rela-tionship between the world of the text and the world of the reader which mediated learning effects. Theme 2: Learning practices This theme covers skills learning (narration, dialogue and response), emotional resistance to learning, and difficulties students faced during learning. It can be concluded from participants’ interviews and artefacts that the intervention fostered skills learning. First, response learning was promoted by close reading activities in phase four. Due to in-depth discussions of the process of analysis and analysis results in the group, students reported an improvement of their competence in formal analysis. In addition, deep reflection on the transactional relationship enabled them to put forward more plausible hypothesis that could be supported by quotations from the literary text. Phase three was considered most helpful for interpretation: “You see the text in a different light because you divide it into sections and then you again have a different perspective on the text, I think that helped a lot.” (Bea) In sum, participants found selecting relevant passages from the text and connecting them to the world of reader facilitated the formulation of interpretation hypothesis. Only Mae reported that she did not improve her analysis and interpretation skills. Second, narrating a personal story was conceived as beneficial for skills learning. Sarah re-ported a progress in narration. Judith explained that the intervention promoted narrative learn-ing: “I have never done such stories at school before. It was actually the first time we had to tell a personal story, and it helped me on because it was the first time.” The novelty of the approach offered new opportunities for learning. For instance, Mae outlined how phase one supported her to perform better at school: […] I had never found it easy to write a story, and last year writing was very difficult for me. […] And maybe this was the incentive to put more effort into it, that I manage German better. […] And I think it was really good to start out with this task so that we could express our emotions, yes, I think this was really good. (Mae) Third, dialogic skills were fostered during the interventions: “[…] and I also think that they [dialogic skills] were trained because we dealt with discussion rules right in the beginning, that you let others finish, and that you should consider different perspectives, and that, I think this brought me a step forward.” (Judith). All participants agreed that the capability of comparing differences was increased. Recapitulation of the essences of the learning process and outcome was experienced as valuable in dialogic learning. Small group learning was regarded beneficial to dialogic learning: “Yes, the discussion was good because you simply could better express your view, ehm, because the small groups were great […] because people listen more closely and every-body holds an opinion, and you can express it because it’s just three or four people who want to say something, and in small groups people take a note of you […]” (Sarah) Active listening was developed during group work so that students learned more about each other’s opinions. There was attention for everyone and everyone could voice their opinions. All members of the groups felt integrated, and they mutually supported each other. Finally, the problem-solving strategies of cooperation and close reading of difficult passages were devised in the respective groups. It must be pointed out that students causally linked skills learning with intensity of engagement. As engagement was experienced as high, skills could be promoted. Emotional resistance to engagement was highest during phase two of cycle two. Students had to produce a video on their personal concept of happiness. Both interviews and experiential reports indicated that students were reluctant to produce that video. Although they did not dis-approve of the task in general, they rejected the format of the media story. Students also experienced emotional resistance during identity work and transactional response: “I don’t want to say that I didn’t want to do it, but I find some texts more difficult to write. For example the nadir or the personal comments, I found that a bit hard because, I don’t know if everybody did it that way, because I related it to my personality and wrote about the things that really matter to me” (Sarah) Judith did not find the narration of the personal story depressing, but when she wrote the story, “I found it difficult to tell. It took me ages because I had to take breaks again and again.” Resistance to the given learning situation can be traced back to at least two factors: (a) Students were not used to connecting learning content with their personal lives. (b) Dealing with personal life demanded a lot of mental energy. Difficult language in Vor Sonnenaufgang generated resistance with students. In addition, Bob emphasized that he experienced emotional resistance whenever he had to read for school, so his reading habit was conditioned by his emotional attitude to this activity. Only Bea did not en-counter any form of resistance during the intervention that potentially blocked the learning out-come, she enjoyed everything. Participants faced some difficulties during the learning process. Some students’ attitude to work was perceived as poor, they did not do any preparatory work or they did not complete tasks on time which posed a problem during group work. Whereas most students regarded different per-spectives as instructive, Mae found it difficult to balance opposing views. Mae also considered text comprehension difficult, but she indicated that the teacher supported her with her problems. Moreover, she encountered difficulties with the configuration of her personal story: “Some-times I get confused when I tell a story because everything comes to my mind at the same time, and then I don’t know how to proceed and what else I need to tell. So I think I am a bit chaotic”. In conclusion, participants reported that they could develop their skills of narration, dialogue and response. Skills learning was associated with intensive engagement. Emotional resistance was experienced as productive. Theme 3: Insight into the self Reflection was regarded as a stimulus for insight into the self. Bea recalled her life story and reflected on it, and she, on the whole, approved of it. Sara’s reasoning about her past and the power structures inherent in her relationships made her reconsider her life trajectory. Both identity work in phases one and two and personal response to the literary text in phase three were characterized as encouraging reflection of one’s identity. Sara described her experi-ence of reflection: They [the lessons] have been really thought-provoking, on the one hand, good things came to light, like, things I have and what I am happy about or simply glad that I have such a life, but on the other hand, I realized some of my bad traits again, things I have been thinking about for long, but the lessons gave rise to them again, really, there is something I need to change, and to care more for myself. (Sara) Students reflected on their identities, their attitudes to life, and negative aspects of their lives. During phase one, reflection was retrospective, participants pondered over their past, they did scarcely think about their future lives. During phase three, however, participants reflected on the process of identification with fictitious characters, and this enabled them to think up new ways for agency. Participants highlighted that sustained and critical reflection that was characteristic of text re-sponse did not occur in real life: “[…] because in real life you do not think about your mistakes or what does not work well […] because who likes to think about the negative aspects.” (Sarah) Bob expounded that he changed his former habit of nonreflective reading because of the inter-vention. Students unanimously declared that it was the intervention that provoked reflection. The iden-tity issue of cycle two made Bea reflect about her concept of happiness: “Yes, it somehow made me thinking about, for instance, happiness, ehm, you really think about yourself and what hap-piness means for you, otherwise you think to yourself, yes, I’m happy anyway.” Sarah regarded the tasks during the intervention as trigger: “Yes, well, because the tasks were actually the cause because I had to concern myself more with it and had to consider the question: ‘How does that relate to my life?’” We can conclude that personally relevant activity prompted reflection. This is confirmed by Sarah: “The nadir, the text right in the beginning, made me think the most.” Participants reported that the personal story (phase 1), the narrative interview (phase 2) and the personal comment (phase 3) stimulated reflection. In conclusion, students regarded reflection as a means to gaining insight into the self and found that reflection was triggered by the intervention, not the literary text itself. Sarah concisely summarized the effect of the intervention on the self: “to understand oneself in the other”. Mary specified what students understand by the other. Self-understanding occurred during text response. So the other was not a social being, but the text, so understanding of the self was enhanced through the transaction with the cultural artefact. This is in line with the theoretical underpinning of the intervention that transactional text experience, not the material text promotes learning. Involvement of students’ personalities and the opportunity to transfer the learning content to the students’ real worlds were considered prerequisites to self-under-standing: “We also dealt with our personality because otherwise we exclusively deal with the learning material, we don’t do things you can really transfer to our present lives, and this was very different in the literature project.” (Sarah) She continued: “Because you can transfer it to real life and because it pays off so that you get to know yourself better, because otherwise you don’t do that at school.” The interviews also revealed one danger of reading texts for self-understanding. Sarah put it succinctly: “I learned that I need to look closely, closely, and that I must think about how I can make good use of it. How can I use it in my own life?” Effects on self-insight are a desired outcome of the given intervention, but the text must not be “used”, must not be instrumentalized because the transaction of the world of the reader and the world of the text breaks down. The student no longer engages with the text, but exerts power over the text. Participants distinguished between five effects of the intervention on identity learning. In the following, students’ interpretations of the effects on their (a) traits and behavior, (b) attitudes to life, (c) psychological well-being, (d) storied lives, (e) perception of time, and (f) identities as readers and learners will be outlined. Bob stated that you could “learn something for yourself, in most cases”. In the following, we will present what students said they had learned for themselves during the intervention. First, participants reported that the intervention prompted self-assessment. Students pondered about their action patterns and their character traits as a result of the transaction with the literary text. As a result, they discerned a change in behavior and character traits: “[…] I try to partly improve my behavior and my qualities or I simply do not push my negative qualities aside, but I rather really reflect on them, and I consider various perspectives.” (Sarah) Reflection raised the aware-ness for the need of change and self-care: “This clearly showed me that I need to change a bit and that I need to take more care of myself.” (Sarah) Bob gave an example of the change, he stopped being very stubborn in everyday encounters. And Mary recounted that she had realized that harmony was essential because her parents had told her that family life made them most happy. Therefore, she tried “not to have my way in stress situations, but I simply stopped and avoided an argument.” Self-assessment also impacted on how students valued their lives. By comparing the tragic life stories of characters with their own stories, they understood the true value of their lives: “It [the intervention] evoked good things, yes, that I’m simply happy with my life as it is.” (Sarah) Second, participants pictured the intervention as transformative as far as their attitudes to life are concerned. These were modified and therefore students gained self-insight: What did I learn? This is hard to tell, but, I have already mentioned it, concerning hap-piness, find out what really makes you happy, don’t be superficial. Now, personally it was a big advantage for me. (Mary) Students achieved self-insight by looking within themselves. This was prompted by the authen-tic questions posed during the intervention, e.g. ‘What makes you truly happy?’. This kind of self-insight had effects on participants’ actions: “[…] and maybe I’ll do some things or won’t do them in the future so that I’m happier, yes, this really made me thinking very much, and, I think, this also influenced me, yes.” (Mary). Bob had a similar experience: Yes, in this text about happiness, there were two characters who had a lot of problems, but the ending still was like, ehm, ‘Yes, we are fine!’ And then I thought for myself, yes, whatever harm happens to me, in the end everything will be alright, and that’s what I learned. (Bob) Bob’s attitude to life changed, he grew more optimistic because of the transaction with the literary text: “Yes, I’m a somewhat pessimistic person as far as my future is concerned, but what I’ve maybe learnt from the tasks is that I should be hopeful for the future whatever hap-pens.” In addition, participants discovered that their life concepts are similar to the ones of their sig-nificant others: “Yes, family, happiness and friends are most important for all the five people I talked with, and the same is true for me.” (Mae) They realized that their relational identity is grounded in common values. Third, the intervention also affected the psychological well-being of the participants. Narration enabled the participants to cope with sad events, thus changing their lives. Judith found the writing of the autobiographical story transformative: No, not depressing because I don’t have a problem to tell people about negative events, but I found the task hard when I did it at home, I found it really difficult to write about it or it took me quite long because I needed breaks all the time. But I have benefitted, I feel better when I think about it now. […] Telling the personal story, the self-experience, it really helped me, I can cope with it now, it was like a therapy. (Judith) Students developed a heightened awareness for bad experiences and confirmed this purging effect: “For me, it was very important to write the story in the beginning, that sad experience that I had, in order to come to terms with it.” (Mae) Mary highlighted the consequences of the disclosure of repressed life episodes: “[…] that you are thankful in the first place, that it doesn’t come to that anymore, and, that you’ll maybe change your behavior because of it.” Stress was also relieved because of the intervention: “Literature education was more relaxing than the usual German lessons, I think, yes, more relaxing than lessons in general.” (Mae) Fourth, participants experienced an effect on their personal life stories. Past events were re-called and reflected when students told their personal stories: “[…] It [the past] was called to mind and I could think about it once more.” (Bea) Not only recent memories were remembered, but also distant events: “I also thought of things that had happened long ago, which I perhaps repressed because they were bad, and then I took them up again […], and I was thankful in the first place that, yes, things are not like that anymore, yes, and maybe I’ll change my behavior” (Mary) Disturbing memories were revived in the present, they aroused feelings and had future implications on students’ behavior. For example, Sarah realized through the identity task that she had been too submissive in the past, she disapproved of her behavior as a result of reflection and decided to change it. She stated that it was the intervention that “made me realize my past, and where I went wrong and what I could have done better”. Recall of the relevant episodes of the life story also gave participants the opportunity to account for how they acted in the past. In addition, the evocation of memories raised participants’ awareness for the fact that past ex-periences shaped their present being. This awareness was regarded as beneficial for the future as life was perceived less superficially. Moreover, response to everyday situations was per-ceived as more emotional. Exchanging relevant past stories with and about significant others lead to a feeling of gratitude on the part of the participants. They detected that they had to be thankful for not having gone through terrible events and for being given a lot of opportunities in their lives. Participants also realized the importance of life concepts during transitions in their life story. Mary, for instance, realized how crucial the concept of happiness, which she had revised during the intervention, was for her because she had to face the dilemma whether to choose her career according to her passion and be confronted with financial problems or according to wealth and success and be unhappy. Mary eventually discovered that she had to ask herself what really made her happy based on what she had learned about her identity during the intervention. Analysis of the discussion of a passage in which the protagonist explained how he used social media to manipulate voters showed that students regarded media stories as an important means of self-expression and self-display, but also as a site of showmanship. They learned that social desirability conditioned their self-representations of social networking sites. Based on this per-ception, participants distinguished between two types of media stories: (a) the story is oriented towards the other and is therefore principally determined by scripts and social desirability, (b) the story is oriented towards the self, the storyteller does not play-act life. Students sensed pres-sure on adolescents to have the perfect story and thus to subject to the rules of the type (a) story. Moreover, participants discovered that a selective mechanism is operative in configuring the personal story. Consistent with the requirements of social desirability, the function of selectivity was to conceal negative feelings and problems. As a result of selectivity, there was a represen-tational discrepancy between real life and storied life. Thus, media life stories could vary in their degree of fictionality. Participants recognized that the “lie” in the media story had a ma-nipulative effect on a large audience. The main objective of the manipulation was to make the addressees fit into the prevailing cultural scripts. One discussion group was divided in its as-sessment of the importance of media stories for narrative identity development. On the one hand, media storytelling satisfies young people’s need to present themselves in public, it is a way of self-affirmation and a source of self-confidence. On the other hand, it could be a lie to oneself, putting pressure on others to adopt a similar form of the life story. Participants unanimously held that insight into the storied self could be traced back to the in-tervention, not the text. Analysis of discussion transcripts confirmed this. Mae drew attention to the fact that other factors like psychological development also needed to be considered. Fifth, students also reported an influence on their time perception, they became aware of the temporality of their being. They realized that time perception was closely linked to their storied lives. When telling their personal stories, the past was reflected in the present, and this present reflection provided students with additional future opportunities. Past memories were evoked during the present transactional engagement: “Yes, I realized what I had experienced in my short life, […] and, yes, I found it nice that I could account for the past yet again, from childhood till now, so that you can recall the past.” (Judith) Participants experienced the effect that the temporal distance between past and present was bridged during the process of remembering, discontinuities were overcome. In addition to personal memories, cultural experiences of the past were recalled in the intertextual reading of the literary texts. The present experience that the students linked up with their past had implications for the future. Participants explained that a changed attitude to life, which had become apparent in new life concepts, shaped their perception of the future. Bea discovered that she had a different perspec-tive on problems although having read the book did not help her solve the problem. Mary real-ized that the intervention had offered her future possibilities for action. She was taught that she was agentive and that she could change her behavior. Awareness of the past made Sarah recog-nize the need for change. Mae did not develop any future prospects because of the intervention. Analysis of discussion transcripts revealed that students benefitted from the intervention be-cause the intervention offered them different perspectives on the future. They emphasized that they learned how to apply the learning outcome to their future lives. In addition, they were taught that alternative reactions to difficult situations were possible and that they needed to monitor themselves in order to improve. Sixth, the intervention also changed the participants’ identities as readers. Bea stated that she had not been interested in reading before the intervention, but as a result of the intensive en-gagement with the literary text she was enjoying reading then. Therefore, she identified the future objective of adopting a new reading attitude. In addition, modified orientations to reading were reported: “I think I would read the book with a different attitude now.” (Mary) In the same vein, we can sense a change of reading orientation in Judith’s testimony. Yes, I should not see reading, for example, because I didn’t enjoy it for some time, because in the past I really enjoyed reading, I should not see it in a negative light, but, that I should try it again and maybe engage more with the books. (Judith) Judith adopted a new approach to reading which was grounded in perseverance. She had real-ized that high engagement was essential for the learning outcome. In addition, she was surprised that she was in the mood for reading. We can conclude that intensive engagement could facili-tate a change in reading orientations. Mae also noticed a better overall performance at school because of the change in reading attitude. Bob held that his reading habit only changed with shorter texts, he remained reluctant to novels. He also experienced a shift in general work habits: “Yes, [I learned] that you should do your things on time because if you haven’t read the book that closely, you impede group work more or less, and this is bad, and therefore … you should do everything on time.” As students had to take responsibility for their learning outcome, Bob’s identity as a learner changed, he realized the significance of conscientiousness for the group’s success. Participants also remarked on the insight into the Self on the meta level. Emotional resistance was regarded as a precondition for change. Learning was experienced as transformative: traits, actions, attitudes, psychological condition, life stories and habits were changed due to the in-tervention. Although they answered the question in the negative whether the intervention fun-damentally changed them as a person, participants reported changes in self-understanding, in their psychological condition, in their storied lives, in their perception of time, and their identi-ties as readers and learners. They actively increased their capacity to rethink life. In the discus-sions, participants additionally mentioned changes in their relational identities. Participants agreed that the reported changes could be traced back to the intervention. No other factors were detected. Moreover, students repeatedly stated that the lessons had a lingering effect in their experiential reports that were written three months after the intervention. The ideas triggered by the intervention had stayed with them by then. Students also highlighted a better retention of the learning outcome. Sarah concluded in her report that students gained a lot of new insights about themselves, they got to know literature better, they got to know their classmates better, and they escaped the daily school routine. Despite their spontaneous negative answers to the question whether fundamental changes had taken place, we can infer from the interviews, artefacts and observations that transformative learning occurred as an effect of the intervention. Theme 4: Insight into the other Mae’s description of how participants experienced the insight into the relationships with others is representative: “I don’t know, I just think I will treat people differently than before.” Bob, for instance, decided to respond to significant others in a more friendly way because he had learned to empathize with characters during the intervention. Mary expounded on the insight into the other: It was very interesting, I think, to get to know close people better once again, and I think that the question what people think about happiness is very interesting though very per-sonal. If people tell a story … what really makes them happy, and, as I said, that really influenced me. First, how I see these people, and second, how I treat them, and, what I maybe want to do to make others happy. (Mary) Insight of the other was yielded by listening to significant others telling their personal stories. Identity work in phases one and two influenced the participants’ perception of others, their response to others as well as the actions towards others. Changes in students’ perception of their relations were partly traced back to a change of life concepts. Affective behavior towards others was also altered. Mae, for instance, acted more emotionally expressive towards others after the intervention. A further effect on the insight into the other was that people were evaluated differently: “In any case, I’ll be able to judge people differently from what I thought before” (Judith). Higher toler-ance for others was shown, participants had become more unwilling to change others and inter-fere with others’ beliefs: “Yes, well, I’ll try to let people be the way they are, and I’ll try not to think ill of them somehow. […] Everybody can decide for themselves, and, it doesn’t concern me. And, I think, I’ve learned this only recently.” (Judith). In conclusion, general insight into human nature was reported. Others were perceived and judged differently, and as a conse-quence, actions towards the others changed. Analysis of discussions revealed that participants better understood the importance of their re-lationships for their selves. True friendship was defined. Participants reasoned about how wealth and political attitudes influenced this kind of relationship. Identity change due to social factors was extensively debated. Second, conflicts in the diegesis were analyzed and transferred to real life. Possible reasons for conflicts were uncovered: betrayal, lack of loyalty, disappointed expectations, jealousy, fears, divergence from norms of friendship, different attitudes, and dif-ferent development of friends. The impact of drug abuse on personal relations was discussed. Finally, problem-solving strategies like prosocial behavior were mapped out. To sum up, par-ticipants maintained that they had learned about their relationships with significant others and about conflict resolution. Bob stated that insight into the relationship with others was gained by comparing the self and the other in the face of strong emotions. For Mae, behavior change was also triggered by the transactions elicited by the intervention. On the other hand, Judith and Bea found that it was the text itself, not the intervention, that caused a better understanding of crucial relationships. Adopting different views was considered a means to insight into the other: “It was interesting that, I’ve said this before, that there were different opinions, and that you allow these different opinions, and that you change your own opinion a bit or that you can rethink things, yes.” (Mary) Acceptance of alternative views was facilitated by putting yourself in the other’s posi-tion: “It made me clear that I had to see things from different perspectives because I think, well, I tried this before, but through it [the intervention] you got a much better picture of it, you see things differently.” (Sarah). To sum up, participants reported a better understanding of the other through the change of perspective. The intervention also had ethical implications. First, students reconsidered ethical norms: “Well, I wouldn’t draw a clear line between good and evil anymore because there are people who somehow seem, well, not bad, but nasty, but there is a reason why they are that way, and therefore I wouldn’t divide people simply in two groups, in good and evil, but you have to question these categories.” (Judith) Ethical reflection of that kind was caused by a thorough analysis of characters’ traits and rea-sons for their actions. Students held that both the text’s structure and the intensive engagement with the text provoked ethical thinking. In addition, participants discovered the harmful nature of prejudices. They also felt a moral obligation to voice their own opinions and to defend their opinions, but also to scrutinize others’ opinions and to accept them. On a more general social level, students learned about the importance of basic individual rights. Brave New World made them realize that they had to oppose dictatorial political systems. After the engagement with this novel, they formulated the ethical principle that reproductive cloning is inhumane and must be forbidden in the future. In conclusion, participants reported a change in perceptions and evaluations of significant oth-ers and in actions towards these significant others. Identity work and the transactions in personal response to the literary text were seen as causing these changes. In addition, different views in external dialogues facilitated insight into the other. Finally, the intervention did not only affect personal relationships. Ethical knowledge about norms, obligations and imperatives was gen-erated as well. Theme 5: Text understanding Participants found that they better understood the plot of texts due to the intervention. Analysis skills improved because of the in-depth formal and linguistic examination of literary texts dur-ing phase 4. Better text understanding was traced back to these improved analysis skills. Stu-dents also reported that the intertextual analysis supported text understanding. Transactional processes were regarded as a precondition for text comprehension. For instance, Mae stated that she could understand literary texts more easily if she could link them up to her own identity. Participants discovered that transportation, identification, perspective-taking, and empathy with characters or the author promoted text understanding. Bea formulated a goal con-cerning her future reading habit that is based on the relation of transactional engagement and text understanding: “Maybe I should, when I read books, put myself in the position of the char-acter so much that I understand the book better because in the past I just read the book […].” Participants also explained what they mean by better text understanding. Students experienced an increase in their capacities to synthesize the plot and disclose hidden meaning. In addition, they learned to analyze different text categories and to contextualize the text, thus producing new text meaning: “I’ve learnt not to simply read a book, but to elicit its background, how characters interrelate, how the times were for the people if it is an older book.” (Judith) The benefits of cooperation for text comprehension were highlighted: “If you work in a group, it is much easier to elaborate everything. You get different views from people and you improve because of these different views.” (Judith) In conclusion, participants understood the texts better because of the intervention and therefore they can derive pleasure from a second reading of the text: “Pretty sure I understood the book better, and, I think, if I read it once again, I would enjoy it more, I need to say.” (Mary) 8.9.8.2 Results of the control group The control group received regular literary education (RLE) in an upper secondary Austrian grammar school. This means that they closely read literary texts with the aim to formally ana-lyze the plot, the characters, the syntax, and the rhetorical devices. In RLE, the students are supposed to focus on the material text solely, they are not asked to transact with the text by connecting the world of the text with their own worlds. As a consequence, the learners are not involved in identity work. The participants stated that the major learning objectives were to “find out what is behind the words” (Lilly), and to “read between the lines” in order to “unearth hidden meaning” (Lydia). We can conclude that the development of interpretive skills, in this case the ability to provide what is not there, what is in between or hidden (Cf. indeterminacy of the literary text above), is of prime importance. In RLE, however, interpretation of the literary gap does not take recourse to the students’ personal identities and their world knowledge. Regular observations and par-ticipants’ reports prove that students habitually adopt the following procedure to make mean-ing: (a) private reading; (b) formation of hypotheses; (c) teacher’s comments on these hypoth-eses; (d) comparison of hypotheses; (e) argumentation of hypotheses, citations; and (f) teacher’s evaluations. It is notable that the teacher is dominant in this process, she decides on the correct-ness and the value of the student’s interpretative approaches. However, the teacher does not prescribe an interpretation. Students’ critical thinking is rudimentarily fostered. As far as the practice of narrating is concerned, no personal stories are written. The students regularly re-count the plot of texts. In conclusion, the primary objectives of RLE are the acquisition of knowledge about literary history and the development of text comprehension. Rote learning of facts and the promotion of text-oriented interpretation skills are the dominant modes of learning. The learning outcome is documented in written summary minutes. Theoretically, RLE is grounded in Russian formalism and New Criticism whose exponents ad-vocate the autonomy and decontextualization of the literary text. The aim to reconstruct the authorial intention is adopted from classical hermeneutics. As a result, the focus is on the author’s, not on the reader’s psyche. Practically, it is an overwhelmingly cognitive approach to literature teaching. There is a focus on convergent knowledge (Kolb, 1984) that is easily testa-ble. Closed questions tend to be asked, students work with abstractions from their literary his-tory coursebooks, and they report a lack of engagement with authentic texts. The fact that much of the knowledge obtained from the engagement with literature is divergent in nature (Kolb, 1984) is ignored. Five main themes were identified from interviews and observations. Participants described their experiences of how RLE affected: (a) the personal relevance of texts and literature education, (b) engagement, (c) learning, (d) self-insight, and (d) insight into the other. Theme 1: Personal relevance The participants experienced regular literature education as personally irrelevant because of low levels of engagement, the dominance of rote learning, and the lack of response to authentic texts. As a result, students reported disinterest in and emotional resistance to the lessons. What the teachers communicated as priorities differed fundamentally from the learners’ views. For teachers, text analysis and interpretation were most significant. They expected their students to recite historical facts and dates, to retell the writers’ autobiographies, to reconstruct the autho-rial intention and to historically contextualize the literary texts. The learners, however, were primarily interested in experiencing fiction and empathizing with characters, not in reproducing theoretical abstractions from the literary history coursebook and in analyzing literary texts for-mally. Moreover, they found an intertextual comparison of literary texts with previous readings relevant. Individual students thought that reading the Western canon (Adam), reading writers’ biographies (Lydia), and acquiring common knowledge (Lilly) would make RLE more relevant to the upper secondary students. Theme 2: Engagement Students reported that RLE is fundamentally teacher-centered and that the learning process is teacher-directed. It is the teachers who set the topics and choose text passages to be analyzed and interpreted. It is only the teachers who pose questions during discussions. In classwork, teachers’ lectures are dominant. For these reasons, the students’ engagement is low. The par-ticipants experience themselves as passive during literature education, engagement is mainly not self-directed: “Well, I need to admit that I am rather passive during literature education.” (Lydia) In addition, students report a lack of opportunities for being active: “Yes, there are only a few opportunities to be active, maybe when you read out the texts to your classmates, or you answer questions, or when you revise the things. But apart from this, you cannot really partici-pate actively, to my mind, at least up to now.” (Lydia) Basically, the students’ scope of action is limited to answering questions and voicing their opinions which were generally accepted and refined with the assistance of the teachers. Reading tasks are mainly set as home assignments which might result in a purely private reading as the reading experiences are not necessarily shared during lessons: “Well, we were assigned the task to read ‘Der Trafikant’ during the autumn holiday, this means, yes, during the lessons, we did not really deal with it.” (Lilly) If analysis and interpretation results are discussed in class, the students report that they get teacher support when needed. For instance, explanations are provided (Lilly, Leo). The teacher input even inspires novel ideas: “The teacher gives us a lot of input, ehm, so that we realize things that we did not notice before when we were reading the text on our own. I think this is always, yes, the most interesting thing about the interpretation, that new ideas are always en-couraged.” (Lilly) In conclusion, RLE can be characterized by strong teacher direction and students’ passivity. As a result, both engagement and agency are low which in turn, as we will see below, has negative effects on students’ interest in the subject matter and the learning outcome. As an exception, engagement was experienced as high during the presentations students had to give about prom-inent authors which kindled the students’ interest and increased their enjoyment. Let us now turn to the features of text response during RLE. Students’ personal engagement with authentic texts was low. Participants did not relate their personal lives to the literary texts: “[…] I think most students are not really interested in it, only a few, yes, but, like I said, I think more people would deal with it if they could really connect to the stuff […] (Lydia) As a result, transactions in the sense of Rosenblatt (1978) did not occur: “Yes, when I read, I think … more about the texts, then I think, well, I visualize the scenes, but I don’t think of my life.” (Leo) Lilly experienced that past memories were evoked. However, she could not mention any exam-ples which implies that retention of these personal connections was low. Adam and Leo re-ported ethical similarities between the real and fictional societies. Again, no examples could be given. Intertextual comparisons which were regarded as important for personal relevance were not elicited by RLE, students only related the texts to the abstracted historical background, not to other cultural texts. The participants did not report any emotional response to literary texts as the focus of RLE was on text comprehension and the acquisition of historical facts. In general, we can conclude from observations and interviews that RLE produced distance to the world of the text, i.e., immersion did not occur during lessons. In private reading, however, students experienced transportation to a textual world rich in imagery, which exerted a relaxing effect on the reader. Students claimed that immersion was dependent on the selected texts and the interest they aroused. A majority expressed that realistic texts were more likely to cause transportation because of the higher similarity between the real life and the diegesis. Participants showed sympathy for protagonists, but empathetic engagement with the characters which is a mediator for self-insight (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017) could not be detected: “I think, ehm, maybe I lack the imagination to really empathize with the character, and, to scrutinize why they act that way and to compare these actions with my own.” (Lilly) RLE did not motivate empathetic behavior with students, Lilly even ascribed the lack of empathy to a personal defi-ciency, the lack of imagination. One further reason why students did not transact with literary texts was that identification did not occur: “It is difficult to link the lessons up with your life … you read it, but then you cannot somehow identify with it.” (Leo) According to the participants, RLE did not meet the precon-ditions for identification: First and foremost, students did not regularly engage with authentic texts. If they did respond to authentic texts, the selected texts were perceived as personally insignificant. Similarities between characters and real people could not be discerned. In addi-tion, students were unable to see parallels between the situation the characters were in and their own lifeworld. Finally, participants were not stimulated to affectively respond to the literary text. As participants could not identify with the characters, they reported that they were incapa-ble of giving a thick description of the characters’ feelings and thoughts. This must be regarded as a major limitation to text interpretation. In conclusion, we can hold that text engagement during RLE was not personally significant, transactional, affective, immersive, empathetic, and identificatory in nature. Theme 3: Learning Students reported that no skills learning occurred due to the teacher-centeredness of RLE. As far as narration is concerned, students only retold the plot of various texts. They did not recount any personal stories that could be linked up with the literary text. As a result, the faculty of writing/reading the life story was not promoted. However, we can infer from the students’ remarks on analysis and interpretation (Cf. theme 2: engagement) that these skills were devel-oped although the students explicitly denied that they had improved. In addition, the participants acquired knowledge. They learned about the authors and their his-torical backgrounds. Facts about the eras of literary history were imparted by the teachers. A transfer of knowledge, especially of historical facts, to other domains was reported. Students reported that no completely new things were learned and that their understanding of themselves was not deepened. This implies that no transformative learning that affected the learners’ identities was triggered by RLE. The following difficulties with regard to learning were reported: (a) Literature education did neither cause surprise nor arouse interest which participants regarded as prerequisites for effec-tive learning. (b) Sustained reflection during lessons did not have an impact on life outside the community of practice: “During the lessons, I ponder on what is being said, but after the lessons, honestly, I don’t!” (Leo) (c) Retention was low: “[…] when we read fiction, it goes in one ear and out the other.” (Lydia) (d) The fact that the cognitive dimension of learning (knowledge acquisition, text comprehension, reflection on meaning) was paramount prevented the emo-tional response to literary text what in turn made personally relevant learning impossible. (e) Emotional resistance to written interpretation and literary history could not be overcome. This emotional resistance was mainly caused by the lack of personal relevance: “What really annoys me is when I cannot see how I benefit from it, why I should learn it.” (Leo). (f) The teacher-centeredness of RLE kept students from admitting learning difficulties with literary texts. Theme 4: Insight into the self Participants experienced no learning about their own lives in RLE. No personally relevant knowledge was gained (Lydia), the self was not involved in the learning process (Leo), and the learners did not change as a person (Lilly). With regard to the self’s temporality, memories were hardly evoked, and students did not consistently report any reflection about their future or a direct impact on their future. From this it follows that RLE did not notably effectuate identity learning. Only Adam stated that the plot and the actions of the characters opened up possibilities for future actions in real life, thus enlarging his agency: “I’d say that it’s positive that we know the plot and how the character acted in the book because you could maybe act similarly.” (Adam) However, he could not offer any evidence for such a transfer of insights from text response to real life. Theme 5: Insight into the other The similarity between characters and real people enabled the students to learn how to behave towards other people, for instance towards handicapped people. Moreover, different characters provided learners with different perspectives. Reflection on these perspectives possibly lead to the understanding of the behavior of others. However, students also reported that the insight into the others’ actions and motivations for action was not necessarily relevant outside the die-gesis: “I see the characters of the text as only, yes, fictional beings, they belong to the text […].” (Leo) Text response also triggered reasoning on which actions were morally acceptable and what the consequences of wrong behavior might be. Students also pondered on a future ethics for their communities. Moral norms of good and evil were reevaluated. If the comparison between the ethical systems of the world of the text and the world of the reader yielded parallels, learners potentially adopted characters’ moral judgements. In addition, text response had implications for political thinking, especially for the evaluation of past politics that were discussed in the literary texts. Finally, Thomas reported that the reading of the literary texts inspired critical thinking. It is notable that all participants claimed that it was the literary text that triggered insight into the other, not RLE. The following connections among themes could be distilled from interviews and observations: (a) The teaching method influences the level of engagement which in turn determines the learn-ing outcome. This implies that low engagement is unlikely to bring about the expected learning. (b) Personal relevance and personally significant connections between the learner and the liter-ary text might bring about insight into the self. (c) Personally significant connections between the learner and the literary text might also stimulate insight into the other. 8.9.8.3 Comparison of the results of the experimental and control groups Differences and similarities between the effects of the intervention based on the NDR-model (experimental group) and the effects of regular literature education on students’ engagement and learning are displayed in Table 24. Table 24: Comparison of results in the experimental and control groups Experimental group Control group A. Engagement a. Intensity b. Form of organization c. Relation between reader and text d. Forms of engage-ment - high - balance between guidance and free-dom - personally relevant transactions be-tween the reader and the text - transportation into text - affective and cognitive response - sympathy - identification, empathy - low - teacher-centeredness, teacher-di-rection - no personal connections between the reader and the text - distance to text - primarily cognitive response - sympathy - no identification, no empathy B. Learning a. Skills learning - narration, enacting dialogue; trans-action, analysis, interpretation - analysis, interpretation; knowledge acquisition b. Emotional resistance - resistance to identity work, per-sonal connections, and difficult lan-guage . productivity of resistance - resistance to written interpretation and literary history . unproductivity of resistance c. Insight into the self Reflection as media-tor Effects of literature education Nature of effect Trigger - sustained and critical reflection in intervention - change in traits, attitudes, habits, and behavior - psychological well-being - changed life story - insight into the temporality of being - changed identity as readers and learners - effect on identity persistent in na-ture - literature education - no reflection about learners’ lives - no personally relevant knowledge gained - self not involved in learning - no change as a person - no insight into the temporality of being d. Insight into the other Perspective-taking as mediator Effects of literature education Ethics Trigger - intense perspective-taking - change of perception of the others - change of behavior towards others - reconsideration of moral norms - changes to political thinking - understanding of the importance of relationships - conflict resolution - literature education and text - intense perspective-taking - change of behavior towards others - understanding of the behavior of others - reconsideration of moral norms - changes to political thinking - adoption of characters’ moral judgements - future ethics - text In general, students from the experimental group reported high levels of engagement whereas the participants of RLE experienced themselves as passive. As far as classroom organization is concerned, RLE is teacher-centered and teacher-directed. On the other hand, guidance and free-dom were balanced during the intervention. In addition, the intervention promoted transactions between the world of the reader and the world of the text (personal engagement) while the primary focus was on the objective analysis of the literary text in RLE (impersonal engage-ment). During personal engagement, students attributed more personal relevance both to liter-ature education and the literary texts. RLE limited students’ scope of action to answering questions, analysis, and interpretation. As a consequence, a lack of opportunities for being active was detected. In addition, students re-garded their actions as heteronomous. In contrast, initiative was possible during the intervention as the students were provided with multiple chances to be active. Participants of the experimental group recurrently engaged with authentic texts during lessons. Distraction was experienced as low, and the students developed a sense of responsibility for their activities. However, students from the control group reported that literary texts were mostly read privately. Post-reading discussions about literary texts were not held by necessity. The acquisition of facts about literary history was experienced as the prevailing activity. Whereas the intervention allowed proximity to the literary text during immersion, RLE was characterized as a distanced form of response in a twofold way: (a) distanced from the readers’ personal lives, and (b) distanced from the world of the text. RLE predominantly was seen as a cognitive approach to literature while participants of the experimental group identified the strong affective dimension of the intervention. Students expressed sympathy for the characters in both groups. However, only the intervention stimulated empathy for and identification with the characters. As a consequence of the high engagement that participants experienced during the intervention, they reported that disinterest turned into enjoyment. Moreover, high engagement promoted bet-ter text understanding and better retention. Finally, personal engagement was considered a pre-requisite for insight into the self. In the experimental group, participants did not only improve their analysis and interpretation skills, the intervention also promoted their abilities of narrating, enacting dialogue, and experi-encing the literary text. In addition, the faculties of active listening and of (intertextually) com-paring cultural artefacts were developed. The identity work during the intervention, especially the autobiographical writing, created much emotional resistance. Students reported that dealing with personal affairs required a lot of mental energy. However, participants of the experimental group reported that the overcom-ing of emotional resistance possibly brought about transformative learning. Participants of the control group did not give an account of the overcoming of resistance. Identity work in phases 1 and 2 and the reading experiences in phase 3 caused sustained and critical reflection in the context of the learners’ identities. This reflection allowed insight into the self. On the other hand, no sustained reflection occurred during RLE. The intervention based on the NDR-model changed the learners’ life stories, offered insight into the temporality of being, provided learners with coping strategies, had a purging effect and relieved stress. In addition, students reflected about past memories and future trajectories, thus increasing their awareness of their temporality. Agency was enlarged, learners developed the capacity to rethink their lives. These changes were perceived as persistent and profound. The participants of the experimental group indicated that it was literature education that triggered these changes. RLE, however, did not change the students as people. Whereas considerable differences between the experimental and control groups were detected as far as insight into the self is concerned, experiences on how insight into the other was effec-tuated were similar across groups. Perspective-taking was identified as the principle mediator of this kind of learning. It brought about changes of behavior towards others, the reconsidera-tion of moral norms, and changes to political thinking in both groups. Additionally, the inter-vention caused a change of perception and evaluation of others. The significance of basic indi-vidual rights, of friendship and of significant others was understood. RLE promoted the under-standing of the behavior of others. A major restriction for learning through perspective-taking was voiced by participants of the control group. They reported that the insight into the other as gained through perspective-taking could not be transferred to real life. The literary text was identified as the crucial trigger of insight into the other. The participants of the experimental group saw literature education as another substantial factor in bringing about insight into the other. 8.9.8.4 Conclusions of the qualitative study It can be concluded from the qualitative results that the intervention based on the NDR-model affected both participants’ learning practices (narration, dialogue, response) and learning out-come (self-insight, insight into the other, text understanding). Regular literature education, on the other hand, only promoted the students’ capacity to formally analyze and interpret literary texts, thus promoting text understanding. It allowed insight into the other which, however, could not be transferred to real life. Insight into the self was not yielded by RLE. Learning practices constitute forms of engagement with the learning content. During the inter-vention, engagement was reported as intensive. Making personal connections was interpreted as a form of engagement that promoted the learning outcome. Participants of the experimental group perceived the engagement as personally significant, transactional, affective, immersive, empathetic, and identificatory. In RLE, however, the students experienced themselves as overly passive. The engagement was regarded as predominantly cognitive. Additionally, sympathy for characters was reported. It can be inferred from the analysis of interviews, observations and artefacts that the interven-tion fostered the skills of narrating life story episodes, enacting dialogue and responding to the literary text. First, participants learned how to coherently tell and retell personal stories. In ad-dition, they realized how cultural scripts influenced the configuration of their stories. Second, students developed their dialogic skills in the community of practice. Especially exploratory talk and elaborated explanations were promoted. Dialogue in the literature classroom fulfilled three essential functions: It was deliberative as participants learned to discuss different views, it was cumulative as they collaboratively built up knowledge and experience, and it was medi-ating as it allowed transactions between student and student and student and text. Moreover, participants improved their active listening skills and their capacities to openly voice opinions in a small group learning setting. Third, two forms of response to literary text were furthered. Students developed their capacities to experience and interpret texts. On the one hand, they learned how to make associations between the plot and personal memories and how to fuse with characters. On the other hand, they acquired the skill of contextualizing texts which enabled them to put forward more plausible interpretation hypotheses. Students found the group work beneficial for developing analysis and interpretation skills. In RLE, the faculties of formal anal-ysis and decontextualized interpretation were developed. Participants of the experimental group did not only improve learning practices, the intervention also affected insight into the self, insight into the other, and text understanding. Students con-structed identities by doing identities. They wrote, read and listened to identities and thus redid their own identities. Practices thus caused transformative identity learning. Experiential reading also had a revelatory effect on the readers, hidden aspects of their personalities were disclosed. In addition, higher-level thinking, especially reflection, recapitulation and deep understanding were triggered by the intervention. Participants also reported higher accountability due to the practices they adopted. In RLE, text understanding was primarily developed. Insight into the self was not reported by the participants of the control group. There is empirical evidence for the insight into the self that was effectuated by the intervention. To begin with, the intervention enabled the participants to aesthetically experience the literary text during reading. Analysis of the qualitative data suggests that aesthetic experience and the concomitant reflection are preconditions for insight into the self. In the literature, the following effects of reading literary texts on identity are postulated. First, knowledge about identity is discussed and performatively produced (Krammer, 2013). Participants reflected and co-re-flected on their traits, their behavior, their attitudes to life, their habits, and their storied lives in response to reading literary texts, and by reflecting identity, they generated new knowledge about identity. Second, reading literature has the potential of transforming the reader’s identity (Ricoeur, 1991b). Behavior, attitudes, psychological condition, personal stories, time percep-tion, and identity as readers and learners were changed due to the intervention. Third, literature affects personal identity in its temporal dimension (Ricoeur, 1992). The students experienced themselves in their temporality. They realized how past, present and future are interrelated. New possibilities of agency were opened up by learning how to apply the learning outcome to personal life. In addition, participants realized that the personal story could provide continuity. Narrative change and consolidation were experienced as indicators of development. Fourth, literature affects social identity negotiations in situated contexts (Beach et al., 2015). Dialogue allowed insight into how identity was conditioned by relationships to significant others. Thus, both understanding of the self and the other was enhanced. Fifth, literature emphasizes the on-tological status of identity as cultural fiction (Krammer, 2013). Participants recalled and re-flected their storied lives, thus becoming aware of the fictional nature of the story and the se-lective mechanism that generates the story. The qualitative study also proved that both the intervention and RLE yielded insight into the other. Changes to the perception and evaluation of others and to the actions towards others were evident. In addition, ethical norms that regulate social living together were reconsidered. How-ever, the effects on insight into the other were restricted to the domain of fiction in RLE. Finally, text understanding was developed both during the intervention and RLE. Participants of the experimental group reported that response to the text in its context facilitated plot assem-bly and disclosed hidden meaning. Thus, explanatory and revelatory effects were produced. Transactions between the text and themselves were regarded as prerequisite for these impacts on text understanding. In RLE, students also reported text understanding which was principally mediated by teacher comments that opened up new perspectives of thinking. Thus, teacher input had the potential of bringing about accommodative learning. In conclusion, the intervention based on the NDR-model is purposeful as it met the learning objectives set out at the beginning of the design process. First, engagement with the text was enhanced, the participants intensively engaged in the practices elicited by the model. Second, the intervention fostered learning about themselves, others and the literary text. RLE, however, did not promote the practices of narrating and enacting dialogue. The capacities of experiential response and contextualized interpretation were not developed. Sustained reflection did not oc-cur, and students did not obtain insight into the self. Although perspective-taking allowed in-sight into the other in both groups, participants of the control group could not transfer what has been learned to real life. 8.9.8.5 Educational implications First, identity issues underlying literature education need to be personally relevant. Participants reported that this condition was fulfilled for cycles one and two of the intervention. In addition, students could transfer the knowledge and the experiences that they had gathered in phases one and two to text response because of the identity issue that linked up all phases of one cycle of the NDR-model. This implies that choosing a personally relevant identity issues enables stu-dents to meaningfully transact with the literary text. In addition, we learnt from interviews with participants of the control group that engagement with authentic texts is a prerequisite for personal relevance. However, teaching historical facts and abstractions is an inappropriate strategy for making the lessons personally meaningful and for achieving the learning objectives of insight into the self, insight into the other, and text understanding. Second, engagement needs to be high. Participants linked engagement to learning effect. By being able to intensively engage in transactions, insight into the self and into the other was generated. According to the students, high engagement must be considered a prerequisite for learning success. Therefore, interventions must be designed to guide students while still allow-ing them the freedom to direct the learning process themselves. Third, text response needs to be contextualized within the learners’ lives. Participants reported that connections with their personal lives and with other narratives facilitated insight into the self and text understanding. It follows that students must be given opportunities to link up the literary text with their personalities and a wide range of cultural artefacts. Fourth, students’ narrations need to be included in literary education. Personal stories promote temporal and social self-understanding. On the one hand, they give insight into the temporality of our being and produce continuity of the life story. On the other hand, they help us realize how we position ourselves and how we are positioned socially and culturally. In addition, they can be intertextually associated with the literary text, thus producing aesthetic outcomes. Fifth, literature education must incorporate dialogic practice. Dialogue furthers insight into the other and fulfils the essential deliberative and cumulative functions. Different views facilitate the learning progress, and students build up knowledge in inter-thinking. Therefore, literary discussions on the literary text and the experiences with the text should be an integral part of literature education. Most importantly, insight into the self can only be obtained through transactional experiential reading. The results of the control group prove that formal analysis does not yield that kind of learning outcome. If we pursue the goal of self-insight, we must give students ample oppor-tunity to experience the text non-instrumentally, to dwell on striking passages, to imagine the world of the text, to personally enter the world of the text, and to cognitively and affectively connect this fictitious world with their own pertinent life episodes. 8.9.9 Integration of the quantitative and the qualitative study By means of quantitative and qualitative research, we aimed to investigate the effects of the intervention based on the NDR-model on students’ engagement with literary texts and on the learning outcome. It can be concluded from the quantitative study that the intervention based on the NDR-model had a significant effect on reading orientations, attentional focus, modes of engagement and self-insight. Both immediate reading experiences and long-term reading attitudes were thus af-fected. First, quantitative research showed that Insight Orientation and Empathy Orientation were sig-nificantly promoted by the intervention. The qualitative research revealed that general reading attitudes and habits changed. More positive attitudes to reading and a growing willingness to engage intensively with literary texts were reported. Second, the quantitative analysis discovered a shift of the attentional focus towards the world of the text. This finding was corroborated in the qualitative study. Students experienced immer-sive reading episodes. During transactional reading, they were transported to the world of the text which allowed empathy, identification, and perspective-taking. Third, the quantitative study gave evidence for a statistically significant increase in engagement scores due to the intervention. Participants also reported a high level of engagement during the intervention. Self-directedness, balance between guidance and freedom, and lack of distraction were reported as reasons for the high intensity of agency. In addition, the quantitative study disclosed that the intervention influenced both the experien-tial (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017: Expressive Enactment) and analytic-interpretive modes of read-ing (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017: Integrative Comprehension). During the interviews, the students confirmed that they metaphorically fused with characters and connected their memories to the world of the text in phase 3. In phase 4, they not only formally analyzed the literary text, they also made inferences of character’s thoughts and compared the world of the text with their world knowledge. It is notable that effect sizes were highest for the Self-implicating Givenness mini-scale (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017). According to the quantitative analysis, recalling experi-ences in their lives helped the students to sense what one of the characters was going through (EXE9), and they noticed that events in their own lives seemed to mirror what one of the char-acters was facing (EXE10). Regression analysis showed that Self-implicating Givenness was the sole significant predictor of Self-perceptual Depth that measures insight into the self. The large effect size of the change in the Self-implicating Givenness subscale which explores read-ers’ sensed sameness of semantic categories of the literary text and their personal episodic rec-ollections was mirrored in the thematic focus on connections which participants reported in interviews and discussions. Because of these transactional associations of personal memories with the world of the text, participants regarded the intervention as personally relevant. Personal relevance, in turn, was regarded as a prerequisite for self-insight. Moreover, the engagement during the intervention was not experienced as purely cognitive in nature. As we have learnt from the validation study, both Pre-enactive Empathy and Cognitive Perspective-taking involve affect. Quantitative results were in line with students’ experiences that the engagement with the literary text had both a cognitive and an emotional dimension. The quantitative study revealed that students’ posttest scores for Pre-enactive Empathy and Cognitive Perspective-taking (Kui-ken & Douglas, 2017) significantly differed both from their pretest scores and the posttest scores of the participants of the control group. These results were partly confirmed in the qual-itative analysis. Students from the experiential group reported empathy and identification whereas students participating in regular literature education (RLE) did not. However, perspec-tive-taking was experienced in both groups. Fourth, the quantitative study showed that the intervention promoted insight into the self (Kui-ken et al., 2012: SPD). We can infer from the quantitative data that, due to the intervention, the students felt that their understanding of life had deepened (SPD5) and that the literary story had increasingly reminded them how their past was still with them (SPD7)71. The findings of the qualitative study corroborate the quantitative results. 71 SPD7 (Kuiken et al., 2012) clearly links up with the Self-implicating Givenness mini-scale (Kuiken & Doug-las, 2017). Making associations between the past memories and the literary text may remind the readers of how they are shaped by their past. In addition, the qualitative study suggested that reflection which was mainly triggered by phases 1-3 of the educational model was a relevant mediator in bringing about self-insight. Insight into the self was characterized as both transformative and revelatory in nature. The qualitative study revealed that identity learning that could be statistically proven in the quantitative study took different forms: (a) change in traits, attitudes, habits, and behavior, (b) promotion of psycho-logical well-being, (c) insight into and possible change to the life story, (d) understanding of the temporality of being, (e) increased agency, (f) higher accountability, and (g) change to the identity as reader and learner. Another qualitative finding was that the nature of the effect on the learners’ identities was profound and persistent. We inferred from the across groups analysis of quantitative data that it was the intervention, not the literary text that caused the statistically significant differences in self-insight scores as both the experiential and the control groups engaged with the same literary texts. This inference was corroborated by the qualitative study. It must be regarded as a major limitation of the quantita-tive research that we could not answer the question of which phase(s) facilitated insight into the self. The qualitative data, however, demonstrated that it was phases 1-3 that initiated self-in-sight. The quantitative study revealed that there was a significant difference between the experiential and control groups with regard to insight into other (Fialho, 2018: ISO-scale). However, quali-tative results indicated that insight into the other also occurred in RLE. We can infer that, in contrast to insight into the other, there is no difference in kind (self-insight v. no self-insight), but in degree between the intervention based on the NDR-model and RLE. The qualitative study revealed that perspective-taking was the primary mediator of insight into the other. The perception of and action towards others changed as a result of the implementation of the intervention. Moral norms were reconsidered, changes to political thinking were affected. Students understood the importance of their relational identities. In addition, the qualitative research also discovered effects of the intervention on text under-standing. Response to the text in its context facilitated plot assembly and disclosed hidden meaning. Transactions between the text and the reader were regarded as prerequisite for these impacts on text understanding. Explanatory outcomes including Narrator Intelligibility, Causal Explanation, Plot Coherence, and Explanatory Revisions (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017, p. 238) were not measured in the quantitative study. The quantitative study proved that insight into the self and the other came through transactional engagement with the literary text. Moreover, the qualitative study demonstrated that the con-textualized analytic-interpretive response to the literary text in Phase 4 improved text under-standing. Then qualitative data also proved that not only reading skills, but also the practices of narrating and enacting dialogue were developed. 9 Conclusions The aim of this thesis was to devise and empirically test the NDR-model of literature education that was intended not only to facilitate text understanding, but also to enhance identity learning, thus achieving greater temporal and social coherence of the learners’ interpretations of their relationships with themselves and others. This learning objective could be accomplished by stimulating learners to make meaningful connections between the world of the text and their own worlds during reading/writing the literary story. The world of the learner was conceptual-ized as narrative identity that is the product of writing/reading the life story. Reading/writing the literary story and writing/reading the life story are instances of the poietic play on the prin-ciple which results from the interaction of the Kantian (1781, 1790) capacities of productive and creative imagination. Whereas the schematic-synthetic principle that was identified as the condition of possibility of writing/reading the story originates in productive imagination, the creative imagination allows for the poietic play on that principle. In the NDR-model, literature education fulfils the function of facilitating the mediation between the world of the text and the world of the learner. It allows the students to experientially, per-formatively and transactionally engage with the literary text so that they can intertextually link the literary texts with their life stories. These personally relevant connections are found to be the condition of possibility of accommodative and transformative identity learning. As a result of the transfer of the Ricoeurian (1984) text model of mythos-mimesis from the literary text to the domain of the self, the world of the text and the world of the learner are compatible. Life is not a text, but like a text. The self as narrative interacts with the text as narrative. A mixed-methods quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of the implementation of the NDR-model on Austrian upper secondary high school students’ insight into the self and the other. Two cycles of NDR-interventions on the identity issues of “happiness” and “relations” were implemented. Each cycle consisted of six phases: 1. autobiographical narratives, 2. narra-tives in interaction, 3. personal comments on literary texts, 4. intra- and intertextual analyses, 5. literary discussions, and 6. personal narrative projects. In the quantitative study, the experi-mental group self-reported statistically significant increases in literary response scores due to the implementation of the intervention. Participants were more inclined to adopt an insight-oriented reading stance, a stronger shift to the narrative world was discernible, experiential and analytic engagement with the literary texts was more intense, and more self-insight was ob-tained. In addition, the experimental group was compared to students who received regular literature education with a focus on the formal analysis of literary texts and on literary history. Participants’ self-reported scores differed significantly between the experimental and control groups, which again indicates that the intervention based on the NDR-model increased the stu-dents’ attentional shifting, fostered their narrative engagement with literary texts and triggered self-insight, whereas regular literature education did not. The qualitative study explored how the implementation of the NDR-model affected participants’ learning practices (narration, dia-logue, response) and learning outcomes (self-understanding and understanding of the other). Qualitative analysis of interview and artefact data suggested that the NDR students’ learning practices of response (reading/writing the literary story), narration (writing/reading the life story), and dialogue were promoted. Additionally, they experienced insight into the self and the other because they were stimulated to engage with literary texts in the context of their personal identities. In the following, the major scientific contributions of the given thesis will be outlined. To begin with, the NDR-model is an innovation within the field of identity-oriented literature education. It is unique in facilitating both identity learning and text understanding. In addition, it poten-tially promotes responsibility for one’s actions and responsibility to the other. The model can only exert these effects because the reader’s textualized self-interpretation, which has been elic-ited during writing/reading the life story, is connected with the interpretation of the literary text in reading/writing the literary story. These practices of narrating and responding, which are – as transactions – internally dialogic in their structure, are supplemented with external dialogue. By increasing the capabilities of writing/reading the story and enacting dialogue, the desired learning is potentially accomplished. The NDR-model is grounded primarily in a theory of imagination. Ricoeur (1984) defines the narrative mythos as a schema which, according to Kant’s (1781) theory of the productive im-agination, serves the structural and representational function of practical and temporal synthesis according to the category of unity, thus integrating difference within identity. The schema al-lows its user the generation and interpretation of the textual artefact as narrative. In this sense, the schema is the perspective of imagination on the object. It is regarded as the condition of possibility of significance. We added to this Ricoeurian normative narrative principle of how to make connections between the heterogeneous percepts and the unifying concepts an element of poietic play from the Kantian (1790) theory of the creative imagination, thus establishing the dialectic of freedom and constraint that is, in our view, constitutive of the modus operandi of writing/reading the story. The interplay of the productive and creative imagination can open up new narrative worlds, and it enables new meaning and structures to emerge. Thus, the poietic play on the principle is both generative and epistemic in nature. Whereas the application of the sedimented narrative schema secures meaningfulness, the creative play can produce innovation. It is noteworthy that the faculty of imagination is substantially interconnected with the faculty of memory during writing/reading the story. Personal remembering is to be schematized ac-cording to sedimented patterns stored in cultural memory during writing/reading the life story. In reading/writing the literary story, connections between this episodic memory as narrative and the literary text as narrative are made. Kuiken et al. (2004) emphasize that the manner of recollection is vital for the self-modifying effect to occur. This manner is the metaphor which is most certainly another element retrieved from the cultural memory. The Ricoeurian text model of mythos-mimesis is at the heart of the theoretical underpinning of the NDR-model. The mythos remains directed at the category of unity in spite of the strong sociocultural tendencies to multiplicity and plurality because of the learners’ psychological need to integrate psychological and social complexities during adolescence. The narrative schema makes the structuring and the meaning of the text, the action, and the self possible. The possibilities offered by the mythos are actualized in the mimetic practices of writing/reading the story. Mimesis must be understood as the performance of the poietic play on the principle during writing/reading the story. Writing/reading the life story (Cf. Ricoeurian mimesis2) and read-ing/writing the literary story (Cf. Ricoeurian mimesis3) are complementary processes in our model of literature education. Both practices are, to a variable extent, expressive and interpre-tive in nature. However, we discerned an asymmetry between the two practices. Whereas the author creates the objectification while interpreting it during writing/reading the life story, the text is already manifest when it is creatively interpreted during reading/writing the literary story. The mediating, projecting, and integrative functions of the narrative schema are operative in both practices. Being inextricably bound to the mythos and the creative play on it, the practice of mimesis is both synthetic-schematic and poietic. This implies that writing/reading the story is fundamentally an imaginative activity. We have stated above that imagination interacts with memory during writing/reading the story. Therefore, mimesis is also a mnemonic-intertextual activity. Finally, mimesis is necessarily a self-implicating and self-reflexive process. The self is the uncircumventable condition of the possibility of mimesis as transaction. As far as representation is concerned, mimesis can accomplish a metaphorical reference to the world of praxis. This antirealistic verisimilitude is essentially different from the idea of the truthful copy of the original. Mimsis2 is rooted in the proto-narrative praxis (mimesis1), and the world of the text which is projected through writing reenters praxis through reading (mimesis3) during which the world of the text and the practical world of the reader fuse. In this conception, the world-text reference is circular. Mimesis thus comprises both a break with praxis (mimesis2) and a reconnection to praxis (mimesis3). This interplay of break and reconnection allows for semantic innovation through imaginative metaphor-making and narrative-making. The result of mimesis as poietic play on the principle is the metaphor or story that can be understood as a Kantian (1790) aesthetic idea. The Ricoeurian text model of mythos-mimesis was adapted for our purposes. As explained above, we added the practice of poietic play that is performed on the schema when it is applied during writing/reading the story. The schema itself was not altered on the syntagmatic plane as it is capable of synthesizing multiplicity and episodicity. However, we proposed an intertextual and intermedial extension to the schema on the paradigmatic plane. The intertextual/intermedial mythos might trigger Lachmann’s (1997) semantic explosion which possibly results in a higher degree of discordance. Nevertheless, the aspiration to unity that cannot be fully and finally achieved is not abandoned. We can conclude, as far as the meaning-making through the poietic play on the intertextual mythos is concerned, that the principle of mythos guarantees meaning-fulness, and the poietic play is potentially innovative. We must keep in mind that all meaning that is generated during writing/reading the story is necessarily provisional because the poietic play on the principle is subject to the Ricoeurian (1984) interaction of sedimentation and inno-vation. Furthermore, not only the mythos was transferred to the domain of the self, but also the mimetic practice. It is the act of mimesis that brings life as a story into being. The NDR-model requires students to engage in the imaginative practice of writing/reading the story. They read/write the literary story in phase 3, they write/read the life story in phases 1 and 2, and they write/read the literary story in phase 6. The first imaginative-mnemonic transac-tional practice that found its way into the model is writing/reading the life story. The condition of possibility of the self is auto-hetero-affection. The self is not intuitively given, meaning is not immediately present in auto-affection. We follow Derrida’s (2011) dictum that the sign is necessary for the constitution and understanding of the self. In other words, identity as the re-lation to the self and the other is inevitably mediated by the sign, in our case, by the story. We transferred Derrida’s auto-hetero-affective mode of hearing-oneself-speak to the domain of writing/reading the life story. This auto-hetero-affective mode was termed reading-oneself-write. The aim of the practice of writing/reading the life story is to tentatively and temporarily grasp an identity in difference by means of the creative process of reading-oneself-write according to the Ricoeurian text model. Imaginative variations of personal identity are contin-ually produced in the poietic play on the principle. Ricoeur (1988) maintains that reading liter-ary texts influences narrative identity, i.e., that the reception of literature triggers self-insight. We additionally claim that writing/reading the life story that results in the tentative narrative version of the world of the reader also influences reading/writing the literary text. Thus, the influence between writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story is recip-rocal. We argue that this reciprocal relationship is possible because of the fundamental com-patibility of real and fictional worlds as schematic narratives. The function of literature is to provide us with innovative imaginative variations on the corporeal and terrestrial conditions that are not experienceable in everyday life, thus allowing self-understanding and other-under-standing (Ricoeur, 1988). The construction of the life story, on the other hand, might be condu-cive to the emergence of self-implicating feelings. If the self materializes as narrative, the lit-erary text can be linked up with the textualized imaginative-mnemonic variations of the self, thus enhancing both self-insight and deepened text understanding. Writing/reading the life story yields the verbal self. From Kerby (1991) we learned that the semiotic subject comprises the speaking subject (1st person perspective) and the subject of speech (3rd person perspective). By analogy, we can distinguish the storyteller, the agentive self, from the story, the materialized self. The storyteller makes up and interprets her own life during writing/reading the life story. Ricoeur (1991c) postulates that “self-interpretation finds in narrative a privileged mediation” (p. 188). We agree and would like to add that the narrative self is not only the construed history of life, but also the constructed story about life. The inter-pretation of history and the construction of the story are intermingled. The Ricoeurian text model serves the functions of the generative matrix (construction) and the heuristic frame (in-terpretations) in the domains of the text and the self. Ricoeur (1992) conceptualizes personal identity as a dialectic of idem and ipse that is mediated by narrative identity. Whereas idem denotes permanent general dispositions (What is identifia-ble and reidentifiable in time?) and represents the unchanging abstract and non-narrative core of identity, ipse designates the particular self-constant agent (Who is imputable across change?) and her individual style that concretely expresses itself in self-narration. The identity concept used for our model has to fulfil the following requirements so that learning can occur. It needs to be dynamic, embodied, situated, perspectivized, capable, agentive, im-putable, and meaningful. Ipse is a promising candidate. First, ipse changes over time as new imaginative variations of the narrative identity constantly emerge. Second, it is a model of embodied consciousness as the imaginative variations are ascribed to the body. Third, the pro-cesses of plotting and mapping situate ipse in the identity chronotope. Fourth, ipse distinguishes between the originator of narration (narrator as 1st person perspective on the embodied con-sciousness to which it is close) and the object of understanding (narration as 3rd person perspec-tive on the embodied consciousness to which it is distant). Fifth, ipse is attested to in the capac-ity to act, it can recognize itself in its capabilities. In our model, the capabilities which attest to the identity are the ability to tell a story and the ability to be imputed. Sixth, ipse denotes a capable agent (Cf. 1st person perspective above) whose doing unfolds the previously mentioned capabilities. In its relational dimension, the act of ipse is an instance of active receptivity, its response to the context is interactive and dialogical in nature. Therefore, ipse is compatible with a transactional theory of writing and reading and an interactional theory of learning. In its tem-poral dimension, the act of ipse interconnects the faculties of memory (past), imagination (fu-ture), and judgement (present). This is in line with the functionality of the synthetic schema as outlined above. Seventh, ipse accepts responsibility, i.e., it is accountable for its actions and to the other. Eighth, as ipse is necessarily tied to the synthetic schema, it is potentially meaningful. We can conclude that ipse fulfils all the specified conditions, and therefore ipse serves as the target area of learning in the NDR-model. At this point, it is vital to argue once again why the concept of narrative identity is to be used in identity-oriented literature education. Narrative identity is accessible in the students’ stories. Changes and differences in identity can be spotted. The transaction between the text and the reader is potentially furthered by the isomorphy of literary fiction and the life story as both are treated as schematic narrative in the given model. In addition, literary fiction offers structural and temporal models for narrative identity construction and narrative identity interpretation, and the construction and deeper understanding of narrative identity allows for a different, en-hanced text understanding. Finally, a narrative approach to identity can integrate various iden-tity aspects (embodiment, mineness, space, time, performance, and emotionality). However, adopting the concept of narrative identity in the field of literature education has po-tential limitations. First and foremost, narrative identity is not coextensive with all of selfhood, the practical dimension of identity is insufficiently addressed. Second, narrative identity is un-stable and its referentiality is precarious. Third, narrative identity is not unified, it is only di-rected at unity. Fourth, there are epistemological limitations: The unconscious cannot be grasped by narrative identity. Schematic synthesis that brings about narrative identity is neces-sarily selective, and selection skews understanding. Language itself is a limitation to self-trans-parency. Internal experience is inexpressible by means of the iterable linguistic sign. Although the interplay of convention and creativity in the poietic play on the principle enables some individual connotative meaning to emerge, self-understanding by means of language is inevi-tably constrained. Finally, there is the danger of the instrumentalization of literary reading for identity work. Autobiographical assimilation (Sikora et al., 2011) must be prevented. To mitigate the first limitation, we supplement narrative identity with practical identity in order to address the interactional, sociocultural and, above all, the ethical dimensions of selfhood. Bamberg’s (2011) idea of narratives-in-interaction is put into practice. Life stories are ex-changed in phase 2 of the NDR-model in order to establish the reciprocal relationship between identity and empathy. Narrative facilitates the formation of identities and empathetic experi-ence, and through identity and empathy the values of the self and the other are constituted. The double-structure of identity/empathy can be developed and interpreted by writing/reading the story. According to Meuter (2013), the value of the other stems from self-transcendence, for instance from reading literature. We assume that narrative-in-interaction is another source of self-transcendence. Identity formation also has a sociocultural dimension. According to Cote and Levine (2002), personality and social structure indirectly affect each other via the interactive level of self-presentation. The self-story is considered a form of self-presentation and therefore works as a mediator between society/culture and the psychological ego. This implies that socialization and enculturation processes need to be taken into account when we teach how to write/read the life story. Trends like individualization, pluralization, and medialization as well as dominant cul-tural scripts, biography generators, and sedimented storylines have an impact on narrative iden-tity formation. Finally, identity has an ethical dimension. Writing/reading the story is not only a narrative act, it is also an exercise in moral judgement. This phronetic act which mediates between the teleo-logical aim of the good life and the universal norm brings about the ethical self which can accept responsibility. The ethical aim needs to be put to the test of the deontological norm during the phronetic act so that the other is not instrumentalized. Responsibility to the other is the stronger principle, but the universal norm must only be modified to the smallest possible extent. From this it follows that the other has intrinsic, not instrumental value. This is true for both the social other and the cultural other. In conclusion, the narrative and phronetic acts are sites of learning, they fulfil the function of mediation, and the mode of interaction between the self and the other during these acts is dia-logical. The narrative act facilitates identity formation and identity insight, and the phronetic act enhances responsibility. The modalities of the learning outcome are revelatory and trans-formative. We can conclude that the promotion of the capacities of narrating the life story and of phronetically judging are the educational objectives to be pursued by the NDR-model. The second imaginative-mnemonic transactional practice that is promoted by the NDR-model is reading/writing the literary story. According to the Kuiken-Douglas model (Kuiken & Doug-las, 2017), we can distinguish four aspects of the literary reading process that were taken into consideration when designing phases 3 and 4 of our model of literature education: (a) striking linguistic features, (b) attentional mode, (c) modes of engagement, and (d) reading outcome. As far as the attentional mode is concerned, the NDR-model seeks a balance between aesthetic and personal relevance as it aims at promoting literary reading for self-insight. Attention is distributed among the world of the text and the pertinent life episodes. Reading engagement is at the heart of the theory of reading proposed here, reading/writing the literary story being a specific mode of reading engagement. The engagement is conceptualized as transaction in the sense of Rosenblatt (1978) whose agentive status is again active receptivity. The world of the text and world of the reader are synthesized during the act of reading, the relationship between the reader and the text is reciprocal. Reading engagement is performative in nature and is, therefore, situated in time and space. The NDR-model aims at modifying the reader component in the transaction. In phases 1 and 2, the construction and the understanding of the self and the other are enhanced by writing/reading the life story. By having the students work on their narrative identities, they construct and gain insight into their own worlds as nar-ratives. During the act of reading/writing the literary story, the intertextual fusion of horizons at the intersection of the world of the text and the world of the reader can occur. Reading/writing the literary story performs a double synthesis according to the poietic play on the principle. First, temporal continuity is ensured by constant anticipation and retrospection. Second, formal coherence is achieved by illusion-forming that is, nevertheless, constantly en-dangered by illusion-breaking through polysemous text features. It is noteworthy that the reading engagement is not purely cognitive. Literary reading is also an affective process. The following text features evoke emotions: (a) words and phrases with a high emotion potential, (b) indeterminacy, (c) deviant schemata, (d) literary associations, and (e) personal/idiosyncratic associations. Reader factors that influence the evocation of emotions have been insufficiently researched so far. Miall (2006) hypothesizes that feeling is the prime factor in literary experience. Emotions evoked during literary reading guide the comprehension process. If dominant schemata that the reader has internalized do not work, the reader feels schema disruption and imaginatively ex-periments with the disruption’s implications for the self. Such feelings of self-reference possi-bly lead to schema refreshment which is to be understood as transformative learning. These self-implicating and self-modifying effects of emotions are of peculiar interest here. Feelings aroused during writing/reading the story allow connections between personal meanings and text meanings across categorical boundaries, thus enabling self-modification through metaphorical relations between the text and the self. Kuiken et al. (2004) describe in detail how feelings influence the self during literary reading. Narrative feelings are self-implicating if they are capable of triggering autobiographical mem-ories. Boundary-crossing associations between text and personal meanings are the source of affective similes and metaphors which in turn contribute to the emergence of self-modifying feelings. Kuiken et al. (2004) maintain that self-modification might occur during the Kantian reflective judgement. As no concept can be schematized in the reflective judgement, the inter-play of imagination and understanding must find an aesthetic idea. In case this new concept is self-relevant, self-modifying feelings are inspired, and as a consequence the reader’s identity might be challenged. This questioning of the reader’s identity through emotions has the poten-tial for innovation and transformation. Two forms of self-implication are distinguished, the simile and the metaphor. The simile expresses similarities between aspects of personal memory and the world of the text. The metaphor, however, accomplishes that the reader experiences herself as being the same kind as another. This metaphorical identification is an instance of thinking oneself as another. Although there is an attempt to blend oneself and another in the imaginative identification, self and other remain distinct values. This metaphorical identifica-tion allows for changes to the reader’s identity. In conclusion, the simile is self-implicating whereas the metaphor is self-implicating and potentially self-modifying. Therefore, it is the manner of recollection that is pivotal to the transformation of the self that is mediated by feel-ings evoked during literary reading. We maintain that the poietic play on the principle is a mode of engagement that potentially triggers transformative learning through self-modifying feelings. The importance of narrative emotions for the reading outcome has implications for the teaching of literature. First, schema knowledge acquisition must be promoted. Second, students must be stimulated to link up their personal life stories with the literary text. Third, the students should be allowed to explore the feelings that are aroused during literary reading. In this way, the NDR-model can achieve the reading outcome it desires. Accommodative and transformative identity learning is possible through feelings that are inspired by reading/writing the literary story that interacts with the reader’s self-narration. Identity learning is of the utmost importance during adolescence. Individual identity construc-tion is a major task of high school students during this transitional phase because the students’ contexts are unclear and ambivalent, and there are no dominant cultural and social norms that predetermine young people’s identity development. The youth is required to construct a stable core identity and simultaneously be highly variable and flexible in our risk society with count-less opportunities and limitations. In addition, they are solely responsible for their identity con-structions. We argue that the narrative quest is one format of identity formation and develop-ment that might enable high school students to form a coherent interpretation of the relationship to oneself and the other. What is special about learning in adolescence is that new cognitive capacities emerge in the learner. First, conceptual learning becomes possible. Both understanding and imagination, which come into play in writing/reading the story, rely on abstract categories. Second, high school students are capable of imaginative-mnemonic narrative learning. Adolescence sees the emergence of the life story (Habermas & Reese, 2015). The condition of possibility of the life story is the capacity to reflect on one’s life. A specific form of reflection, i.e., autobiographical reasoning, enables students to deal with discontinuities and biographical disruptions during ad-olescence. Narrative learning is fundamentally schematic learning which makes the temporal and social synthesis into a coherent life story possible. The productive synthetic rule is learnable by appli-cation and explication through assimilation, accommodation or transformation in the learner’s mind. Explication means that the rule to which the act adheres is learned and then applied in the performance of the act. Application denotes the process in which the act is taught and the underlying rules are reflected upon after the completion of the act. In the NDR-model, the syn-thetic schema is applied during the act of writing/reading the story and explicated after the act during the reflection phase. Narrative learning is also creative learning. Learning in the field of writing/reading the story does not occur as a result of the application of an algorithm, but it is the outcome of the poietic play on the principle. The poietic play, which is in our view teachable, is the source of accom-modative and transformative learning as it allows the learner to make creative connections that in turn produce new meanings. In conclusion, narrative learning is both schematic and creative in nature. From this it follows that narrative learning is a form of imaginative learning. Imagination is the vehicle for both understanding and poietic innovation. Therefore, the NDR-model seeks to cultivate the faculty of imagination by having students write/read the story. Finally, the Illeris (2017) model helps us to understand the learning that is supposed to take place during the implementation of the NDR-model. Illeris (2017) distinguishes two learning processes: acquisition and interaction. In acquisition, the input from interaction is processed in different ways. Assimilative, accommodative, and transformative learning are relevant learning types for our model. These types are defined by the nature of the relationship between estab-lished internal schemes and the new impulses. Assimilation means that new impulses from the environment are incorporated as additions to the already established mental structures. In ac-commodative learning, already established mental structures are restructured so that the learner can link new impulses to them. In transformative learning, several essential schemes are reor-ganized at the same time and with relation to the identity of the learner (Illeris, 2017). Whereas backgrounding features tend to trigger assimilative learning during reading/writing the literary story, foregrounding elements might lead to accommodative learning. As the NDR-model aims at generating insight into the self and the other, transformative learning that by Illeris’ (2017) definition targets the learner’s identity is desired. Writing/reading the story aims at influencing the learner’s essential cognitive structures and incentive patterns. As a result, identity is the content dimension of learning triggered by the NDR-model. Interaction covers the social-practical dimension of learning (Illeris, 2017). Identity is the learner’s link to the cultural, social, and societal contexts. In our model, identity is constructed and construed in the transactional process of writing/reading the life story. Reading/writing the literary story also aims at identity learning. We can conclude that both transactions are interac-tional identity learning processes. During these interactions, the self and the other reciprocally adapt to each other and modify each other. As far as the incentive dimension of learning is concerned, we have already emphasized the importance of feelings during writing/reading the story. In addition, motivation is a fundamen-tal prerequisite for engagement. Personal relevance and strong emotions like disjuncture, curi-osity, conflicts, and dilemmas that are evoked by the NDR-model shall encourage motivation. Illeris (2017) claims that barriers to learning have a transformative potential. He distinguishes between defense and resistance. Whereas defense is a general attitude and exists before the situation, resistance occurs during a specific learning situation in which the given context, con-ditions, or understandings cannot be accepted. Defense is an unconscious mental mechanism serving to protect the individual against learning in order to maintain the mental balance. Its purpose is to allow the functionality of the person. General defense mechanisms protect the self against (a) the volume of new influences, and (b) the steady flow of changes. They take the forms of practical routines or habits of mind. In our view, the narrative schema is a defense mechanism that wards off temporal dissolution and social fragmentation. This defense mechanism, however, constrains the self. The modification of mental schemes and habitualized practices is the prerequisite for learning. We assume that the poietic play allows transformative learning by overcoming the defense mechanism without overwhelming the learner as the new meaning is necessarily bound to the sedimented meaning. Resistance is a strong incentive that might stimulate the learner to find alternatives to the given conditions which are perceived as unacceptable. Finding alternatives is a major function of the creative imagination. Again, the poietic play that is triggered by resistance can result in the reorganization of cognitive structures and emotional patterns. In conclusion, the NDR-model seeks to engage students in the poietic play on the principle so that defense and resistance might lead to self-modification. At this point, we will summarize how the NDR-model aims at promoting learning. Learners are required to engage in two transactions within a sociocultural framework consisting of commu-nities of practice (Wenger, 1998) and landscapes of practice (Wenger, 2014). These transactions are instances of the imaginative poietic play on the principle. First, students write/read their life stories. The transaction between the writing subject and the written objectification of the subject is supposed to result in the life story which is an interpretive expression of the self. The outcome of the first transaction, the life story, is then transferred to the second transaction, the expressive interpretation of the literary text. Reading/writing the literary story is a transaction between the world of the learner as constituted during the first transaction and the world of the text. The desired learning outcome of the practices of writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story is identity learning. Text understanding is also to be enhanced by the interplay of writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story. In addition, students are supposed to learn how to accept responsibility by engaging in the phronetic act. Following Wenger’s (1998) approach to the analysis of learning, we identified four intercon-nected components of the learning process which is expected to occur when the NDR-model is implemented: (a) practice (learning as interactional-transactional doing), (b) narrative play (learning as imagining), (c) meaning (learning as meaning-making), and (d) identity (learning as becoming). We have argued in detail that the practices of writing/reading the life story and reading/writing the literary story are central to the given model of literature education. The practice (act) as narrative play (mode of the act) is a vehicle for meaning-making (effect of the act) in the field of identity (target area of the act). The effectiveness of the NDR-model that is grounded in the theory of the imaginative act of writing/reading the story was empirically tested. The methodological approach is a novelty in the field of literature education, in particular applying empirical methods to test the efficacy of the proposed model. The scientific study of literature is brought to the high school context. First, an instrument was newly validated that is intended to serve the purpose of measuring the efficacy of interventions in literature education. We found that the validity and reliability of the validated instrument was acceptable. The following aspects of the reading process can be quan-tified by means of this instrument: (a) reading orientations, (b) attentional mode, (c) experiential and analytic modes of reading engagement, and (d) reading outcome. In addition, structural equation modeling revealed that experiential reading predicts self-insight whereas analytic reading does not. Thus, one major result from the Kuiken and Douglas (2017) study could be replicated. Furthermore, we discovered that attentional focus negatively predicts experiential reading. This means that some degree of distraction facilitates the mode of reading that leads to self-insight. Additionally, the strong affective dimension of both experiential and analytic read-ing has been ascertained. As reading orientations also influence the mode of reading and its outcomes, they need to be taken into consideration when interventions in the field of literature education are designed. Second, the intervention study measured the effectiveness of the implementation of the NDR-model. In the quantitative study, statistically significant changes within the experiential group and statistically significant differences across groups could be detected in the domains of read-ing orientations, attentional shifting, modes of engagement, and insight into the self and the other as a result of the implementation of the model. Effect sizes were high for Insight Orien-tation, Self-implicating Givenness, and Self-perceptual Depth. This means that the participants self-reported a higher inclination to adopt a stance towards reading that seeks identity learning. In addition, the NDR-model encouraged students to associate their personal memories with the world of the text. Finally, students experienced a higher degree of self-insight. Furthermore, we found that Self-implicating Givenness is a predictor of Self-perceptual Depth whereas Pre-en-active Empathy is not. This means that it is the connections between the students’ episodic memory and the world of the text that brings about self-insight, not the temporary fusion with the characters from the diegesis. Students’ associations between their past experiences, which have been objectified in previous identity work (phases one and two), and the world of the text proved to be useful in bringing about insight into the self and the other. If the learner engages in a transaction with the literary text, which is characterized by indeterminacy and linguis-tic/narrative deviations, and she links up her temporal and social identity with the world of the text, and the attentional focus is balanced between the world of the text and the world of the reader, insight into the self and the other might occur. In the qualitative study, we investigated how the students experienced and interpreted the im-plementation of the NDR-model. Participants reported that engagement during the classes was intense. Students were transported to the diegesis and felt close to the world of the text. They showed sympathy for and empathy with the characters. In addition, they could identify with the protagonists. As far as the classroom organization is concerned, participants experienced a bal-ance between guidance and freedom. The NDR-model enabled the students to transact with literary texts in a personally relevant and meaningful way. Both affective and cognitive re-sponses were stimulated. Students reported that the skills of narrating, enacting dialogue and responding to the literary text were promoted. Phase 3 allowed learners to experientially transact with the world, phase 4 advanced analysis and interpretation competences. Resistance to identity work and to making personal connections with the literary text had a learning potential, therefore resistance was experienced as productive. Sustained and critical reflection was regarded as a mediator between the act of reading and self-insight. The participants reported the following effects of the NDR-model on the self: (a) change in traits, attitudes, habits, and behavior, (b) enhancement of psychological well-being, (c) altered life story, (d) insights into the temporality of being, and (e) changed identities as readers and learners. The nature of the effect was described as persistent. It was literature edu-cation that triggered the effects, not the literary text itself. Intense perspective-taking mediated between the act of reading and insight into the other. The participants reported the following effects of the NDR-model on their relationship with the other: (a) change of perception of the others, (b) change of behavior towards others, (c) recon-sideration of moral norms, (d) changes to political thinking, (e) understanding of the importance of social relationships, and (f) increased ability to resolve conflicts. Both literature education and the literary text were considered as triggers of these changes. As both the relationship with the self and the other were affected, we can conclude that the NDR-model promotes identity learning. The empirical research has educational implications. First, identity issues underlying literature education need to be personally relevant. Choosing personally relevant identity issues enables students to meaningfully transact with the literary text. Engagement with authentic texts is a prerequisite for personal relevance. Second, engagement needs to be high. We found that experiential engagement is the prime predictor of self-insight. High engagement must be regarded as a prerequisite for this learning outcome. As a consequence, interventions in the field of literature education shall guide stu-dents and still permit them the freedom to direct the learning process themselves. Third, text response needs to be contextualized within the learners’ lives. Students’ connections with their personal lives facilitate insight into the self and text understanding. Therefore, stu-dents must be given opportunities to link up the literary text with their identities. Fourth, students’ narrations need to be included in literary education as personal stories promote the learner’s temporal and social coherence. In addition, life stories can be intertextually asso-ciated with the literary text, thus potentially producing self-modification. Fifth, literature education must incorporate dialogic practice which furthers insight into the other and fulfils the essential deliberative and cumulative functions of learning. Different views advance the learning progress, and students build up knowledge in inter-thinking. As a conse-quence, literary discussions of analysis results and the learners’ experiences with the text should be an integral part of literature education. In conclusion, identity learning can only be obtained from transactional experiential reading; formal analysis does not yield this kind of learning outcome. Therefore, students must be of-fered ample opportunities to non-instrumentally experience the text, to dwell on striking pas-sages, to imagine the world of the text, to personally enter the world of the text and to cogni-tively and affectively connect the fictitious world with their own pertinent life episodes. We claim that the results of this research are applicable and relevant for secondary school teach-ers since the model promotes specific practices (narration, dialogue, response) that potentially help them fulfil the curriculum objectives of insight into the self and the other. The crucial significance of the interplay of these specific imaginative practices and learning shall be con-veyed to practitioners in the field. Our research has highlighted a number of topics on which further research would be beneficial: 1. The flexibility of the NDR-model must be empirically tested. We are in need of more information on how flexibly the given model can be implemented, i.e., how variants of the model influence the learning outcome. It is unclear whether phases can be omitted without impairing the effect of the implementation so that the model is more parsimo-nious and its implementation is less time-consuming. In addition, the influences of the reordering of phases must be investigated. 2. The NDR-model needs to be tested on different samples within different educational contexts, with other narrative texts and other text genres, and with students of different ages in order to investigate the robustness of the model under varying conditions. 3. The efficacy of phase 6 needs to be explored in a separate quantitative study as students did not report any learning outcome of this phase in the qualitative interviews. The in-tervention study also revealed that the reflection phase is of the utmost importance for identity learning. Therefore, the design of this phase must be reconsidered so that the learning effect of the NDR-model (identity change and identity consolidation) can be maximized. The potentially adapted version of the reflection phase is to be empirically tested anew. 4. The reader factors that contribute to the emergence of self-implicating and self-modify-ing feelings need to be researched in order to better understand the emotionality of writ-ing/reading the story that is vital for self-modification. Personality traits, habits, and reading orientations are possible candidates for reader factors that impact the emotion-ality of writing/reading the story. 5. The role of attention during the act of reading is to be investigated more closely. The attentional stance as well as the distribution of attention during the act are essential for the design of interventions in the field of literature education. Especially the function of flexible attention that complements attentional focus is to be researched in the future so that the most effective techniques of attentional shifting can be taught. 6. The quantitative instrument must include explanatory outcomes (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017) and insight into the other (Fialho, 2019) so that it can measure how text under-standing and the understanding of the other are influenced by an intervention. This ex-tension of the instrument has to be validated again. 7. Future experimental studies are supposed to quantitatively investigate the effects of the various practices (narration: phases 1 and 6, response: phases 3 and 4, dialogue: phases 2 and 5) separately so that we can see more clearly what causes the learning impact. So far, only qualitative insights into the effects of the individual practices have been gath-ered. 8. Teachers’ quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the NDR-model must be collected and analyzed as these analyses might indicate potential for improvement of the model. 9. A longitudinal study might measure the short- and long-term effects of literature edu-cation on students who were taught according to the NDR-model across their high-school years. Magnitude of the effect, retention and transfer are possible areas of interest of this study. 10. The qualitative research should be replicated on a bigger sample in order to discover the individual nuances of the effects of the NDR-model. 11. Textual artefacts produced during and after experiential reading need to be systemati-cally analyzed on a bigger sample according to the method of Numerically Aided Phe-nomenology (Kuiken & Miall, 2001) in order to find out about how experiential reading can facilitate identity learning. New knowledge of experiential reading could substan-tially contribute to the design of interventions of literature education that aim at self-insight. This thesis provides empirical evidence that the NDR-model of literature education potentially facilitates insight into the self and insight into the other by promoting the practices of writ-ing/reading the story and of reading/writing the literary text which are instances of the poietic play on the principle. The NDR-model encourages students to experientially engage with the literary text. During this engagement, the learner’s narrative identity intertextually transacts with the world of the text. Thus, identity learning becomes possible. Extended summary Fialho, Zyngier in Miall (2011) so ugotovili, da glede metod poucevanja pri pouku jezika in književnosti "ne obstaja veliko empiricnih raziskav in da se nacini dela pri pouku na splošno jemljejo kot nekaj samoumevnega", ceprav "ima lahko nacin vodenja pouka pomembno vlogo pri odzivu dijakov na literaturo" (str. 237). Zato lahko pomanjkljivosti pri pouku književnosti ostanejo neopažene. Fialho (2011) eno od spregledanih podrocij pomanjkljivosti v poucevanju opredeljuje rekoc, da književnost vecinoma poucujejo "instrumentalno in mehanicno" (str. 8). Prevladujoce metode poucevanja dijake usmerjajo predvsem v formalno analizo, s cimer dijake oddaljujejo od pristne literarne izkušnje (Fialho, Zyngier in Miall, 2011; Gribble, 1983; Miall, 1996). Dijaki književnosti ne dojemajo kot vir užitka (Mahling, 2016) niti branja kot osebno pomembnega procesa (Fialho, Zyngier in Miall, 2011, Sumara, 2002). Poleg tega se v prevladujocih pristopih k izobraževanju književnosti zanemarja custva (Miall, 2006) in vrednote (Hakemulder, 2000; Koopman in Hakemulder, 2015), ki so sestavni del smiselnega bralnega procesa. Iz tega lahko sklepamo, da je narativna zavzetost dijakov verjetno nizka. Zato ne pride do spoznavanja identitete. Ni "izboljšanega razumevanja o lastnih in tujih življenjskih izkušnjah kot osebe skozi cas, o svojem položaju v svetu in o tem, kako so zgodovina, kulture in družbenopoliticne sile pomagale oblikovati, kdo smo kot ljudje bili, kdo smo zdaj in kakšno pot smo doslej prehodili ter kakšno pot naj bi prehodili skupaj" (Goodson in Gill, 2011, str. 177). Ker poucevanje književnosti ne spodbuja dijakov, da bi z vzpostavljanjem osebno relevantnih povezav zanje literatura postala pomembna, je omejen vpliv pouka na ucenca. Medsebojno povezovanje sebe, drugega in besedila je kljucno za ucni proces (Rosenblatt, 1978). Pri obicajnem pouku književnosti se sebstva likov ne povezujejo s sebstvi dijakov v njihovem družbenem in kulturnem kontekstu (Schabmann idr., 2012, str. 46). Tako ni v celoti izkorišcen ucni potencial fikcijskih pripovedi, ki se križajo z življenji dijakov in jih nadgrajujejo (Johnston, 2014). Zato ob uporabi trenutno prevladujocih modelov in metod ni mogoce v celoti uresniciti cilja "samospoznavanja" skozi književnost, kot je naveden v nacionalnem ucnem nacrtu za poucevanje nemške književnosti v avstrijskih gimnazijah (9.-12. razred). Cilj doktorskega dela je bil oblikovati in empiricno preveriti model izobraževanja književnosti, ki naj ne bi le olajšal razumevanja besedila, temvec tudi spodbujal ucencevo spoznavanje identitete in s tem dosegel vecjo casovno in družbeno skladnost ucencevih interpretacij odnosov do sebe in drugih. V ta namen smo oblikovali model književnega izobraževanja NDO, katerega namen je z branjem književnosti spodbujati spoznavanje identitete. Akomodativno in transformativno ucenje se lahko okrepi s spodbujanjem dijakov, da med branjem/pisanjem literarne zgodbe vzpostavijo smiselne povezave med svetom besedila in svojimi lastnimi svetovi. Svet ucenca smo konceptualizirali kot narativno identiteto, ki je produkt pisanja/bralnega branja življenjske zgodbe. Model NDO spodbuja dijake, da skozi bralno dejanje intertekstualno povežejo svoje narativne identitete s svetom besedila. Te osebno relevantne povezave med svetom besedila in svetom ucenca so se izkazale kot predpogoj za spoznavanje identitete. Poucevanje književnosti naj bi izpolnjevalo funkcijo posredovanja med svetom besedila in svetom ucenca. Dijakom omogoca izkustveno, performativno in transakcijsko sodelovanje z literarnim besedilom, tako da lahko literarna besedila povežejo s svojimi življenjskimi zgodbami. Zaradi prenosa Ricoeurjevega (1984) besedilnega modela mythos-mimesis z literarnega besedila na podrocje jaza sta svet besedila in svet dijaka kompatibilna. Življenje ni besedilo, je pa kot besedilo. Jaz kot naracija sodeluje z besedilom kot naracijo. Model je poimenovan NDO zaradi osnovnih praks, ki jih izzove. Naracija, dialog in odzivanje so kljucne dejavnosti, ki jih model sproža. Strukturno se model NDO opira na Kreftov (1977) fazni model književnega pouka ter Goodsonov in Gillov (2011) spiralni proces narativnega ucenja. Zato je model zasnovan kot spiralni fazni model pouka književnosti. Model NDO obsega šest faz. V prvi fazi naj bi dijaki pripovedovali avtobiografske zgodbe (Ricoeur, 1992; McAdams in McLean, 2013). V drugi fazi morajo dijaki pripovedi uprizoriti v interakciji (Bamberg, 2011). Na podlagi postopka Kiuken, Miall in Sikora (2004) dijaki v tretjem koraku osebno komentirajo literarno besedilo z uporabo tehnike retrospektivnega uvida v samega sebe. V cetrtem koraku besedilne skupine dijakov analizirajo literarno besedilo v njegovem osebnem in kulturnem kontekstu. V razpravi, ki sledi, obravnavajo razlicne analize in interpretacije ter osebna spoznanja. V šestem koraku morajo dijaki izvesti osebni projekt o enem vidiku danega identitetnega vprašanja (Johnston, 2014; Sumara, 2002). Na koncu se pripoved iz prvega koraka premisli v luci novega narativnega znanja in izkušenj ter se po možnosti rekonstruira. Intervencija je usmerjena v splošna oblikovna nacela. Njen cilj je: (a) izbira vprašanj in besedil, ki so osebno pomembna, (b) spodbujanje narativnega ucenja dijakov o njihovih identitetah ter družbeni in kulturni vpetosti njihovih identitet, (c) spodbujanje dialoškega ucenja dijakov o besedilu, sebi in drugem, (d) združevanje dopolnjujocih se nacinov odzivanja na besedilo, vkljucno z izkustvenimi in analiticnimi pristopi, ter (e) spodbujanje zavzetosti in delovanja dijakov. Model NDO je novost na podrocju identitetno usmerjenega književnega izobraževanja. Edinstven je v tem, da omogoca tako spoznavanje identitete kot tudi razumevanje besedila. Poleg tega potencialno spodbuja odgovornost za svoja dejanja in odgovornost do drugega. Model lahko producira te ucinke le zato, ker je bralceva tekstualizirana samointerpretacija, ki je bila izzvana med pisanjem/branjem življenjske zgodbe, povezana z interpretacijo literarnega besedila pri branju/pisanju literarne zgodbe. Te prakse pripovedovanja in odzivanja, ki so - kot transakcije - po svoji strukturi notranje dialoške, dopolnjuje zunanji dialog. Z vecanjem zmožnosti pisanja/branja zgodbe in udejanjanja dialoga se potencialno doseže želeno ucenje. Model NDO temelji predvsem na teoriji imaginacije. Pisanje/branje življenjske zgodbe in branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe sta primera poeticne igre po nacelu, ki je po Kantu (1781, 1790) posledica interakcije zmožnosti produktivne in ustvarjalne imaginacije. Medtem ko shematicno-sinteticno nacelo, ki je bilo opredeljeno kot pogoj možnosti pisanja/branja zgodbe, izvira iz produktivne imaginacije, ustvarjalna imaginacija omogoca poeticno igro tega nacela. Ricoeur (1984) to nacelo, tj. pripovedni mitos, opredeli kot shemo, ki v skladu s Kantovo (1781) teorijo produktivne imaginacije služi strukturni in reprezentacijski funkciji prakticne in casovne sinteze v skladu s kategorijo enotnosti in tako integrira razliko v identiteti. Shema svojemu uporabniku omogoca ustvarjanje in interpretacijo besedilnega artefakta kot naracijo. V tem smislu je shema perspektivna imaginacija o objektu. Obravnavamo jo kot pogoj možnosti pomena. Temu Ricoeurjevemu normativnemu pripovednemu nacelu, kako vzpostaviti povezave med heterogenimi zaznavami in združevalnimi pojmi, smo dodali element poeticne igre iz kantovske (1790) teorije ustvarjalne imaginacije, s cimer smo vzpostavili dialektiko svobode in omejitve, ki je po našem mnenju konstitutivna za modus operandi pisanja/branja zgodbe. Vzajemno delovanje produktivne in ustvarjalne imaginacije lahko odpira nove pripovedne svetove ter omogoca nastanek novih pomenov in struktur. Tako je poeticna igra po nacelu tako generativne kot epistemicne narave. Medtem ko aplikacija sedimentirane narativne sheme zagotavlja smiselnost, lahko ustvarjalna igra proizvaja inovacije. Omeniti velja, da je sposobnost imaginacije med pisanjem/branjem zgodbe bistveno povezana s sposobnostjo spomina. Osebno spominjanje je treba med pisanjem/branjem življenjske zgodbe shematizirati v skladu s sedimentiranimi vzorci, shranjenimi v kulturnem spominu. Med branjem/pisanjem literarne zgodbe se vzpostavljajo povezave med tem epizodicnim spominom kot naracijo in literarnim besedilom kot naracijo. Kuiken in drugi (2004) poudarjajo, da je nacin spominjanja bistvenega pomena za nastanek ucinka samooblikovanja. Ta nacin je metafora, ki je prav gotovo še en element, ki ga priklice kulturni spomin. Ricoeurjev besedilni model mitos-mimezis je v središcu teoreticne podlage modela NDO. Mitos ostaja usmerjen v kategorijo enotnosti kljub mocnim sociokulturnim težnjam po mnogoterosti in pluralnosti, ker imajo dijaki psihološko potrebo po integraciji psihološke in družbene kompleksnosti v casu adolescence. Narativna shema omogoca strukturiranje in pomenjanje besedila, dejanja in samega sebe. Možnosti, ki jih ponuja mitos, se aktualizirajo v mimeticnih praksah pisanja/branja zgodbe. Mimezis je treba razumeti kot izvajanje poeticne igre v skladu s principom med pisanjem/branjem zgodbe. Pisanje/branje življenjske zgodbe (prim. Ricoeurjev mimesis2) in branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe (prim. Ricoeurjev mimesis3) sta v našem modelu književnega izobraževanja komplementarna procesa. Obe praksi sta – v razlicni meri – doživljajske in interpretativne narave. Vendar smo med obema praksama zaznali asimetrijo. Medtem ko avtor ustvarja objektivizacijo, ko jo interpretira med pisanjem/branjem življenjske zgodbe, je besedilo že podano, ko ga ustvarjalno interpretiramo med branjem/pisanjem literarne zgodbe. V obeh praksah delujejo posredniška, projekcijska in integrativna funkcija narativne sheme. Ker je praksa mimesis nelocljivo povezana z mitom in ustvarjalno igro o njem, je tako sinteticno-shematicna kot poeticna. To pomeni, da je pisanje/branje zgodbe v osnovi imaginativna dejavnost. Zgoraj smo navedli, da imaginacija med pisanjem/branjem zgodbe sodeluje s spominom. Zato je mimesis tudi mnemonicno-intertekstualna dejavnost. Nazadnje, mimezis je nujno samo vkljucevalen in samo refleksiven proces. Jaz je neobhodni pogoj možnosti mimezisa kot transakcije. Kar zadeva reprezentacijo, lahko mimezis doseže metaforicno nanašanje na svet prakse. Ta antirealisticna verodostojnost se bistveno razlikuje od ideje resnicne kopije izvirnika. Mimesis2 je ukoreninjena v proto-narativni praksi (mimesis1), svet besedila, ki ga projicira pisanje, pa ponovno vstopa v prakso z branjem (mimesis3), med katerim se svet besedila in prakticni svet bralca zlijeta. Po tem pojmovanju je nanašanje med svetom in besedilom krožno. Mimesis tako vkljucuje tako prekinitev s prakso (mimesis2) kot ponovno povezavo s prakso (mimesis3). To prepletanje prekinitve in ponovne povezave omogoca semanticno inovacijo z domišljijskim ustvarjanjem metafor in pripovedi. Rezultat mimesis kot poeticne igre po nacelu je metafora ali zgodba, ki jo je mogoce razumeti kot kantovsko (1790) estetsko idejo. Ricoeurjev besedilni model mitos-mimezis je bil prilagojen za naše namene. Kot smo pojasnili zgoraj, smo dodali prakso poeticne igre, ki se izvaja po shemi, ko se uporablja med pisanjem/branjem zgodbe. Sama shema na sintagmatski ravni ni bila spremenjena, saj je sposobna sintetizirati vecpomenskost in epizodicnost. Vendar smo predlagali intertekstualno in intermedialno razširitev sheme na paradigmatski ravni. Intertekstualni/intermedialni mit lahko sproži Lachmannovo (1997) semanticno eksplozijo, ki morda povzroci višjo stopnjo neskladja. Kljub temu, da je ni mogoce v celoti in dokoncno doseci, ne opušcamo težnje po enotnosti. Kar zadeva ustvarjanje pomena na medbesedilnem mitosu skozi poeticno igro lahko sklenemo, da nacelo mitosa zagotavlja smiselnost, poeticna igra pa je potencialno inovativna. Ne smemo pozabiti, da je ves pomen, ki nastane med pisanjem/branjem zgodbe, nujno zacasen, saj je poeticna igra po nacelu podvržena Ricoeurjevi (1984) interakciji sedimentacije in inovacije. Poleg tega v domeno jaza ni bil prenesen le mitos, temvec tudi mimeticna praksa. Prav dejanje mimesis je tisto, ki udejanja življenje kot zgodbo. Model NDO od dijakov zahteva, da se vkljucijo v imaginativno prakso pisanja/branja zgodbe. Literarno zgodbo berejo/pišejo v tretji fazi, življenjsko zgodbo pišejo/berejo v prvi in drugi fazi, literarno zgodbo pa pišejo/berejo v šesti fazi. Prva imaginacijsko-mnemonicna transakcijska praksa, ki smo jo vnesli v model, je pisanje/branje življenjske zgodbe. Pogoj možnosti jaza je avto-hetero-afekcija. Jaz ni intuitivno dan, pomen ni takoj prisoten v avto-afekciji. Sledimo Derridajevi (2011) dikciji, da je znak nujen za konstitucijo in razumevanje jaza. Z drugimi besedami, identiteto kot odnos do sebe in drugega neizogibno posreduje znak, v našem primeru zgodba. Derridajev avto-hetero-afektivni nacin slišanja govorjenja-samega-sebe smo prenesli na podrocje pisanja/branja življenjske zgodbe. Ta avto-hetero-afektivni nacin smo poimenovali branje pisanja-samega-sebe. Cilj prakse pisanja/branja življenjske zgodbe je z ustvarjalnim procesom branja pisanja-samega-sebe v skladu z Ricoeurjevim modelom besedila poskusno in zacasno zajeti identiteto v razliki. V poeticni igri po nacelu se nenehno ustvarjajo imaginativne razlicice osebne identitete. Ricoeur (1988) trdi, da branje literarnih besedil vpliva na narativno identiteto, tj. da recepcija literature sproži samospoznanje. Dodatno trdimo, da tudi pisanje/branje življenjske zgodbe, katere rezultat je poskusna narativna razlicica bralcevega sveta, vpliva na branje/pisanje literarnega besedila. Tako je vpliv med pisanjem/branjem življenjske zgodbe in branjem/pisanjem literarne zgodbe vzajemen. Trdimo, da je ta vzajemni odnos mogoc zaradi temeljne združljivosti realnega in fikcijskega sveta kot shematicnih naracij. Funkcija literature je v tem, da nam ponuja inovativne imaginativne razlicice telesnih in zemeljskih pogojev, ki jih v vsakdanjem življenju ni mogoce izkusiti, in tako omogoca samorazumevanje in razumevanje drugega (Ricoeur, 1988). Konstrukcija življenjske zgodbe pa lahko po drugi strani pripomore k nastanku na jaz nanašajocih se obcutkov. Ce se jaz materializira kot naracija, se lahko literarno besedilo poveže z ubesedenimi imaginativno-mnemonicnimi variacijami jaza, s cimer se poveca vpogled v samega sebe in poglobi razumevanje besedila. Pisanje/branje življenjske zgodbe ustvari besedni jaz. Od Kerbyja (1991) izvemo, da semioticni subjekt sestavljata govoreci subjekt (1. osebna perspektiva) in subjekt govora (3. osebna perspektiva). Po analogiji lahko locimo pripovedovalca zgodbe, dejavnostni jaz, od zgodbe, materializiranega jaza. Pripovedovalec si med pisanjem/branjem življenjske zgodbe izmišlja in interpretira svoje življenje. Ricoeur (1991c) postulira, da "interpretacija sebe pride v naraciji do privilegiranega nacina posredovanja" (str. 188). S tem se strinjamo in dodajamo, da narativni jaz ni le konstruirana zgodovina življenja, temvec tudi konstruirana zgodba o življenju. Interpretacija zgodovine in konstrukcija zgodbe se prepletata. Ricoeurjev besedilni model opravlja funkciji generativne matrice (konstrukcije) in hevristicnega okvira (interpretacije) na podrocjih besedila in jaza. Ricoeur (1992) pojmuje osebno identiteto kot dialektiko idem in ipse, ki jo posreduje narativna identiteta. Medtem ko idem oznacuje stalne splošne dispozicije (Kaj je prepoznavno in ponovno prepoznavno v casu?) in predstavlja nespremenljivo abstraktno in nenarativno jedro identitete, ipse oznacuje konkretno samostalno dejavnico (Kdo se pripisuje skozi spremembe?) in njen individualni slog, ki se konkretno izraža v samonaraciji. Koncept identitete, uporabljen v našem modelu, mora izpolnjevati naslednje zahteve, da lahko pride do ucenja. Biti mora dinamicna, utelešena, umešcena, perspektivizirana, zmožna, dejavnostna, pripisljiva in smiselna. Ipse je obetaven kandidat. Prvic, ipse se scasoma spreminja, saj se nenehno pojavljajo nove imaginativne variacije narativne identitete. Drugic, gre za model utelešene zavesti, saj so imaginativne variacije pripisane telesu. Tretjic, procesi izrisovanja in kartiranja umešcajo ipse v identitetni kronotop. Cetrtic, ipse razlikuje med ustvarjalcem pripovedi (pripovedovalec kot 1. osebna perspektive utelešene zavesti, ki mu je blizu) in objektom razumevanja (pripoved kot 3. osebna perspektiva utelešene zavesti, ki mu je oddaljena). Petic, ipse se potrjuje v zmožnosti delovanja, prepoznava se v svojih zmožnostih. Šestic, ipse oznacuje zmožnega dejavnika (prim. 1. osebno perspektivo zgoraj), katerega delovanje razvija prej omenjene zmožnosti. V svoji relacijski razsežnosti je dejanje ipse primer aktivne receptivnosti, njegov odziv na kontekst je interaktivne in dialoške narave. Zato je ipse združljiv s transakcijsko teorijo pisanja in branja ter interakcijsko teorijo ucenja. V svoji casovni razsežnosti dejanje ipse povezuje sposobnosti spomina (preteklost), imaginacije (prihodnost) in presoje (sedanjost). To je v skladu z zgoraj opisano funkcionalnostjo sinteticne sheme. Sedmic, ipse sprejema odgovornost, tj. odgovarja za svoja dejanja in drugemu. Osmic, ker je ipse nujno povezan s sinteticno shemo, je potencialno smiseln. Zakljucimo lahko, da ipse izpolnjuje vse navedene pogoje, zato ipse služi kot ciljno podrocje ucenja v modelu NDO. Na tej tocki je nujno še enkrat utemeljiti, zakaj je treba koncept pripovedne identitete uporabiti pri identitetno usmerjenem izobraževanju književnosti. Narativna identiteta je dostopna v zgodbah dijakov. Spremembe in razlike v identiteti je mogoce opaziti. Transakcijo med besedilom in bralcem potencialno pospešuje izomorfija literarne fikcije in življenjske zgodbe, saj sta v danem modelu obe obravnavani kot shematicna naracija. Poleg tega literarna fikcija ponuja strukturne in casovne modele za konstrukcijo narativne identitete in interpretacijo narativne identitete, konstrukcija in poglobljeno razumevanje narativne identitete pa omogocata drugacno, izboljšano razumevanje besedila. Nazadnje, narativni pristop k identiteti lahko integrira razlicne vidike identitete (utelešenje, minljivost, prostor, cas, izvedbo in custvenost). Vendar ima sprejetje koncepta narativne identitete na podrocju književnega izobraževanja potencialne omejitve. Predvsem narativna identiteta ne zaobsega celotnega sebstva, prakticna razsežnost identitete je premalo obravnavana. Drugic, narativna identiteta je nestabilna in njena referencnost je negotova. Tretjic, narativna identiteta ni enotna, temvec je le usmerjena v enotnost. Cetrtic, obstajajo epistemološke omejitve: narativna identiteta ne more zajeti nezavednega. Shematicna sinteza, ki prinaša narativno identiteto, je nujno selektivna, selekcija pa popaci razumevanje. Jezik sam omejuje samopreglednost. Notranja izkušnja je neizrazljiva s pomocjo ponovljivega jezikovnega znaka. Ceprav preplet konvencije in ustvarjalnosti v poeticni igri nacela omogoca nastanek nekaterih individualnih konotativnih pomenov, je samorazumevanje s pomocjo jezika neizogibno omejeno. In nenazadnje obstaja nevarnost, da identitetno delo instrumentalizira literarno branje. Avtobiografsko asimilacijo (Sikora idr., 2011) je treba prepreciti. Da bi ublažili prvo omejitev, narativno identiteto dopolnimo s prakticno identiteto, da bi naslovili interakcijske, sociokulturne in predvsem eticne razsežnosti zagledanosti vase. Bambergova (2011) zamisel o naracijah-v-interakciji se uresnicuje v praksi. V drugi fazi modela NDO se izmenjujejo življenjske zgodbe, da bi se vzpostavil vzajemen odnos med identiteto in empatijo. Naracija olajša oblikovanje identitet in empaticnih izkušenj, prek identitete in empatije pa se konstituirajo vrednote jaza in drugega. Dvojno strukturo identitete/empatije je mogoce razvijati in interpretirati s pisanjem/branjem zgodbe. Po Meuterju (2013) vrednost drugega izhaja iz transcendence jaza, na primer iz branja literature. Predvidevamo, da je naracija-v-interakciji še en vir transcendence jaza. Oblikovanje identitete ima tudi sociokulturno razsežnost. Po mnenju Coteja in Levineja (2002) osebnost in družbena struktura posredno vplivata druga na drugo prek interaktivne ravni samopredstavitve. Zgodba o sebi velja za obliko samopredstavitve in zato deluje kot posrednik med družbo/kulturo in psihološkim egom. To pomeni, da je treba pri ucenju pisanja/branja življenjske zgodbe upoštevati procese socializacije in inkulturacije. Trendi, kot so individualizacija, pluralizacija in medializacija, pa tudi prevladujoca kulturna pisanja, generatorji biografije in usedline zgodbe vplivajo na oblikovanje narativne identitete. Nazadnje ima identiteta eticno razsežnost. Pisanje/branje zgodbe ni le narativno dejanje, temvec tudi vaja v moralnem presojanju. To dejanje razsojanja, ki posreduje med teleološkim ciljem dobrega življenja in univerzalno normo, prinaša eticni jaz, ki lahko prevzame odgovornost. Eticni cilj je treba med dejanjem razsojanja preizkusiti z deontološko normo, da drugi ne bi bil instrumentaliziran. Odgovornost do drugega je mocnejše nacelo, vendar je treba univerzalno normo spremeniti le v najmanjši možni meri. Iz tega sledi, da ima drugi intrinzicno in ne instrumentalno vrednost. To velja tako za družbenega kot kulturnega drugega. Skratka, narativna dejanja in dejanja razsojanja so mesta ucenja, opravljajo funkcijo posredovanja, nacin interakcije med jazom in drugim med temi dejanji pa je dialoški. Narativno dejanje omogoca oblikovanje identitete in vpogled v identiteto, dejanje razsojanja pa krepi odgovornost. Nacini ucnega izida so razkrivajoci in transformativni. Zakljucimo lahko, da sta spodbujanje zmožnosti naracije življenjske zgodbe in razsojanja izobraževalna cilja, ki naj bi ju zasledoval model NDO. Druga imaginativno-memonicna transakcijska praksa, ki jo spodbuja model NDO, je branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe. V skladu s Kuiken-Douglasovim modelom (Kuiken in Douglas, 2017) lahko razlikujemo štiri vidike procesa literarnega branja, ki smo jih upoštevali pri oblikovanju 3. in 4. faze našega modela izobraževanja književnosti: (a) udarne jezikovne znacilnosti, (b) nacin pozornosti, (c) nacini zavzetosti in (d) bralni rezultat. Kar zadeva nacin pozornosti, model NDO išce ravnovesje med estetskim in osebnim pomenom, saj želi spodbujati branje literature zaradi uvida v sebe. Pozornost je razporejena med svet besedila in ustrezne življenjske epizode. Bralna zavzetost je v središcu tukaj predlagane teorije branja, pri cemer je branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe poseben nacin bralne zavzetosti. Zavzetost je konceptualizirana kot transakcija v smislu Rosenblatta (1978), v kateri je status dejavnika aktivna receptivnost. Svet besedila in svet bralca se med dejanjem branja sintetizirata, odnos med bralcem in besedilom je vzajemen. Bralna zavzetost je performativne narave in je zato umešcena v cas in prostor. Cilj modela NDO je spremeniti bralcevo komponento v transakciji. V fazah 1 in 2 se s pisanjem/branjem življenjske zgodbe krepita konstrukcija in razumevanje sebe in drugega. S tem ko dijaki delajo na svoji narativni identiteti, konstruirajo in pridobivajo vpogled v lastne svetove kot pripovedi. Med branjem/pisanjem literarne zgodbe lahko pride do intertekstualnega zlitja obzorij na presecišcu sveta besedila in sveta bralca. Branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe po nacelu poeticne igre opravlja dvojno sintezo. Prvic, casovno kontinuiteto zagotovi nenehna anticipacija in retrospekcija. Drugic, oblikovanje iluzije dosega formalno koherentnost, ki pa jo kljub temu nenehno ogroža lomljenje iluzije zaradi vecpomenskih besedilnih znacilnosti. Omeniti velja, da bralna zavzetost ni zgolj kognitivnega znacaja. Literarno branje je tudi afektivni proces. Custva vzbujajo naslednje znacilnosti besedila: (a) besede in besedne zveze z visokim custvenim potencialom, (b) nedolocnost, (c) odstopajoce sheme, (d) literarne asociacije in (e) osebno-idiosinkraticne asociacije. Bralni dejavniki, ki vplivajo na priklic custev, so bili doslej premalo raziskani. Miall (2006) domneva, da je custvo glavni dejavnik literarnega doživljanja. Custva, ki se sprožijo med literarnim branjem, usmerjajo proces razumevanja. Ce prevladujoce sheme, ki jih je bralec ponotranjil, ne delujejo, bralec obcuti motnjo sheme in domišljijsko eksperimentira s posledicami motnje zanj samega. Takšni obcutki nanašanja na samega sebe lahko vodijo v ponovno osvežitev sheme, kar je treba razumeti kot transformativno ucenje. Ti nase nanašajoci se in sebe oblikujoci ucinki custev so tu še posebej zanimivi. Obcutki, ki se vzbudijo med pisanjem/branjem zgodbe, omogocajo povezave med osebnimi pomeni in pomeni besedila prek kategorialnih meja, s cimer omogocajo preobrazbo samega sebe prek metaforicnih odnosov med besedilom in samim seboj. Pomembnost narativnih custev v rezultatih branja ima posledice za poucevanje književnosti. Prvic, spodbujati je treba pridobivanje znanja o shemah. Drugic, dijake je treba spodbujati k povezovanju njihovih osebnih življenjskih zgodb z literarnim besedilom. Tretjic, dijakom je treba omogociti, da raziskujejo custva, ki se vzbudijo med literarnim branjem. Na ta nacin lahko z modelom NDO dosežemo rezultate branja, ki so zaželeni. Akomodativno in transformativno spoznavanje identitete je mogoce prek obcutkov, ki jih vzbuja branje/pisanje literarne zgodbe, ki je v interakciji z bralcevo naracijo o sebi. Spoznavanje identitete je v obdobju mladostništva izredno pomembno. Gradnja individualne identitete je glavna naloga srednješolcev v tej prehodni fazi, saj so konteksti dijakov nejasni in ambivalentni ter ni prevladujocih kulturnih in družbenih norm, ki bi vnaprej dolocale razvoj identitete mladih. Mladi morajo zgraditi stabilno jedro identitete in biti hkrati zelo spremenljivi in prilagodljivi v naši družbi tveganja z neštetimi priložnostmi in omejitvami. Poleg tega so sami odgovorni za svoje identitetne konstrukcije. Trdimo, da je narativno iskanje ena od oblik oblikovanja in razvoja identitete, ki bi srednješolcem lahko omogocila oblikovanje skladne razlage odnosa do sebe in drugih. Posebnost ucenja v adolescenci je, da se pri ucencu pojavijo nove kognitivne zmožnosti. Prvic, konceptualno ucenje postane mogoce. Tako razumevanje kot imaginacija, ki delujeta med pisanjem/branjem zgodbe, sta odvisna od abstraktnih kategorij. Drugic, srednješolci so sposobni imaginativnega in mnemonicnega narativnega ucenja. V mladostništvu se pojavi življenjska zgodba (Habermas in Reese, 2015). Pogoj možnosti življenjske zgodbe je zmožnost ponovne refleksije lastnega življenja. Posebna oblika refleksije, tj. avtobiografsko razmišljanje, dijakom omogoca, da se spopadajo z diskontinuitetami in biografskimi motnjami v obdobju adolescence. Narativno ucenje je v osnovi shematicno ucenje, v katerem casovna in socialna sinteza omogoca koherentno življenjsko zgodbo. Produktivno sinteticno pravilo se je mogoce nauciti preko uporabe in razlage na osnovi asimilacije, akomodacije ali transformacije v ucencevem umu. Razlaga pomeni, da se pravilo, ki ga dejanje upošteva, naucimo in nato uporabimo pri izvedbi dejanja. Uporaba pomeni postopek, v katerem se dejanje naucimo, o pravilih, na katerih temelji, pa razmišljamo po opravljenem dejanju. V modelu NDO se sinteticna shema uporablja med dejanjem pisanja/branja zgodbe in se razloži po dejanju v fazi refleksije. Narativno ucenje je tudi ustvarjalno ucenje. Ucenje na podrocju pisanja/branja zgodbe ne poteka kot posledica uporabe algoritma, temvec je rezultat poeticne igre po nacelu. Poeticna igra, ki se jo je po našem mnenju mogoce nauciti, je vir akomodativnega in transformacijskega ucenja, saj dijaku omogoca ustvarjalne povezave, ki posledicno ustvarjajo nove pomene. Ce sklenemo, narativno ucenje je tako shematicne kot ustvarjalne narave. Iz tega sledi, da je narativno ucenje oblika imaginativnega ucenja. Imaginacija je sredstvo za razumevanje in poeticne inovacije. Zato si model NDO prizadeva razvijati sposobnost imaginacije tako, da dijaki pišejo/berejo zgodbo. Na tej tocki bomo povzeli, kako model NDO spodbuja ucenje. Od dijakov zahteva, da sodelujejo v dveh transakcijah v družbeno-kulturnem okviru, ki ga sestavljajo skupnosti prakse (Wenger, 1998) in pokrajine prakse (Wenger, 2014). Te transakcije so primeri imaginativne poeticne igre po nacelu. Najprej dijaki napišejo/preberejo svoje življenjske zgodbe. Transakcija med pišocim subjektom in pisno objektivizacijo subjekta naj bi rezultirala v življenjski zgodbi, ki je interpretativni izraz jaza. Rezultat prve transakcije, življenjska zgodba, se nato prenese v drugo transakcijo, ekspresivno interpretacijo literarnega besedila. Med branjem/pisanjem literarne zgodbe medsebojno vplivata ucencev svet, ki se je oblikoval med prvo transakcijo, in svet besedila. Prakse pisanja/branja življenjske zgodbe in branja/pisanja literarne zgodbe potencialno krepijo spoznavanje identitete. K razumevanju besedila je pripomoglo tudi medsebojno delovanje pisanja/branja življenjske zgodbe in branja/pisanja literarne zgodbe. Poleg tega se dijaki z vkljucevanjem v dejanje razsojanja ucijo sprejemati odgovornost. Ucinkovitost modela NDO, ki temelji na teoriji imaginativnega dejanja pisanja/branja zgodbe, je bila empiricno preverjena. Metodološki pristop je še posebej zaradi uporabe empiricnih metod za preverjanje ucinkovitosti predlaganega modela novost na podrocju izobraževanja književnosti. Znanstveno preucevanje književnosti je preneseno v srednješolski kontekst. Z empiricno študijo so bili raziskani ucinki izvajanja modela NDO na narativno zavzetost srednješolcev in spoznavanje identitete. Raziskavo so usmerjala naslednja raziskovalna vprašanja: RQ1: Ali po pedagoški intervenciji pride do statisticno znacilne spremembe pri narativni zavzetosti udeležencev in uvida v samega sebe? RQ2: Ali obstaja statisticno pomembna razlika v rezultatih literarnega odziva (bralne orientacije, osredotocenosti pozornosti, odnosov med seboj in drugimi, verodostojnosti, uvida v samega sebe) med udeleženci eksperimentalne skupine (izvajanje modela NDO) in udeleženci kontrolne skupine (brez izvajanja modela NDO)? RQ3: Kako pedagoška intervencija vpliva na ucne prakse udeležencev (naracijo, dialog, odzivanje) in ucne rezultate (vpogled vase, vpogled v drugega, razumevanje besedila)? Uporabili smo kvazi-eksperimentalno mešano (kvalitativno in kvantitativno) metodo raziskovanja. V skladu s Creswellom in Plano Clark (2018) kvalitativni podatki pojasnijo kvantitativno pomembne rezultate v razlagalnem zaporednem nacrtu. Metodološki pristop je novost na podrocju književnega izobraževanja, zlasti uporaba empiricnih metod za preverjanje ucinkovitosti predlaganega modela. Najprej je bil uporabljen potrjen kvantitativni instrument, s katerim smo odgovorili na raziskovalni vprašanji 1 in 2. Drugic, kvantitativni rezultati so bili uporabljeni pri strategijah namenskega vzorcenja in oblikovanju protokola intervjuja. Tretjic, opravili smo intervjuje, opazovali razprave in zbrali artefakte. Namen kvalitativnega dela je bil podrobneje pojasniti kvantitativne rezultate, razumeti vpliv intervencije na izkušnje udeležencev in razložiti delovanje mehanizmov v predlaganem teoreticnem modelu (Creswell et al., 2006). Na koncu so bile interpretacije kvantitativnih in kvalitativnih rezultatov združene. Ucinkovitost modela NDO za izobraževanje književnosti je bila preizkušena na avstrijski gimnaziji, ki je bila izbrana na podlagi prirocnega vzorcenja. Raziskovalec je zaposlen na tej šoli, vendar ni pouceval udeležencev študije. V študiji so prostovoljno sodelovali štirje ucitelji nemšcine (tri ženske, en moški; povprecno 19,3 leta pedagoških izkušenj) s štirimi razredi. Razredi so bili nakljucno razporejeni v eksperimentalno ali kontrolno skupino. V raziskavi je bilo uporabljeno nenakljucno, namensko vzorcenje. V našem primeru je ustrezno merilo za vzorcenje ustreznost za namen. Ker se proucujejo ucinki na dolocene posameznike v dveh dolocenih skupinah ter je treba raziskati edinstvenost in posebnost odzivov udeležencev, se je dana strategija vzorcenja izkazala za ustrezno. Izbrani so bili dijaki sedmega razreda gimnazije, ker je ustrezen literarni odziv glavni cilj njihovega ucnega nacrta za nemšcino, dijaki so že opravili osnovni pouk književnosti, ucitelji pa lahko na tej stopnji opazijo posebno nizko stopnjo zavzetosti. Da bi lahko pripravili podroben opis obravnavanega pojava in preprecili preobremenjenost s podatki, je velikost vzorca za to študijo majhna. Na zacetku je v študiji sodelovalo 77 dijakov (eksperimentalna = 39, kontrolna = 38; 51,9 % moških, 48,1 % žensk; za 87 % dijakov je bil materni jezik nemšcina). En dijak je zapustil šolo, en pa je zamenjal razred. Štirje dijaki niso zagotovili dovolj kvantitativnih podatkov. En dijak je bil izkljucen iz študije, ker je po zakljucku prvega cikla umaknil soglasje za sodelovanje v študiji. Koncna velikost vzorca je N=70 (vzorec eksperimentalne skupine = 34, kontrolni vzorec = 36; 47,1 % moških, 52,9 % žensk). Za kvalitativno študijo je bilo uporabljeno stratificirano namensko vzorcenje (Teddlie & A. Tashakkori, 2009). Merilo za stratifikacijo je izvajanje zadevnega modela. Izbrano je omejeno število udeležencev znotraj podskupin (N=5/podskupina). Udeleženci so bili izbrani na podlagi njihovih rezultatov o bralnih usmeritvah, bralnih izkušnjah in uvida v samega sebe na pred-testu. Za dosego reprezentativnosti ustreznosti namena je bilo uporabljeno tipicno vzorcenje primerov. V skladu z naceli interpretativne fenomenološke analize (Smith et al., 2009) je bil izbran homogen vzorec. Zaradi strategije vzorcenja posploševanje ni bilo nacrtovano. Kvantitativni podatki so bili zbrani z vprašalniki Likertovega tipa za samoocenjevanje na petstopenjski lestvici. Merjeni so bili kazalniki bralne usmerjenosti, osredotocenosti pozornosti, bralnega doživljanja in uvida v samega sebe. Vprašalnik je bil validiran. Za merjenje bralnih usmeritev sta bili uporabljeni lestvici Empatija in Vpogled vase iz Vprašalnika za literarni odziv (VLO) (Literary Response Questionnaire, LRQ; Miall in Kuiken, 1995). Kakovost usmerjenosti pozornosti je bila kvantificirana na podlestvici Narativna prisotnost z Lestvice narativne zavzetosti (Narrative Engagement Scale, NES; Busselle in Bilandzic, 2009). Dve obliki absorpcijske bralne zavzetosti sta bili izmerjeni z vprašalnikom Absorbciji podobna stanja (Absorption-like States Questionnaire, ASQ; Kuiken in Douglas, 2017). V vprašalnik je bila za zbiranje podatkov o globini samo-percepcije vkljucena podlestvica iz Vprašalnika o doživljanju (Experiencing Questionnaire, EQ; Kuiken idr., 2012). Pred-testi so bili izvedeni za eksperimentalno in kontrolno skupino pred zacetkom intervencije, post-testi pa po zakljucku intervencije. Vrstni red postavk vprašalnika je bil nakljucno izbran. Tako pred-testi kot post-testi so bili vsem udeležencem posredovani na papirju. Vprašalniki so bili izpolnjeni v isti sobi ob istem casu, da bi zmanjšali vplive zunanjih dejavnikov. Tako pri pred-testu kot pri post-testu so udeleženci brali zgodbe A. Schnitzlerja. Besedila so bila pregledana glede na dolžino, berljivost in stopnjo zanimanja. Opravljene so bile predhodne analize za oceno normalnosti in homoskedasticnosti. Za odkrivanje odstopanj je bila uporabljena Mahalanobisova analiza distance z mejno vrednostjo a= ,001. Ceprav so podatki v vzorcu normalno porazdeljeni in predpostavka o homogenosti variance ni kršena (glej razdelek z rezultati), so bili uporabljeni neparametricni testi, ker rezultati niso bili pridobljeni z nakljucnim vzorcem iz populacije in opazovanja niso neodvisna med seboj, saj se je intervencija izvajala z udeleženci v šolskih razredih. Pred obravnavo raziskovalnega vprašanja je Mann-Whitneyjev U-test rezultatov pred-testa pokazal, da med eksperimentalno in kontrolno skupino ni pomembnih razlik. Da bi se lotili vprašanja, ali je po pedagoški intervenciji prišlo do statisticno pomembne razlike v bralnih orientiranjih udeležencev, osredotocenosti pozornosti, pripovedni zavzetosti in uvidu v samega sebe, je bil izveden Wilcoxonov test predznacenih rangov. Z Mann-Whitney U-testom smo raziskali vprašanje, ali obstaja statisticno znacilna razlika v rezultatih literarnega odziva (bralne usmeritve, usmerjenosti pozornosti, odnosih med seboj in drugimi, verodostojnosti, uvida v samega sebe) med udeleženci eksperimentalne skupine (izvajanje modela NDO) in udeleženci kontrolne skupine (brez izvajanja modela NDO). Vrednost z iz izpisa SPSS je bila uporabljena za izracun približne vrednosti r po formuli r = z / kvadratni koren iz N, kjer je N = skupno število primerov (Pallant, 2011). Med kvalitativno študijo je raziskovalec neposredno v receptivnem slogu izvedel individualne pol-strukturirane intervjuje. Uporabljen je bil protokol pol-strukturiranega intervjuja, ki je vseboval vprašanja odprtega tipa za spodbujanje podrobnih odgovorov. Udeležencem so bila zastavljena vprašanja o njihovem doživljanju intervencije. Vprašanja so se osredotocala na (a) splošni opis izkušnje, (b) osebni pomen izkušnje, (c) sodelovanje med izkušnjo in (d) podroben opis ucne izkušnje. Intervjuji so bili opravljeni v zasebni šolski sobi. Vsak intervju je trajal približno pol ure. Intervjuji so bili posneti in dobesedno prepisani. Poleg tega so udeleženci pripravili porocila o izkušnjah in artefakte (pripovedi iz 1. in 2. faze, komentarje iz 3. faze; zapiske dijakov iz 4. faze; projektni izdelek iz 6. faze), ki so jih zbrali ucitelji. Raziskovalec je opazoval razprave v peti fazi, ki so bile prav tako posnete in dobesedno prepisane. Vsi podatki so bili anonimizirani. V skladu z naceli interpretativne fenomenološke analize (Smith et al., 2009) so bile za kvalitativne podatke v ponavljajocem se ciklu do tematske nasicenosti uporabljene naslednje strategije analize podatkov: (a) branje in ponovno branje, (b) zacetno zapisovanje, (c) razvijanje nastajajocih tem, (d) iskanje povezav med nastajajocimi temami, (e) prehod na naslednji primer, (f) iskanje vzorcev med primeri. Empiricna študija je pokazala naslednje rezultate. Najprej smo ugotovili, da sta veljavnost in zanesljivost potrjenega instrumenta sprejemljivi. S tem instrumentom je mogoce kvantificirati naslednje vidike bralnega procesa: (a) bralne usmeritve, (b) nacin pozornosti, (c) doživljajski in analiticni nacin bralne zavzetosti ter (d) rezultat branja. Poleg tega je modeliranje strukturnih enacb pokazalo, da doživljajsko branje napoveduje uvid v samega sebe, medtem ko analiticno branje tega ne napoveduje. Tako je bilo mogoce ponoviti en pomemben rezultat iz raziskave Kuikena in Douglasa (2017). Poleg tega smo odkrili, da usmerjenost pozornosti negativno napoveduje doživljajsko branje. To pomeni, da dolocena stopnja odvracanja pozornosti olajša nacin branja, ki vodi k uvidu v samega sebe. Poleg tega je bila ugotovljena mocna afektivna razsežnost tako doživljajskega kot analiticnega branja. Ker na nacin branja in njegove rezultate vplivajo tudi bralne orientacije, jih je treba upoštevati pri oblikovanju intervencij na podrocju izobraževanja književnosti. Drugic, v intervencijski študiji je bila izmerjena ucinkovitost izvajanja modela NDO. V kvantitativni študiji je bilo mogoce zaradi izvajanja modela zaznati statisticno pomembne spremembe znotraj eksperimentalne skupine in statisticno pomembne razlike med skupinami na podrocjih bralnih usmeritev, preusmerjanja pozornosti, nacinov zavzetosti ter vpogleda v sebe in drugega. Udeleženci so bili bolj nagnjeni k branju z uvidom, usmerjeni k vpogledu, zaznati je bilo mocnejši premik k pripovednemu svetu, doživljajsko in analiticno ukvarjanje z literarnimi besedili je bilo intenzivnejše, pridobili pa so tudi vec vpogleda vase. Izmerjene velikosti ucinkov so bile visoke pri usmerjenosti k vpogledu, danosti samonanašanja in globini samoopazovanja. Iz tega sledi, da so bili udeleženci eksperimentalne skupine bolj nagnjeni k temu, da so do branja zavzeli stališce, da si prizadevajo za spoznavanje identitete. Poleg tega je model NDO dijake spodbujal k povezovanju njihovih osebnih spominov s svetom besedila. Nazadnje so dijaki doživeli višjo stopnjo vpogleda v samega sebe. Poleg tega smo ugotovili, da je danost samonanašanja napovedovalec globine samo-percepcije, medtem ko pred-aktivnostna empatija ni. To pomeni, da so povezave med epizodicnim spominom dijakov in svetom besedila tiste, ki prinašajo samo uvid, in ne zacasno zlitje z liki iz diegeze. Povezave dijakov med njihovimi preteklimi izkušnjami, ki so bile predhodno objektivizirane v njihovem delu z identiteto (prva in druga faza), in svetom besedila, so se izkazale za koristne pri doseganju vpogleda v sebe in drugega. Ce je dijak zavzet v transakciji z literarnim besedilom, za katero so znacilni nedolocenost in jezikovna/pripovedna odstopanja, in poveže svojo casovno in družbeno identiteto s svetom besedila ter je usmerjenost pozornosti uravnotežena med svetom besedila in svetom bralca, pride do vpogleda v sebe in drugega. V kvalitativni študiji smo raziskali, kako je izvajanje modela NDO vplivalo na ucne prakse udeležencev (naracija, dialog, odzivanje) in ucne rezultate (razumevanje sebe in razumevanje drugega). Udeleženci so porocali, da je bilo zavzetost med poukom intenzivna. Udeleženci so se preselili v diegezo in se pocutili blizu svetu besedila. Pokazali so simpatijo in empatijo do likov. Poleg tega so se lahko poistovetili s protagonisti. Kar zadeva organizacijo pouka, so udeleženci izkusili ravnovesje med vodenjem in svobodo. Model NDO je dijakom omogocil, da so se z literarnimi besedili ukvarjali na osebno pomemben in smiseln nacin. Spodbujeni so bili tako afektivni kot kognitivni odzivi. Dijaki so porocali, da so bile spodbujene spretnosti naracije, uprizarjanja dialoga in odzivanja na literarno besedilo. Tretja faza je dijakom omogocila izkustveno interakcijo s svetom, cetrta faza pa je izpopolnila kompetence analize in interpretacije. Odpor do identitetnega dela in vzpostavljanja osebnih povezav z literarnim besedilom je imel ucni potencial, zato je bil odpor doživet kot produktiven. Poleg tega so udeleženci doživeli vpogled v sebe in drugega, saj so bili spodbujeni k sodelovanju z literarnimi besedili v kontekstu svojih osebnih identitet. Trajna in kriticna refleksija je veljala za posrednika med dejanjem branja in vpogledom vase. Udeleženci so porocali o naslednjih ucinkih modela NDO na jaz: (a) sprememba lastnosti, stališc, navad in vedenja, (b) izboljšanje psihološkega pocutja, (c) spremenjena življenjska zgodba, (d) vpogled v casovnost bivanja in (e) spremenjena identiteta kot bralca in dijaka. Narava ucinka je bila opisana kot trajna. Ucinke je sprožilo književno izobraževanje in ne samo književno besedilo. Intenzivno zavzemanje perspektive je posredovalo med dejanjem branja in vpogledom v drugega. Udeleženci so porocali o naslednjih ucinkih modela NDO na njihov odnos z drugimi: (a) sprememba dojemanja drugih, (b) sprememba vedenja do drugih, (c) ponovni razmislek o moralnih normah, (d) spremembe politicnega razmišljanja, (e) razumevanje pomena družbenih odnosov in (f) vecja sposobnost reševanja konfliktov. Za sprožilce teh sprememb so šteli tako književno izobraževanje kot književno besedilo. Ker so bili ucinki tako v odnosu do sebe kot do drugega, lahko sklepamo, da model NDO spodbuja spoznavanje identitete. Iz empiricne raziskave izhajajo posledice za izobraževanje. Prvic, identitetna vprašanja, na katerih temelji književno izobraževanje, morajo biti osebno relevantna. Izbira osebno relevantnih identitetnih vprašanj dijakom omogoca smiselno interakcijo z literarnim besedilom. Sodelovanje z avtenticnimi besedili je predpogoj za osebno relevantnost. Drugic, zavzetost mora biti visoka. Ugotovili smo, da je doživljajska zavzetost glavni napovedni dejavnik uvida v samega sebe. Visoko zavzetost je treba obravnavati kot predpogoj za ta ucni izid. Posledicno morajo posegi na podrocju književnega izobraževanja dijake voditi in jim še vedno dopušcati svobodo, da sami usmerjajo ucni proces. Tretjic, odzivanje na besedilo mora biti kontekstualizirano iz življenja dijakov. Povezanost dijakov z njihovim osebnim življenjem olajša vpogled v samega sebe in razumevanje besedila. Zato je treba dijakom omogociti, da literarno besedilo povežejo s svojo identiteto. Cetrtic, v književno izobraževanje je treba vkljuciti dijakove pripovedi, saj osebne zgodbe spodbujajo dijakovo casovno in družbeno povezanost. Poleg tega se lahko življenjske zgodbe intertekstualno povežejo z literarnim besedilom in tako potencialno povzrocijo samooblikovanje. Petic, izobraževanje književnosti mora vkljucevati dialoško prakso, ki pospešuje vpogled v drugega in izpolnjuje bistvene namerne in kumulativne funkcije ucenja. Razlicni pogledi pospešujejo napredek pri ucenju, dijaki pa pridobivajo znanje z medsebojnim razmišljanjem. Posledicno morajo biti literarne razprave o rezultatih analize in izkušnjah dijakov z besedilom sestavni del izobraževanja književnosti. Zakljucimo lahko, da je spoznavanje identitete mogoce doseci le s transakcijskim doživljajskim branjem; formalna analiza ne prinaša tovrstnih ucnih rezultatov. Zato je treba dijakom ponuditi veliko možnosti za ne-instrumentalno doživljanje besedila, da se ustavijo ob udarnih odlomkih, da si predstavljajo svet besedila, da osebno vstopijo v svet besedila ter kognitivno in afektivno povežejo fiktivni svet z lastnimi relevantnimi življenjskimi epizodami. Trdimo, da so rezultati te raziskave uporabni in pomembni za srednješolske ucitelje, saj model spodbuja specificne prakse (pripovedovanje, dialog, odzivanje), ki jim potencialno pomagajo izpolniti cilje ucnega nacrta, tj. vpogled v sebe in drugega. Kljucni pomen medsebojnega delovanja teh specificnih imaginativnih praks in ucenja bi bilo treba posredovati praktikom na tem podrocju. Raziskava prinaša empiricne dokaze, da model NDO izobraževanja književnosti potencialno omogoca vpogled vase in vpogled v drugega s spodbujanjem praks pisanja/branja zgodbe in branja/pisanja literarnega besedila, ki sta primera poeticne igre po nacelu. 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Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316556238.010 Appendices (validation study) Appendix A: Exploratory factor analysis Table 25: Pattern matrix and communalities for PAF with Promax Variation Items Factors 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 COM INS4 .839 .030 .054 .053 -.156 -.050 .009 -.073 -.134 .599 INS5 .714 .071 .057 .087 .038 .068 -.059 -.080 -.122 .575 INS7 .688 -.077 .066 -.181 .056 .002 -.022 .123 .135 .507 INS3 .664 .141 -.113 -.114 -.038 -.019 -.061 .132 .132 .464 INS9 .653 -.134 .076 .123 -.016 .033 .145 -.072 -.234 .464 INS8 .618 -.046 -.105 .178 .036 -.028 .112 -.078 -.027 .486 INS6 .567 -.074 -.043 -.173 .007 -.030 .032 .097 .330 .407 INS11 .541 -.092 .079 -.157 .049 .039 .070 .183 .068 .405 INC6 .004 .846 -.053 .015 -.011 -.025 .037 .036 -.087 .657 INC7 -.032 .808 .011 -.103 -.056 .007 -.028 .086 .025 .654 INC5 .036 .775 -.009 .015 .048 -.047 .012 .010 -.100 .587 INC4 .070 .617 .024 .021 -.004 .089 -.062 .021 -.196 .687 EXE5 .013 -.058 .904 -.076 .001 .033 -.002 .113 -.002 .804 EXE4 .026 -.121 .788 -.034 -.099 -.032 .158 .037 -.037 .583 EXE6 -.078 .106 .623 .124 .001 -.013 -.016 -.010 .134 .600 EXE7 -.056 .094 .569 .135 .120 .002 -.027 .094 -.009 .553 SPD3 -.057 -.003 .031 .863 .138 -.025 -.053 -.020 -.126 .631 SPD4 .055 .060 .014 .709 -.138 .025 .035 -.009 .061 .624 SPD2 -.001 -.174 -.021 .706 -.023 -.004 .027 .201 -.041 .523 SPD5 .017 .103 .108 .647 -.015 .001 .022 -.045 .015 .540 SPD1 .080 -.024 .012 .615 .018 -.006 .024 .085 .145 .613 EMP5 -.035 .025 -.115 -.033 .695 -.116 .128 -.014 .103 .481 EMP2 .052 -.005 .139 -.104 .621 .032 -.037 .006 -.120 .422 EMP4 -.126 -.165 -.148 .147 .619 .018 .049 .109 .018 .323 EMP3 .032 .081 .067 -.163 .602 -.028 .042 .105 -.051 .485 EMP7 .006 .150 -.051 .050 .598 .048 -.026 -.051 .018 .489 EMP6 .063 -.133 .095 .126 .586 .027 .035 -.085 -.051 .407 ATF2 -.032 .018 -.050 .010 .037 .908 -.015 .045 -.003 .792 ATF3 -.011 .024 -.010 -.068 -.025 .862 -.047 .015 .076 .798 ATF1 .004 -.035 .014 .049 -.027 .857 .014 .001 .060 .768 INC12 .048 .140 -.003 -.038 .069 -.005 .736 -.058 .015 .664 INC13 -.052 -.081 .093 .002 .111 -.029 .678 .087 .053 .558 INC10 .051 .101 -.005 .064 -.056 -.049 .593 .108 .079 .567 EXE8 .029 .046 .023 .075 .050 .055 -.003 .787 -.121 .691 EXE9 -.007 .073 .043 .085 .012 .044 .030 .787 -.130 .713 EXE10 -.004 .064 .257 .060 -.034 -.110 .033 .575 -.087 .606 NAP3 -.030 -.117 .189 .047 -.009 .022 .127 -.135 .715 .604 NAP1 .086 .021 .023 -.101 .000 .078 -.004 -.060 .619 .545 NAP2 .037 -.103 .104 .058 -.026 .088 .050 -.113 .555 .523 Note. Factor 1 = Insight Orientation. Factor 2 = Cognitive Perspective-Taking. Factor 3 = Self-Perceptual depth. Factor 4 = Empathy Orientation. Factor 5 =Narrative Presence. Factor 6 = Pre-Enactive Empathy. Factor 7 = Realism. Factor 8 = Self-Implicating Givenness. COM = communalities. Bolded items indicate major loadings for each item. Appendix B: Hierarchical regression analyses for variables predicting forms of engagement Table 26: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Peri-Personal Space Model 1 Model 2 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß Insight Orientation 0.34 0.07 .25** 0.12 0.05 .09* Empathy Orientation 0.44 0.06 .36** 0.26 0.05 .21** Attentional Focus 0.07 0.03 .08* Narrative Presence 0.58 0.04 .56** R2 .28 .56 F for change in R2 76.44** 126.81** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. Table 27: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Pre-Enactive Empathy Model 1 Model 2 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß Insight Orientation 0.23 0.06 .19** 0.10 0.06 .09 Empathy Orientation 0.37 0.06 .34** 0.24 0.05 .22** Attentional Focus -0.08 0.04 -.10* Narrative Presence 0.41 0.05 .45** R2 .21 .35 F for change in R2 53.54** 41.65** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. Table 28: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Self-Implicating Givenness Model 1 Model 2 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß Insight Orientation 0.26 0.07 .21** 0.21 0.07 .16** Empathy Orientation 0.30 0.06 .26** 0.22 0.06 .19** Attentional Focus -0.12 0.04 -.14** Narrative Presence 0.24 0.05 .25** R2 .16 .20 F for change in R2 37.50** 10.87** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. Table 29: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Extra-Personal Space Model 1 Model 2 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß Insight Orientation 0.25 0.07 .18** 0.05 0.06 .04 Empathy Orientation 0.44 0.06 .35** 0.29 0.06 .23** Attentional Focus 0.14 0.04 .15** Narrative Presence 0.47 0.05 .44** R2 .21 .44 F for change in R2 53.30** 78.39** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. Table 30: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Cognitive Perspective-Taking Model 1 Model 2 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß Insight Orientation 0.37 0.06 .31** 0.26 0.06 .20** Empathy Orientation 0.19 0.06 .17** 0.10 0.05 .09 Attentional Focus 0.16 0.04 .21** Narrative Presence 0.27 0.05 .30** R2 .18 .34 F for change in R2 42.95** 47.77** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. Table 31: Hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting Realism Model 1 Model 2 Variable B SE B ß B SE B ß Insight Orientation 0.31 0.06 .28** 0.24 0.06 .21** Empathy Orientation 0.13 0.06 .12* 0.04 0.06 .04 Attentional Focus -0.08 0.04 -.11* Narrative Presence 0.27 0.05 .31** R2 .12 .19 F for change in R2 28.21** 15.19** Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. Appendix C: Items for the measurement of reading orientations, attentional focus, reading engagement, and self-insight72 72 Technical terms for literary genres from the original items were adapted to “story” because students responded to the instrument after reading epic texts exclusively. The items need to be validated with other genres before they can be used to assess reading experiences with poems or drama. German translations of the items can be obtained from the corresponding author. READING ORIENTATION (LRQ; Miall & Kuiken, 1995) Insight Orientation 1. I often find my shortcomings explored through characters in literary texts. (INS3) 2. I find that literature helps me to understand the lives of people that differ from myself. (INS4) 3. Reading literature often gives me insights into the nature of people and events in my world. (INS5) 4. I often see similarities between events in literature and events in my own life. (INS6) 5. I often find my own motives being explored through characters in literary texts. (INS7) 6. I find that certain literary works help me to understand my more negative feelings. (INS8) 7. Literature enables you to understand people that you’d probably disregard in normal life. (INS9) 8. When I begin to understand a literary text, it’s because I’ve been able to relate it to my own concerns about life. (INS11) Empathy Orientation 9. I sometimes have imaginary dialogues with people in fiction. (EMP2) 10. When I read fiction I often think about myself as one of the people in the story. (EMP3) 11. I actively try to project myself into the role of fictional characters, almost as if I were preparing to act in a play. (EMP5) 12. Sometimes characters in novels almost become like real people in my life. (EMP6) 13. After reading a novel or story that I enjoyed, I continue to wonder about the characters almost as though they were real people. (EMP7) ATTENTION (NES; Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009) Attentional Focus 14. I found my mind wandering while I was reading the story. (-) (ATF1) 15. While I was reading the story, I found myself thinking about other things. (-) (ATF2) 16. I had a hard time keeping my mind on the story. (-) (ATF3) Narrative Presence 17. While reading the story, my body was in the room, but my mind was inside the world created by the story. (NAP1) 18. The story created a new world, and then that world suddenly disappeared when the program ended. (NAP2) 19. At times while reading the story, the story world was closer to me than the real world. (NAP3) READING ENGAGEMENT (ASQ; Kuiken & Douglas, 2017) Expressive Enactment Peri-Personal Space 20. While reading what made this story memorable, I could almost feel what it would be like to reach, move, or change position in relation to things (objects, characters) in the world of the text .(EXE1) 21. While reading what made this story memorable, the situation described there created an atmosphere (i.e., a mood or feeling) that, for a moment, surrounded everything, including me. (EXE2) 22. While reading what made this story memorable, the things described in the world of the text seemed bodily present, as though they could not only be seen but also heard; not only heard but also within reach, not only reachable but also touchable, etc. (EXE3) Pre-Enactive Empathy 23. While reading what made this story memorable, for a moment I felt like I “was” the character whose experience was being described there. (EXE4) 24. While reading what made this story memorable, it seemed that, although we are not the same person, the character portrayed there and I were “in the same place”. (EXE5) 25. While reading what made this story memorable, my feelings were as “close” for me as they were for the character whose point of view was being presented there. (EXE6) 26. While reading what made this story memorable, it seemed like I was almost “in” the bodily position (e.g., posture, bearing) of the character whose experience was described there. (EXE7) Mnemonic Mirroring 27. While reading what made this story memorable, I used memories of my own experience to understand what one of the characters was feeling. (EXE8) 28. While reading what made this story memorable, recalling experiences in my own life helped me to sense what one of the characters was going through. (EXE9) 29. While reading what made this story memorable, I noticed that events in my own life seemed to mirror what one of the characters was facing. (EXE10) Integrative Comprehension Extra-Personal Space 30. While reading what made this story memorable, I felt like I was watching the character(s) who were visibly there in front of me. (INC1) 31. While reading what made this story memorable, I could see (in my mind’s eye) the same physical set-ting (or location) that was there for the character(s) to see. (INC2) 32. While reading what made this story memorable, I could almost see the setting (or environment) that was there at that moment. (INC3) Cognitive Perspective-Taking 33. While reading what made this this story memorable, I could understand the flow of events from the perspective of each different character. (INC4) 34. While reading what made this story memorable, I could understand why each character did what s/he did. (INC5) 35. While reading what made this this story memorable, I could understand the feelings of each different character. (INC6) 36. While reading what made this story memorable, I could imagine the predicament that each character was facing. (INC7) Realism 37. While reading what made this story memorable, the characters’ feelings and concerns seemed similar to those of people I know in real life. (INC10) 38. While reading what made this story memorable, the fictional actions described there resembled the ac-tions of people in the real world. (INC12) 39. While reading what made this story memorable, the characters’ actions seemed similar to those I ob-serve in real life. (INC13) 40. SELF-INSIGHT (EQ; Kuiken, Campbell & Sopcak, 2012) Self-Perceptual Depth 41. After reading the story, I felt sensitive to aspects of my life that I usually ignore. (SPD1) 42. After reading the story, I felt like changing the way I live. (SPD2) 43. After reading the story, my sense of life seemed less superficial. (SPD3) 44. After reading the story, I considered a view of life that seemed more fully ‘real’. (SPD4) 45. After reading the story, I felt that my understanding of life had been deepened. (SPD5) 46. This story continued to influence my mood after I finished reading it. (SPD6) 47. This story reminded me of how my past is still with me. (SPD7)