Learning and thinking

A few days later....

The book that has taken my time and attention to read over the last few days is Reading for Learning. Cognitive Approaches to Children’s Literature published in 2014, and written by Professor Maria Nikolajeva of the University of Cambridge. It is an 8 chapter book which is very interesting, and quite detailed, so it has taken me a good two full days to read it, making notes as I go. The contents are useful for me to add into my teaching, but it will also be used in writing up my research, adding a new lens. 

Essentially Nikolajeva explores a cross-disciplinary approach to reading literature called ‘Cognitive Criticism’ with respect to children’s literature in particular. She differentiates readers’ comprehension, their response to,  and their engagement with a text; it is the engagement with the text that is the focus of cognitive criticism. This approach observes perception, attention, empathy, memory, reasoning, decision-making and language within children's literature. At the centre of this approach is the idea that fiction can be used to explore human cognition. Nikolajeva points out that, unlike some theories which have been applied to children’s literature such as Postcololonialism and Queer Theory, Cognitive Criticism needs some adaptation due to the fact that the sender and the receiver of children’s literature are on different cognitive levels. Central to her discussion is a continuum of readers from novice readers who have limited life experience, a less developed memory, and a limited sense of self (among other characteristics) to the expert reader who  “possesses a capability of realising to the full extent the potential afforded by the text” (p 14).

After the introductory chapter, Nikolajeva examines novice readers’ knowledge of the world and how knowledge is carried within fiction, even though that is not its primary purpose. Indeed one of the main points Nikolajeva returns to towards the end of the book is that the pleasure associated with reading  fiction can make the acquisition of knowledge quite efficient. In another chapter she examines the writing techniques used to allow readers to get to know other people. Theory of Mind is the theory of how we learn to read other people’s minds, what they might be thinking or feeling, and how authors go about achieving this in fiction by describing emotions or describing behaviours/body language which reflect emotions, using first person interiors as well as omniscient narrations. She discusses the power for novice readers of illustrations in picturebooks showing facial expressions and body language. She also discusses how Theory of Mind can then lead to understanding other people’s feelings, or empathy,  an important social skill. She suggests that “the aesthetic quality of a literary text is determined by the depth of mind reading it offers” (p. 94). In alternate chapters Nikolajeva presents sustained analyses of books exemplifying the ideas in cognitive criticism that she is exploring, including a very interesting chapter exploring three picturebooks which provide opportunities fro developing and practising Theories of Mind.

The place of ethical knowledge in children’s fiction was a very interesting area for me (as a member of an ethics committee). I hadn't previously thought about the relationship between ethics,  emotions, identity and empathy. Nikolajeva  points out that all children’s literature is didactic, and all children’s literature is ethical. Learning about other people’s feelings through fiction allows novice readers to develop a sense of ethics, sometimes needing some guidance from the writer. She discusses the dilemma associated with  presenting perspectives sympathetic to a perpetrator of evil which a novice reader who does not have extensive social and historical knowledge,  referencing Holocaust fiction in particular. Another interesting aspect of Nikolajeva’s discussions of ethics in children’s literature was the idea that the reproduction of societies in which adult rules are the norm in children's literature presenting similar ethical dilemmas as when colonial or patriarchal societies are depicted as the norm. That got me thinking.

And lastly, Nikolajeva analyses the ethical questions and issues presented by several YA books including ‘The Hunger Games’ which she suggests ‘presents a set of narrative challenges which contribute to a reader’s evolution from novice towards expert” (p.224).

All in all this was a very interesting read from which I learned a great deal, and which will influence my own analyses of children’s literature in the future.

Nikolajeva, M. (2014). Reading for Learning.Cognitive Approaches to Children's Literature. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.