Authors of everyday life Towards learning with literary learner texts in English language education Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz In the digital realm of the 21 st century, the production and distribution of literature has changed drastically; writing literary texts is no longer a privilege of professional authors and publishers but has transformed into a participatory practice, with non-professional writers sharing their own literary narratives via social media platforms. This digital practice has become particularly relevant among teenagers and young adults as they increasingly use the opportunity of producing and sharing their own literary texts as a means of negotiating their identities and the social environments around them. Literature, thus, enables teenagers to participate in society by voicing their own personal and social concerns. Given their value in the context of engaging in these meaning-making processes on the one hand, and the role and importance of English as one of the lingua francas in digital realms on the other, these digital literary practices also need to be reflected in contemporary English language education (ELE). However, this hardly seems to be the case so far. Although literary texts still play a very prominent role, particularly in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms in Germany, current approaches to learning with literature still appear to perceive learners as recipients of professional literary texts, while production-oriented perspectives on teenagers as authors of their everyday lives, which go beyond post-reading creative tasks, seem to hold a most marginal position. Thus, digital texts written by learners (i.e., literary learner texts) are hardly considered as source texts. This theoretical contribution argues that contemporary practices of learning with literature need to be complemented by also focusing on literary works created by learners on multiple levels of classroom action. Drawing on interdisciplinary concepts, it explores the relevance of this focus in detail and makes first suggestions for framing literature classrooms based on literary learner texts. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Agenda: Advancing Anglophone Studies Band 48 · Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.24053/ AAA-2023-0005 Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 100 1. Introduction “Is literature dying in the digital age? ” (Hammond 2016: 2) In light of recent cultural developments and current media reports, Hammond’s question about the potential demise of literary texts and their social relevance becomes a valid concern. Over the past few years, the international book market has lamented a significant decline in sales (Wolters 2018). Moreover, the willingness to engage with literature seems steadily decreasing, especially among adolescent readers (see, e.g., Paran & Wallace 2016; Matz & Rumlich 2020; Mpfs 2021); A development that is supported by the fact that many teenagers might lack the necessary reading competences (both in the L1 and the L2) to understand complex literary texts (Reiss et al. 2018). Finally, at times even authors of contemporary fiction describe the current literary scene as “fucking boring. It really is” (Lennon 2013: n. p.), so that, indeed, the social standing of literature appears to have entered a crisis of legitimacy. Yet, this notion of crisis can only be maintained on the surface level because, upon a closer look, literature is not dying but merely shifting its forms of expression and means of production in the digital age (Hammond 2016). While the relevance of analogue texts and a more traditional understanding of literature might be challenged to a certain extent, new and innovative types of literary aesthetics continuously appear on digital media outlets. The process of digitalisation, therefore, coincides with a process of redefining what constitutes literature and, as formats such as instapoetry, twitterature, flashfiction, text talk fiction, kinesthetic poetry or BookTok show, the supposedly dying is most alive today. This is particularly the case in adolescent realms where these digital forms of literary expression have become an integral part of teenage participatory culture: Due to the rise of digital communication technologies, the production and distribution of literature, particularly in the English language, is no longer limited to professional authors but opened towards ‘ordinary’ young adults who can share their own experiences, thoughts, and artistic and aesthetic visions in literary form via social media channels. Consequently, the lines between author and reader blur and the literary world in the digital age witnesses the advent of more adolescent everyday authors who prominently use literature as an important medium to create, narrate, and negotiate their own identities and the world they imagine. Writing literature, in other words, has become a prominent means of teenage self-expression and meaningmaking. Considering this importance of literary self-expression among teenagers today, it appears reasonable to assume that digital literary forms ought to also find their place in school education to prepare adolescents for identity formation and successful participation in a digital society (see, e.g., Becker Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 101 & Matz 2020; Lütge et al. 2019; KMK 2021). In this context, English language education might play a very significant role, for English is not only one of the global and digital lingua francas, but EFL classrooms are also tasked with supporting learners in reflecting on language in the field of literatures and cultures (see, e.g., KMK 2012). As such they provide a pedagogical platform for educating young everyday authors and fostering their literary abilities. However, to date, this potential of language education to focus on learners’ own literary output appears to have been hardly researched and implemented in the German educational context (see, e.g., Gerlach & Götz 2021), which will serve as a focus point for this contribution. While contemporary studies on teaching literature in the EFL classroom mostly focus on working with literary texts by professional authors as source texts - from classics such as Shakespeare (see, e.g., Eisenmann & Lütge 2014; Eisenmann 2019) to fictions of migration (see e.g., Freitag- Hild 2010) and contemporary young adult dystopian and fantasy fiction (see e.g., Matz 2020; Wehrmann & Surkamp 2022) just to name a few, - literary texts written by the learners themselves appear to obtain a rather marginal status in language education research. Hence, based on notions of Reader Response Criticism (RRC), learners in the EFL context are still predominantly perceived as mere recipients of literature whereas their role as producers of literary texts is still to be conceptualised. The present paper aims at (1) addressing this research gap by theoretically exploring how current concepts and approaches to learning with literature in English language education, which are mainly reception-oriented in focus, can be complemented with a production-oriented perspective, which goes beyond creative writing and action-oriented tasks and in which literary learner texts 1 find a more prominent position. As such, this contribution (2) makes a case for viewing learners as both recipients and producers of literature and participants in literary discourse. In doing so, it (3) contributes to reconsidering and adapting contemporary literary teaching practices in light of changing paradigms of literature in a digital participatory culture. It seeks to reframe literary teaching practices from reader response to ‘wreader’ (Landow 1997) participation to prepare and support learners for the literary landscape of the 21 st century. 2. Changing paradigms of literature in the 21 st century Over the past two decades, literature has witnessed a continuous process of transformation. Recent political, cultural, and global developments have 1 In this context, the term literary learner texts relates to all literary texts which are written by learners in the EFL classroom, including not only analogue, but also digital texts of different modes and designs. Thus, it is important to note that it is based on a wide understanding of what literary texts are (i.e., it is based on the concept of erweiterter Textbegriff). Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 102 been “rocking the literary boat” tremendously, as they have led to “adapting traditional literary genres, spawning new text types and modifying demands put on contemporary readers” (Thaler 2019: 7). One such societal development that has become particularly influential is the digital turn of recent years; according to Lauer (2020), digital devices and applications have fundamentally changed adolescents’ and adults’ reading (and writing) practices. The global success of platforms such as wattpad.com could be a major sign of “the death of the literary institution as we know it” (125; trans. D.B.). In a similar vein, Lütge (2018) as well as Surkamp (2020) refer to digitalization as the catalyst for the emergence of utterly new literary genres as well as the remixing, reconsideration, and redefinition of already existing ones. Thus, the digital turn and its technological innovations enable a diversification of literary productions on both new and old grounds so that, according to Baum (2017), “at the beginning of the 21 st century, the history of literature is inevitably a history of digital transformation” (316; trans. D.B. & F.M.). At closer inspection, this digital transformation becomes visible in two major changes that shape literature and its production in the new millennium. First, literary texts shift from being perceived as stable entities to becoming more open and dynamic phenomena. Second, the modes of literary production change from the single author and a hierarchical relationship between author and reader to more collaborative practices in which the line between author and reader is increasingly blurred. To begin with, in the digital age public and academic perceptions of text as material practice and a cultural artefact have drastically changed. In pre-digital times, once a literary text was published (e.g., in the form of a paper-based book), its material shape and textual properties were relatively stable. As Hautzinger (1999) points out, “the physical constitution of a book as a haptic object represents authority and stability. Its clear beginning and end give weight to the message of a text since there appears nothing to be added. It forms a unit of its own” (25; trans. D.B. & F.M.). In the context of print culture and analogue production, text was prominently viewed as a closed-off and rather static system. Its sheer materiality signalled stability as printed words on the page evoked a sense of permanence. In this vein, Kergel and Heidkamp (2018) refer to analogue texts as “immutable once written” (20) and define them as an autarkic unit which merely “waits for its readers” to be consumed (ibid.). Yet, in recent times, this absolute view on literary texts as immutable artefacts has been increasingly challenged. According to Beavis (2013), the changed perception of literature originates from emerging practices of digital text production: Due to easy-to-use editing tools, digital technologies, and innovative venues for publishing literature online, “the capacity to copy, mash, change, [and] spoof” (246) has become central to composing literary texts in the digital realm. As Simanowski (2017) claims, these altered composition practices result in a redefinition of textuality itself. Thus, Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 103 amidst the popularity of textual remixing and resampling (see, e.g., the phenomenon of Memes), in the digital realm “the traditional form of coherent text is lost” (2017: 95; trans. D.B. & F.M.). Instead, texts can be reconsidered as a more open “collection of text […] fragments” that can be used and re-purposed in different contexts by individual writers (2017: 95; trans. D.B. & F.M.). Thus, as literary texts turn into digits, the once stable boundaries of the printed artifact dissolve into fluidity, or in the words of Kuhlen (2004) “works turn into networks” that can be extended and/ or re-arranged continuously (221; trans. D.B. & F.M.). Hence, as exemplified in the context of online fanfiction in which literary source texts are frequently altered, commented on, complemented, or re-composed, literary texts turn to open spaces of semiotic negotiation and the authority of a stable unit of text is replaced by the notion of textual dynamicity. Secondly, this more open understanding of literary texts coincides with a reconsideration of literary authorship in the 21 st century. More precisely, the digital transformation of literature leads to a redefinition of the relationship between author and reader. As Eick (2014) points out, in analogue times, “storytelling in novels or films was limited to professional authors who could reach a larger audience via connections to publishing companies [or] broadcasters” (27; trans. D.B. & F. M.). In other words, being a published author was an exclusive privilege which positioned authors and readers in a strictly hierarchical relationship to each other. Since the 18 th century and the advent of mass printing, the author was perceived as a solitary figure possessing the means of literary expression and production (Poster 1999: 263), while readers were deemed as mere recipients of literature who could not as easily address a larger audience in print culture. In the digital age, however, this traditional sender-receiver-structure of literary communication is being exceedingly challenged. Thus, as Kergel and Heidkamp (2018) argue, instead of reinforcing hierarchy, “[t]he new possibility of producing and remixing a text digitally” (21) transforms the privilege of the few into an equal chance of participation for the many, since by now everyone with a basic knowledge of text editing and online publication can potentially become an author. Because authors can selfpublish their literary works on social media platforms, literary production has shifted beyond the exclusive realm of publishing companies (Lauer 2020). In this context, with more people having the opportunity to participate in literary production and to reach larger audiences via the internet, the former hierarchy between author and reader, sender and receiver, dissolves and the clear distinction between the two is renegotiated. As Pleimfeldner and Antony (2018) point out, in today’s participatory culture the “principle of the receiver based on passivity” is replaced by ordinary individuals “taking over the role of the producer and the recipient” (4; trans. D.B. & F.M.). Rather than making a distinction between reader and writer, contemporary production of literature is marked by the wreader Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 104 figure, meaning that participation in online communities relies on the simultaneous production and reception of literary texts. 2 Thus, as Nantke (2018) states, readers are perceived as active “commentators and collaborateurs” (12; trans. D.B. & F.M.), establishing an environment in which authors become readers and readers inevitably also turn into authors. This shift towards the wreader in literary production is finally supported by a shift from the paradigm of the single author, often to be found in the realm of analogue literary texts, towards the notion of shared authorship (Nantke 2018: 1). Since texts can be easily edited, altered, or completely rewritten online, they do no longer ‘belong’ to one author exclusively. Rather, they are continuously negotiated by many different individuals who are (temporarily or constantly) involved in the production and distribution process. Hence, literary texts in the digital realm often rest upon collaborative and interactive efforts and text production resembles a polyphonic amalgam of different authorial voices (Zimmermann 2015). Closely linked to the convergence of the reader and writer roles in literary communication, the digital transformation of literature also brings forth a move towards increasingly perceiving literary expression as a participatory act in which individuals are empowered to become authors themselves. This, however, is only possible if teenagers learn what it means to be an author so that the changed understanding of literature and literary production needs to also find its way into (language) education. 3. Current approaches to learning with literature in English language education: Literary learning as response Over the past decade, digital texts and communication practices have increasingly become part of the ELE discourse, recognising that the impact of the digitality of culture (Stalder 2016) not only affects how the English language is taught, but also what (digital) language is, how texts and communication change, and what is meant by the notion of (digital) foreign language discourse competence (see, e.g., Hallet 2020; Matz 2023). In this context, Hallet (2020) emphasises that the educational mandate to develop a digital discourse competence relates to [...] the ability to orientate oneself in the enormously diverse cultural choices and multiplied social contexts, to position oneself there, and to communicate appropriately and in a goal-oriented manner. Teaching text production and communication in a foreign language must be prepared for this: to orient oneself in discourses, to cope with a quantity of texts and images, to 2 In the EFL context, a similar, yet more prominent concept is that of the ‘produser’, deriving from the term ‘produsage’ (production and usage) coined by Bruns (2008), thereby drawing attention to the fact that in the digital realm, the boundaries between text reception and production are blurred. Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 105 recognize positions in discourse and determine one’s own position in it, to develop a discourse-related ability to express oneself [...]. (n.p., emphasis in the original) This notion does not explicitly entail digital literary texts in general or literary learner texts in particular. However, as illustrated in the previous section, the impact of digitality on literary texts and their production processes is immense, and this, in turn, has consequences on notions of (digital) literary competences (see, e.g., Becker & Matz 2020; Lütge et al. 2019) in the educational context. In spite of this, German EFL classrooms currently appear to pay little attention to literary learner texts (see, e.g., Gerlach & Götz 2021) and thus are ill-equipped to prepare learners for the contemporary literary world they encounter in their everyday lives. This might be explained by the predominant and traditional framing of literary learning as a response, which, on its own, is not able to grasp new developments in the literary world. Even though it might not always be stated explicitly, present conceptualisations of learning with literature are largely based on Reader Response Criticism (RRC), because “it places at its centre the dialogue between the text and the reader” (Delanoy 2018: 142). As RRC “is a broad church with varied and conflicting positions” (ibid., Delanoy 2015: 22), it is important to clarify that within the context of this contribution, we base our understanding on Delanoy’s dialogical 3 , hermeneutical and humanistic approach, which - in turn - “is rooted in the concepts of literature teaching and learning as suggested by Michael Benton (1992), Lothar Bredella (2002), and Louise Rosenblatt (1994)” (Delanoy 2018: 142): For this ‘interactive paradigm’ (Bredella 2002: 43), reading is a process of textguided meaning creation with literary texts challenging their readers’ cognitive and affective faculties. At the heart of the interactive paradigm lies a certain understanding of aesthetic experience. Such experience presupposes challenging literary texts that offer a critical perspective on sociocultural issues. Moreover, the reader adopts an aesthetically motivated stance. In this context, it is important to note that RRC “is a continuously developing approach” (ibid.: 143) that is both constructive and fruitful, as it also allows for the learning with multimodal texts and thus enables learners to engage in both deep and wide reading. However, at the heart of RRC is the notion that the “teaching of literature has to highlight the readers’ personal and emotional involvement with the [existing] text and how they relate the world of literary texts to their own” (Bredella 2008: 14). In other 3 He stresses that “this understanding of dialogue rests on the assumption that viewpoints are always limited, but can be questioned, widened and transformed through ongoing, open-ended and (self-)critical engagement with other positions. Such a concept aims for respectful encounters between equal partners” (ibid.). Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 106 words, RRC promotes the notion of learners as mere recipients reacting to and negotiating with a given text, while the relevance of literary text production by learners is hardly considered. This strict focus on text reception becomes most noticeable in EFL classrooms on three distinct levels, which will be considered more closely in the following paragraphs: the curricular guidelines, in which literature (even in the broader sense) only plays a marginal role; current methodological approaches which are mostly embedded in concepts that focus on the reception of literary texts and the literary canon that most focuses on professional literature to be received by learners in EFL classrooms. Curricular constraints: Responding to literary texts According to the federal educational standards in Germany (KMK 2003; 2012), learners are required to read literary texts to ensure their comprehension, analyse their stylistic dimensions and evaluate them in their contexts. Thus, although not stated explicitly, the focus is directed exclusively at reader reception and (a rather functional understanding of) response. Literary text production, which is not part of a prior reception process, is hardly taken into account. Learning with literature is subsumed as a means-to-an-end under different descriptors for individual communicative competences as well as text and media competences. As such, there is also no notion of a progression when comparing, for example, the educational standards for lower and middle secondary school (years 5-10; Sekundarstufe I) to the higher secondary level (years 11-13; Sekundarstufe II). The former mention literary texts in the sense that students should “experience the literary or aesthetic/ creative quality of topics and fields of activity with explicit reference to active participation in social and cultural life” (KMK 2003: 7; trans. D.B. & F.M.) to become competent learners of English, but only explicitly refer to their use in terms of being able to “grasp the essential statements in shorter literary texts (e.g., short stories) and compile them to solve a specific task” and to “understand the statements of simple literary texts” (ibid.: 12, trans. D.B. & F.M.). The latter recognises that “[w]orks of literature, films, thematically relevant works of the performing arts open up specific approaches to different individual, universal and culturally specific perspectives”, but do not expand on which works of literature are meant (KMK 2012: 12; trans. D.B. & F.M.). Instead, literary texts are from thereon referred to in connection with non-literary texts and at no point discussed separately. 4 Hence, teaching literature solely focusses on the learners’ response and is subsumed under competence descriptors for reading, writing 4 Furthermore, there is no definition or explanation in either of the educational standards of what is meant by ‘literary’ texts, nor do the documents refer to any form of digital (literary) texts. Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 107 (i.e., analytical essays, respectively transforming existing texts), and dialogical speaking about their content (see KMK 2012: 17-20). In the context of textand media competence(s), students are thus expected to understand, summarise, analyse and interpret literary (and, again, non-literary) texts (KMK 2012: 20), but not to engage in literary text-production in a creative way, particularly when it comes to literary learner texts. Furthermore, at the time of writing, all current German national educational standards for EFL make no explicit mention of literary learning or literary competences, nor do they suggest theoretical foundations and methodological approaches of learning with literature (KMK 2003; 2012). 5 In the field of literature didactics, though, conceptualising frameworks for literary learning (see. e.g., Bredella 2008; Delanoy 2002; Hallet 2002), literary literacy (see. e.g., Lütge 2012; Volkmann 2015) and literature-related competences (see. e.g., Diehr & Surkamp 2015) are manifold. These current frameworks, however, which will be considered in more detail below, also envisage learners as recipients of the literary texts they engage with and respond to in critically-reflected ways. This raises the question if such concepts of literary learning, literary literacy or literature-related competences were to find their way into curricular guidelines, they would be helpful in supporting learners in creating their own texts beyond post-reading activities. After all, they too centre around RRC informed approaches. It becomes evident that the educational standards follow (if at all) a rather limited understanding of reader response, as learners are not enabled to adopt either “an aesthetically motivated stance” (Delanoy 2018: 142) or production-oriented perspectives which go beyond the transformation of existing texts. Thus, young adults in EFL classrooms are neither envisaged as authors of their everyday lives, nor do the educational standards anticipate a need learners might have to constructively engage in meaning-making processes. Methodological constraints: Text production as part of the reception process This predominant focus on text reception is also noticeable in current methodological approaches. While it is true that RRC has incorporated the dimension of creative writing in ELE (see, ibid.), the focus largely remains on learners as readers of (predominantly analogue and professional) literary texts, who are then invited to respond either creatively or as part of a critical evaluation to these texts. Thus, although current conceptualisations 5 The same also goes for the work with any form of digital texts. On a more general level, the notion of digitality has only been recognised very recently by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Culture (KMK 2021). The publication for the educational standards for lower and middle secondary school are expected to be released in the summer of 2024 (see https: / / www.iqb.hu-berlin.de/ bista/ teach/ ). Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 108 of RRC pay “equal attention to texts and their respective readers, that is to say to the communicative acts performed by both” (Delanoy et al. 2015: 8), learners’ communicative acts appear to be mostly envisaged in response to a literary text written by professional authors. Thus, especially in the German context of EFL literature didactics text production is often envisaged as being embedded in the process model of pre-, whileand post-reading activities and viewed as a means for deepening the reception process (see, e.g., Nünning & Surkamp 2010: 71ff.). This, in turn, means that learner texts are largely conceptualised as part of a post-reading communication and response (“Anschlusskommunikation”, Diehr & Surkamp 2015: 25) about literary texts by professional authors. Implicit approaches of text production entail aspects such as the enjoyment of aesthetic features (ibid.), the performative dimensions of reading (see, e.g., Bredella 2008) as well as the productive dimension of students’ narrative competence (see, e.g., Nünning & Nünning 2007). In spite of this, they are also envisaged mostly as part of post-reading phases or as part of creative writing activities. Although methodological conceptualisations which distinguish between analytical and creative approaches to working with literary texts (see Nünning & Surkamp 2010: 62 ff.) might at first glance support the production of literary learner texts, they too relate back to source texts which are distinctively not learner texts. Moreover, student text production runs the risk of “losing sight of the texts themselves and their particular form” and that active engagement with literature and the creation of texts about texts become an end in themselves when literary texts serve only as triggers for subjective reading experiences or as springboards for creative-productive work. (ibid.: 65, trans. D.B. & F.M.) Considering the fact that, particularly in the German educational context, both the discourses about and the educational practice of teaching and learning with literary texts in EFL classrooms have a comparatively long and rich tradition (see, e.g., Bredella 1979; 1980; Delanoy 2002; Hallet 2002), it is striking that both digital literary texts and the conceptualisation of learners as wreaders in literary production have only been considered on a small scale (see, e.g., Lütge et al. 2019). 6 In the context of this contribution, “literature is seen as a potentially empowering discourse which can help learners develop creative abilities, critical thinking and empathy for 6 In the German educational context, one of the first large-scale research projects appears to be DigitaLiterature (see Lütge et. al 2019). Drawing on a larger international and interdisciplinary context, one of the most prominent approaches to learning with multimodal and digital texts with a special focus on students’ text production is the Multiliteracies Pedagogy, as first conceptualised by the New London Group (1996) and continued by Kalantzis and Cope (see, e.g., 2012). Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 109 other people” (Delanoy et. al 2015: 8), but as in the case of concepts of literature, concepts of literature didactics might need to also undergo significant revision. For literary texts to remain ‘pleasurable and educationally significant’ (Bredella 2008), the learner’s role “as a co-creator” might have to be reframed as a creator “of meanings” (Delanoy et. al 2015: 7). The (hidden) canon: Responding to professional authors Finally, the influence of RRC and its reception-oriented perspective on learners become visible in the choice of literary texts that are selected for teaching literature in the EFL classroom. In other words, RRC impacts the literary canon of language education. In general terms, the canon describes a collection of literary works that are conventionally considered to be particularly valuable in a given social context (see, e.g., Kolbas 2018: 38). As such, the canon is a dynamic construct since the canonical inclusion and exclusion of literary texts depend on a continuous and context-sensitive negotiation of value and non-value that changes over time. This dynamicity can also be observed in the context of ELE: Here, the canon refers to all literary texts that are deemed valuable and appropriate for the development of communicative, cultural, and literary competences. Yet, which texts are considered valuable for language education is an on-going debate. Thus, Meyer (2005) claims that “the canon discussion is as old as foreign language teaching itself. In this context, phases of contentment and consistency seem to alternate with phases of distress and calls for change” (17; translation D.B. & F.M.). The EFL canon regularly shifts between embracing the classics of literature and “the very summit of cultural achievement” on the one hand (Kolbas 2018: 38), and the inclusion of young adult and popular literature on the other. As a result, the EFL canon also continuously adapts its shape, since its attributions of literary value change alongside changing curricular expectations, new learning theories, or emerging cultural discourses (Surkamp 2017: 257). It is in this attribution of value that the influence of reader response theory becomes most apparent. Since the question of which texts are included and excluded is strictly a matter of negotiation and evaluation, the canon always reflects a specific image of what is (and what is not) considered ‘literature’ at a given point in time. With this in mind, the current EFL canon, as discussed in research or proposed by textbook publishers, reveals a rather traditional image of literature: Despite recent developments in the literary field, the discussions of which texts are to be selected for the EFL classroom so far exclusively centre around popular, young adult, and classic works by professional authors publishing via professional publishers; by contrast, new text types by everyday individuals who, for example, selfpublish their work on social media, are hardly considered and therefore excluded from the canon. Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 110 It can be argued that, at its core, this canonical imbalance between texts by professional and everyday authors is fuelled by RRC. More precisely, the current canon merely reflects the reception-oriented perspective of contemporary literature teaching which perceives learners as mere recipients of literature who aim at developing reception-oriented literary competences. Therefore, learners become readers, not wreaders. Thus, the selection and evaluation of texts mirror a traditional sender-receiver-structure that casts learners into the role of those reading but not writing literature. As such, it reinforces the traditional hierarchy between author and reader since, by only considering texts by professional authors as ‘valuable’, the current canon debate highlights the notion of the single author with the sole means of literary expression. In this setting, RRC also influences discourses of power in the EFL classroom. Since learners only make sense in interaction with the text, they are supposed to engage with texts containing valuable perspectives and voices that help them to shape their identities in the reception process. While this engagement with other voices is undoubtedly important, their own voices are often missing, leading to a rather onesided perspective on identity formation through literature. Their contribution to the literary text is merely a relational one, namely in the form of relating their everyday experiences to the text, yet they do not necessarily express these experiences themselves in form of a literary text. Therefore, influences and models for learners’ identities are merely found in the reception of existing literary texts, but not through the production of literary learner texts. As an interim conclusion, this section raises the question whether the current predominant reception-oriented perspectives can prepare and enable learners for literary communication and expressing themselves through literature in participatory digital cultures. With its focus on reception, as the three levels above show, RRC displays some limitations in dealing with more recent (and more production-oriented) developments in the literary field. More precisely, by mostly conceptualising learners as recipients of professional literary texts, contemporary literature teaching practices can hardly grasp the importance of self-written literary texts in digital identity formation, which necessitates a reconsideration of the current theoretical basis described above. But how can learners be supported in developing a literature-related ability to express oneself? 4. Literary learner texts in English language education: Literary learning as participation The culture of digitality is a participatory culture, meaning a cultural realm “with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing creations, and some form of infor- Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 111 mal mentorship” (Jenkins et al. 2006: 52). Their literary forms of expression include aspects of multimodal sense-making processes (see Lütge et al. 2018), practices of remixing (see Beavis 2013) and multiple authorship (see Nantke 2018: 3), as pointed out in section 2. In the educational context, this means that learners’ roles also need to change from being “recipients of literature” (Delanoy 2015: 30) to “experienced participants” (Jenkins et al. 2006: 52). Thus, approaches to literature didactics might need to reframe and rethink learners’ roles from readers as recipients to viewing learners as wreaders, actively participating as authors of their everyday lives who constitute an inherent part of the “endless web of meaning” (Zimmermann 2015: 15; trans. D.B. & F. M.). Ultimately, this means that the current understanding of literary learning based on RRC needs to be complemented and enhanced by a more production-oriented approach that allows the more prominent integration of literary learner texts. In the following section, a brief suggestion is made as to which dimensions and learning objectives such an approach might include. In order to adapt literature teaching to the changing literary field of the 21 st century, five different dimensions need to be considered. These five dimensions are mutually dependent and form the foundation and prerequisite upon which any practice of focusing on literary learner texts in the EFL classroom rests. Based on disciplines such as literary studies, teaching writing, and current concepts of teaching literature in the EFL context, the dimensions can be described as follows: Illustration 1: Dimensions and objectives of learning with literary learner texts. Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 112 Curricular Dimension First, if literary learner texts are to find a prominent and long-term place in the EFL literature classroom, they need to be embedded more visibly in the curricular guidelines. More precisely, this act of curricular integration encompasses three components: First, literary learner texts need to be mentioned as a text type of their own in the context of text and media competence; this might be a rather easy task to accomplish, since the educational standards use a broad understanding of text and regional guidelines such as the core curriculum in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) already include “the production of one’s own texts” as one of the objectives (MSB 2021: 16). This, however, does not specifically refer to literary texts, and thus a production-oriented literary type of text has to be added to the current list of reception-oriented examples. Second, the importance of literary text production also needs to be reflected in the area of communicative competences, especially in the realm of writing. When describing writing competences, the NRW curricular guidelines, for instance, mention the production of short everyday texts (Alltagstexte) as a goal for lower secondary education (Realschule, see MSB 2021: 16). This provides a potential gateway into production-oriented literary learning scenarios, starting in grade 5, in which easy to access literary short formats such as flashfiction or elements of BookTok can be implemented and learners can already start perceiving themselves as producers and authors of their own thoughts and ideas. Communicative competences, therefore, also need to be enhanced by a literary dimension so that literary practices are recognized as acts of communication in children’s and teenagers’ lives. Third, literary learner texts need to become a topic in their own right in the context of cultural learning. Again, this addition seems most feasible since the current curricular guidelines in NRW already refer to everyday topics such as hobbies, music, or teenage culture (MSB 2021: 19). In this context, producing one’s own literary texts and creative writing can be added as a prominent example of contemporary identity formation and teenage pastime activities. By analysing the topic from a cultural learning perspective, learners can thus be supported in becoming aware of the manifold literary formats that surround them every day and the extent to which these texts become meaningful points of departure for their own identity formation. While these changes in the national educational standards and, consequently, in the regional curricular guidelines have yet to be realised, there is reason to hope for their implementation in the near future. For example, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Culture (KMK 2021: 6) has recently published a recommendation in the context of digitality, explicitly stating that in the “culture of digitality, educational processes must also Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 113 take into account the challenges that arise from this culture itself, as well as from the media environments of the learners”, thereby furthering the competences needed to “enable active participation in the digitalised everyday life world” (ibid.; trans. D.B. & F.M.). This might lead curriculum designers to consider integrating long overdue perspectives on digital literary learning also in the context of ELE and, more specifically, in the three competence areas mentioned above. This could also even be envisaged to extend to more future-oriented perspectives on forms of assessment, as the KMK deems it necessary to also “establish examination formats that adequately test competences in the digital world, make use of the expanded digital possibilities, require more metacognitive skills in the examinations and include reflection” (ibid.: 14; trans. D.B. & F.M.). In this context, literary learner texts could serve as source texts, inviting learners to reflect on their design, aesthetic features as well as their contribution in the context of their respective web of significance. Genre Dimension Secondly, and closely related to the curricular dimension, teaching with literary learner texts requires an understanding of the types of literary products by learners that can be used in the classroom. This is because the notion of literary learner texts merely represents an umbrella term for many different genres of self-written literature, with each showcasing its own features and learning potentials. These different genres can best be classified and categorised alongside a horizontal and vertical scale: Illustration 2: Literary learner texts. Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 114 On the horizontal level, literary learner texts are situated on a continuum between being mere adaptions and/ or reactions to already existing texts (e.g., by professional authors) and being genuinely free productions and creations of learners’ own ideas in literary form. Thus, on the one hand, literary learner texts might enter the EFL classroom as a short text in which learners, for example, write an alternative ending to an already existing story that they read before or that they react to characters of a story by writing an interior monologue. These types of learner texts are already used in the classroom and can often be found in a creative post-reading phase of literature teaching (see Nünning & Surkamp 2010, also see section 3). On the other hand, learners might write something which is not directly influenced by an existing literary design source text such as their own poetry, (short) fiction, or drama. On the vertical scale, literary learner texts can be categorised according to their means of production. Thus, they can appear in an analogue form (e.g., a handwritten poem learners created during a lesson) or they represent digital forms of literature (e.g., flashfiction) which are often characterised by multimodal designs and meaningmaking. As pointed out above, each of these forms that can be located somewhere along the two scales, thereby illustrating their own potentials and features. Thus, the selection of genre and learners’ genre knowledge is an essential prerequisite for teaching and learning in a participation-oriented classroom. Pedagogical Dimension In this context of selecting suitable genres of literary learner texts, one furthermore needs to negotiate how these texts can be practically implemented in lesson activities. In other words teaching literary learner texts also needs to be based on pedagogical and methodological decisions about their concrete use in the classroom. A highly suitable approach in this regard is the Multiliteracies pedagogy. This approach “has long been concerned with the changes brought about by multimodal, -medial and digital forms of communication and the necessary consequences for school teaching” (Becker & Matz forthcoming: n.p.) and thus provides an ideal foundation for guiding learners through their own literature production in class. More precisely, working with literary learner texts in the EFL context becomes a sequence of four interrelated knowledge processes, which can be labeled as follows:  experiencing already existing literary learner texts such as literary texts that learners have shared via social media, or texts other learners have created before,  conceptualising literary learner texts, that is, gaining a first understanding of their designs and genre features,  analysing these designs critically so that learners understand how meaning is made in different genres of learner texts, and finally, Learning with literary learner texts in English language education 115  applying the knowledge they have gained by creating their own literary learner texts, which in turn can be re-used as part of the experiencing process. Hence, methodologically speaking, working with literary learner texts in the EFL classroom becomes a cyclical motion in which processes of receiving existing texts and producing new texts are in constant interaction so that the notion of the wreader is ultimately put to practice. Discursive Dimension In addition, and to prepare learners for their wreader participation, working with literary learner texts needs to also include an analysis of the discourses surrounding and informing these texts on a social and cultural level. Therefore, construing a participation-oriented literature classroom is both a textual and contextual task in which not only the production of learners’ own text but also a text’s embeddedness in other text and media formats as well as in larger discursive frameworks is examined. As such, working with literary learner texts is inevitably linked to the development of (digital) discourse competence (see Hallet 2020): Learners need to become aware of the negotiation processes between text and context and the ways in which their own production always shapes and is shaped by the discursive network in which their writing takes place. In doing so, learners can comprehend existing discourses and become authors and participants of discourses at the same time. Personal Dimension The different dimensions discussed so far converge in empowering the individual learner on a personal level, which is at the heart of working with literary learner texts. Supporting learners in the process of text production and in gaining an understanding of its surrounding discourses leads to constructive, creative, and critical engagement in meaning-making processes so that learners are enabled to become active wreader participants in digital (literary) culture. Literary learner texts thus need to become an invitation to participate, which, in turn, facilitates and even promotes the occurrence of shared literary practices. In the sense of Hallet (2002), EFL classrooms thus transform into spaces which allow for learners to experiment with and engage in the interplay of texts. This can best be illustrated in the context of storytelling: The ways in which stories are told and are shaped in the digital age can be defined as a truly intertextual way; whereas analogue texts rely on the integrity of the individual story as an individual text, digital storytelling often occurs in the transgression of boundaries between different stories. Learners play an active role in converging stories in the digital sphere and, as such, teaching with learner Daniel Becker and Frauke Matz 116 texts ultimately aims at empowering learners to productively fill this role in their personal, everyday lives. Both educators and curriculum designers need to consider this personal dimension in the sense that learners can use these digital literary practices to negotiate their identities and their place within the social environments and networks around them. 5. Conclusion In his seminal essay “Die welterzeugende und die welterschließende Kraft literarischer Texte: Gegen einen verengten Begriff von literarischer Kompetenz und Bildung”, 7 Bredella (2007) reminds us that “according to the insights of hermeneutics, RRC and cognitive approaches to reading theory, understanding without preconception is not possible. To understand anything at all, one needs concepts, schemata and certain expectations” (ibid.: 73). Since the publication of this essay, forms of literary expressions have continued to evolve and new digital, participatory genres have emerged, which can be viewed as “part of fundamental shifts in the perception and the presentation of literary production processes [...], which require an expansion of literary studies perspectives on author and work in the field of tension between analogue and digital paradigms” (Nantke 2018: 22). Thus, these forms of literary expression require a shift in literature didactics too, one moving from literary reception processes to literary production processes and from asking learners to write texts as a response to using literary learner texts as a source, thereby illustrating their ‘worldcreating and world-opening power’. 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