Reading Heart of Darkness in the ESL/EFL Classroom : A Case Study in Student Response to Literary Didactic Methodologies Designed to Enhance Aesthetic and Efferent Reading of a Literary Text in Language Instruction

Abstract: The purpose of this degree project has been to examine the implications of the provision of certain methodological support mechanisms, what has often been referred to as "instructional scaffolding" in literary didactics, to assist students in the ESL/EFL classroom in their interaction with the various literary texts into which they come into contact during their English language education at the upper secondary level in Sweden. My primary interest has been to gauge the response of the students involved in this study to the particular types of literary didactic methods utilized, for example, regarding their effectiveness in aiding the learning process as well as their impact on the literary, or aesthetic, experience itself. An analysis of student responses to a literature instruction module based on a reading of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness will demonstrate that certain forms of literary didactic methods in general, and significantly, particular forms of what can be conceptualized as instructional scaffolding, play a crucial role for both the learning process and the student's aesthetic experience of literature.