Oeds van Middelkoop MA

PhD candidate

Area(s) of interest: Dutch History, Educational Studies & Public History, Languages & Literature

Cohort/Start PhD: 2019-2020

Op zoek naar een didactiek voor dieper begrip van literair-historische teksten in de vwo-bovenbouw

University of Amsterdam
Promotor(es): Prof. dr. Lia van Gemert, dr. E.M. Mantingh
Aanstelling: vanaf augustus 2019

In this study a new teaching method will be developed and tested. It will enhance pre-academic research skills of 10th- and 11th-grade high school students exploring literary historical texts. Students are unfamiliar with themes, context and language represented in historical texts, and they lack the skills to read and study them effectively. This method aims to facilitate a research-orientated approach for historical texts, which allows students considerable autonomy in exploring texts within their historical context and in today’s context. It will foster the development of deeper textual understanding and of an active working attitude towards unfamiliar cultural issues.
The corpus of this study consists of four historical texts, each representing a major period in history before 1900: medieval Floris and Blanceflor, renaissance’s Geeraerdt van Velsen (P.C.Hooft), Enlightenment’s History of Miss Sara Burgerhart (Wolff and Deken) and Romanticism’s Max Havelaar (Multatuli). The textual excerpts of these primary sources all highlight aspects of Citizenship and allow students to reflect upon the relation between the Self and the Other(s) and/or to consider familiar and unfamiliar norms and values, concerning multicultural relations, gender-related issues and representations of power and suppression.