FICTION “Great stories are not only measured by how compelling the characters or dilemmas are; the true test is how they help us understand our deepest selves and our relationship to the world and others around us.” —Farin Houk, founder and head of Seattle Amistad School
KEY FINDINGS
> > Stories help [students] make connections to both unique and shared experiences and to other points of view (Gallagher, 2014). > > Fiction makes us more empathic human beings (Djikic, Oatley, and Modovenanu, 2013; Oatley, 2014). > > Reading Harry Potter reduces prejudice. “Results from one experimental intervention and two cross-sectional studies show that reading the Harry Potter novels improves attitudes toward stigmatized groups among those more identified with the main positive character and those less identified with the main negative character. We also found evidence for the role of perspective taking as the process allowing the improvement of out-group attitudes” (Vezzali, et al., 2014). > > “In 2013, an influential study published in Science found that reading literary fiction improved participants’ results on tests that measured social perception and empathy, which are crucial to ‘theory of mind’—the ability to guess with accuracy what another human being might be thinking or feeling, a skill humans only start to develop around the age of four” (Dovey, 2015). > > “Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines,” the author Jeanette Winterson has written. “What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination” (Dovey, 2015). > > “Fiction opens our minds to the creative process, enhances our vocabulary, influences our emotions, and strengthens our cognitive functions” (Oatley, 2014). > > For many, fiction is the gateway to proficient reading because it’s fiction, so often, that encourages avid, voluminous reading (Gaiman, 2013).
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CHAPTER 4: TEXT
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