Reading strategies and literature instruction: Teaching learners to generate questions to foster literary reading in the second language

Reading and discussing literary texts in a second language (L2) is a significant component of intermediate and advanced level collegiate language education. However, in spite of more attention to the role of literary texts in L2 instruction, the function of reading strategy instruction to teaching literary reading in the L2 has remained unaddressed. This article investigates the impact of the reading comprehension strategy of generating questions on literary reading development in the L2. The results suggest that teaching language learners how to generate questions vis-à-vis texts improves their ability to critically read literary texts in the second language.