Bridging Storytelling and Learning
An Interdisciplinary Study of Narrative-Based Instruction for Elementary Students’ Language Development and Moral Reasoning
And Select Appendices
Abstract
This interdisciplinary study examines how narrative-based instruction uses emotional engagement to enhance language development and moral reasoning in elementary students. Despite increasing interest in utilizing storytelling as a teaching tool, many educators lack the understanding of how it functions in regular classroom practice. This research overview considers perspectives from the disciplines of education and writing to provide a comprehensive understanding of how stories enhance student development. Drawing from recent, relevant research, seven key insights are identified: storytelling improves language proficiency; emotional engagement serves as a primary mechanism for moral development; literary technique and structure enhance student engagement; storytelling produces measurable physiological and cognitive effects; narrative fosters relational unity; and storytelling supports holistic development. While tensions exist between sources regarding measurability, contextual variability, and moral ambiguity, by creating common ground, it is revealed that narrative-based instruction is most effective when it is contextually responsive, purposely structured, and supported through collaborative reflection. This study reveals that storytelling can serve as a potent pedagogical tool to foster cognitive, moral, and linguistic development in elementary students.
Keywords: Narrative-based instruction, emotional engagement, elementary education, language development, moral reasoning, storytelling, interdisciplinary approach, literacy development, holistic education
Introduction and Research Question
As disengagement and literacy development challenges persist in elementary classrooms, educators seek methods that promote deeper learning. One resource often considered by educators is the use of narrative-based instruction to promote deeper learning through emotional engagement. By rooting classroom instruction in stories, students receive opportunities to engage with content that supports them social-emotionally and cognitively. Recent research suggests that narrative-based instruction supports students’ holistic development by fostering moral reasoning and language skills, while strengthening their relationship with the taught concepts (Sulastri et al., 2024; Zugai et al., 2025). Nevertheless, many are left without the proper resources to understand how to effectively utilize narrative-based instruction in the classroom setting.
The purpose of this paper is to identify how narrative-based instruction uses emotional engagement in elementary classrooms to enhance students’ language development and moral reasoning. This purpose will serve as a heuristic, guiding research beyond merely answering whether narrative-based instruction is effective, but also identifying how it specifically functions as a method for teaching (Repko & Szostak, 2025). Considering the breadth of this study, it becomes necessary to refine this focus away from the whole student population, risking the ambiguity of varying developmental contexts, and focus specifically on elementary students. This narrowing will allow for more precision and clarity in the examination. Furthermore, focusing on engagement as the underlying mechanism by which language and moral reasoning can develop within students allows for a bridge to connect insights from the distinct disciplines of education and writing.
Justification for an Interdisciplinary Approach
The nature of the problem is complex. Teachers feel ill-equipped by the education discipline’s knowledge base, insights, theories, and assumptions to adequately incorporate narrative-based instruction into their everyday classroom practice. In order to solve this problem, insights, research, methods, and theories from the discipline of writing must be drawn upon to identify why and how storytelling engages people. This issue represents disciplinary inadequacy, where each of the disciplines, bearing their unique perspectives, is insufficient on its own to address complex problems (Repko & Szostak, 2025). Inadequacy, in this case, stems from the following factors: the unique disciplines lack a breadth of perspective, the disciplines alone do not possess the methodology or knowledge base to provide a comprehensive understanding, and integrative strategies will be needed to combine disciplinary insights into a more complete picture (Repko & Szostak, 2025).
The interdisciplinary question at hand seeks the integration of the two disciplines toward an end that must be attainable (e.g., understanding how narrative-based instruction effects student cognitive and moral development) (Repko & Szostak, 2025). The complexity can be further realized when attempting to answer the question, “how does narrative-based instruction use emotional engagement in elementary classrooms to enhance students’ language development and moral reasoning?” with only a single discipline. Without input from the education discipline, the discipline of writing would fall short of articulating how elementary students develop. Similarly, without the writing discipline, the discipline of education would be unable to identify the parts and aspects of a story that facilitate the emotional engagement necessary to enhance student development. By integrating epistemologies, concepts, and assumptions from both disciplines, this complex question will illustrate how teachers can leverage storytelling’s facilitation of emotional engagement to impact student moral and cognitive development.
Relevant Disciplines
The disciplines relevant to this interdisciplinary study are education and writing. The discipline of education considers theories of pedagogy, learning, and child development, specifically within the context of a classroom. The secondary discipline relevant to this study is the discipline of writing, which contributes an understanding of narrative structure, methodology for literary techniques, and relevant theoretical concepts such as reader-response theory. By integrating the insights of student development from the education discipline with the structural and interpretative insights from the writing discipline, this study becomes equipped to examine how narrative-based instruction affects learners while also shedding light on how these tools may be used to foster student growth.
Adequacy for the Relevant Disciplines
Both the disciplines of writing and education require the development of disciplinary adequacy to achieve a comprehensive understanding of how their epistemologies, assumptions, theories, and methods, among other insights, relate to the specific problem being addressed (Repko & Szostak, 2025). Achieving adequacy for each relevant discipline ensures that each disciplinary perspective is appropriately applied to the problem (Repko & Szostak, 2025). This will allow for a deeper understanding of how narrative-based instruction functions as a tool to enhance literacy development and moral reasoning.
Adequacy from the Discipline of Education
Adequacy for the discipline of education can be realized through its contribution of learning theory, appropriate pedagogy, and understanding of child development. Foundational contemporary theories like constructivism, which emphasize social-emotional learning, can assist in explaining how students develop cognitively and morally through experience, interaction, and reflection. For example, Park et al. (2025) and Israelsen-Augenstein et al. (2022) demonstrate together how narrative-based instruction can support students from diverse social-ecological contexts by highlighting the contribution of neurological and environmental factors that shape cognition. This demonstrates that storytelling can engage learners from unique contexts to foster deeper understanding.
Abdelwahab (2026) and Matsuoka et al. (2026) both contribute evidence that integrating storytelling and narrative-based instruction into the classroom context promotes language development, fluency, and self-regulated learning, demonstrating the pedagogical value of narrative. Likewise, Liang et al. (2025) and Adnyani and Landrawan (2022) demonstrate the pedagogical value of narrative in moral development by pointing out how it can assist students’ internalization of ethical values such as honesty. Lastly, Aslantürk Altıntuğ and Güneyli (2025), along with Baker et al. (2023), show how collaboration and interpersonal dialogue develop empathy and moral reasoning through their interpretation of the narrative.
Brockington et al. (2021) extend adequacy from the education discipline into the physiological realm, highlighting neuroscience, which shows that stories produce measurable cognitive and emotional effects in children. Together, this research demonstrates that education is more than adequate to contribute insights into the presented problem, providing a robust scaffold for understanding how narrative-based instruction influences cognition and moral reasoning in elementary students.
Adequacy from the Discipline of Writing
Adequacy for the discipline of writing highlights understanding of how literary techniques and narrative structures form emotional engagement and meaning-making in the reader. Not only can this discipline explain why storytelling is effective, it also offers insights into how stories can be constructed to influence audience response. For example, Bonasera (2025) points out that specific literary techniques significantly affect how readers interact with a text, even producing complex reader-responses, such as empathy toward morally ambiguous figures. This shows that engagement is not inherent to the content of a story alone but is dependent upon aesthetic and stylistic execution. Gradey et al. (2022) expand upon this, pointing out how well-structured narratives can synchronize emotional and cognitive reader-responses across diverse audiences, implying the role of narrative form in shaping both comprehension and empathy.
Berger et al. (2021) also contribute to the writing discipline’s adequacy by introducing the concept of emotional dynamics, showing that fluctuating emotional intensity results in sustained attention and reader engagement. This insight is particularly valuable in the consideration of narrative-based instructional design, as emotional variation is suggested to increase reader-investment and cognitive stimulation. Lastly, Matsuoka et al. (2026) bridge the disciplines of writing and education by showing that narrative reading and writing improve students’ language development and reflective learning habits, reinforcing the connection between emotional engagement and cognitive effects. These sources all come together to establish the writing discipline’s adequacy, as it provides insights necessary to understand how storytelling can be used to foster emotional engagement and support students’ language development and moral reasoning.
Research Insights
Upon researching how narrative-based instruction uses emotional engagement in elementary classrooms to enhance students’ language development and moral reasoning, seven key insights stood out, underscoring the practical effectiveness of using storytelling as a pedagogical tool.
I. Narrative-based instruction enhances language development.
The first of these seven insights centers on the effectiveness of narrative-based instruction on students’ language development. Abdelwahab (2026), Matsuoka et al. (2026), and Israelsen-Augenstein et al. (2022) each demonstrate that story-based instruction improves fluency, comprehension, and language proficiency. Abdelwahab (2026) specifically notes that students who engaged in discursive narrative construction (an approach to linguistic education that integrates social analysis with storytelling) vastly outperformed a control group of students who did not in the areas of fluency, accuracy, and communicative appropriateness, with the greatest gains occurring in fluency. In this case, students who participated in the experimental group attributed their improvement to the way stories internalize linguistic patterns more naturally, embedding language into coherent and socially meaningful contexts (Abdelwahab, 2026). Likewise, Israelsen-Augenstein et al. (2022) found that students who engage with narrative-based instruction develop language acquisition skills through experiential learning. These findings align with contemporary learning theory, which suggests that language is primarily developed when learners practice constructing meaning through interaction and experience.
Narrative-based instruction goes deeper than merely improving language acquisition skills in students. It also promotes the higher-order cognitive processes that undergird literacy development. Matsuoka et al. (2026) point this out, finding that students who are exposed to narrative-based reading and writing tasks showed a stronger reading comprehension, improved self-regulated learning behaviors, and increased higher-order vocabulary usage. These outcomes show that storytelling not only enhances immediate language performance but also promotes metacognitive awareness and reflective practice, empowering future learning. Altogether, these findings show that narrative-based instruction functions effectively as a comprehensive pedagogical tool, especially as it supports language development by facilitating students’ interaction with emotional and social narrative contexts.
II. Emotional engagement cultivates moral reasoning.
The second insight is that emotional engagement serves as the primary mechanism by which narrative-based instruction fosters moral reasoning in elementary-aged students. Adnyani and Landrawan (2022) show how storytelling enables students to internalize moral ethics by engaging with emotionally charged characters and circumstances. Through stories, otherwise abstract moral concepts like empathy and responsibility are provided context, making them understandable and concrete to elementary students (Adnyani & Landrawan, 2022). Similarly, Liang et al. (2025) found that emotionally framed stories, especially those involving a guilty protagonist, significantly increased honest behavior in early elementary students. It becomes clear then that emotional resonance within narrative-based instruction is not subsidiary to students’ moral development; rather, it is an essential mechanism by which students may develop moral reasoning. Aligning with contemporary learning theory, Liang et al. (2025) and Adnyani and Landrawan (2022) both show that when a character or circumstance from a narrative causes an emotion to be experienced within the student, the student will internalize that response to develop moral understanding.
Moreover, Sulastri et al. (2024) demonstrate that the mechanisms and results of narrative-based instruction are not disconnected parts; instead, they are wholly integrated, with the processes of cognitive, emotional, and moral development being inseparably linked. This aligns with Matsuoka et al. (2026), who show that moral reasoning and language development happen simultaneously. Altogether, this research shows that by emotionally engaging with stories, elementary students are not only better able to comprehend complex moral situations and perspectives, but also that storytelling operates as a formative pedagogical tool, through which students develop cognitively and morally. This implies that emotional engagement is the key mechanism through which both moral and language development occur.
III. Narrative structure and literary techniques affect consumer engagement.
Understanding now that narrative-based instruction uses emotional engagement to promote cognitive and moral development, the third insight drawn from this research is that narrative structure and literary techniques play a significant role in how the students will respond. Berger et al. (2021) introduce the concept of sentiment volatility (the extent to which emotional tones may shift within a given narrative) and demonstrate that stories with greater emotional variation were considered by consumers to be more engaging, which encouraged continued consumption because of their effect on psychological stimulation. This has direct implications for education as it points to the importance of story design in narrative-based instruction.
Bonasera (2025) compliments this insight, pointing out that specific literary techniques, such as foregrounding (a technique which makes a sound, word, clause, phrase, etc., stand out from the surrounding linguistic context), influence readers’ emotional responses as well as their ability to empathize. These findings reveal that aesthetic and stylistic elements of writing and storytelling can alter how readers respond to the text and engage emotionally, even resulting in empathy for morally gray characters (Bonasera, 2025). Grady et al. (2022) further support this conclusion by contributing neurocognitive evidence that stories that have been well-structured synchronize audience brain activity, especially during climactic scenes. These well-structured stories activated parts of the brain that are commonly associated with perspective-taking and empathy, suggesting that storytelling effectiveness is dependent upon intentional literary design. With this information, educators can become well-equipped to integrate narrative-based instruction into their teaching practices by leveraging literary design to capture attention, cultivate emotional engagement, and enhance cognitive and moral outcomes.
IV. Collaborative story engagement deepens understanding.
The next insight comes from Aslantürk Altıntuğ and Güneyli (2025) and Baker et al. (2023), whose research revealed that when students collaboratively engage in storytelling demonstrate deeper understanding and comprehension by situating learning within a social, dialogic context. Specifically, Baker et al. (2023) found that students who were provided with opportunities to collectively interpret visual narratives developed more complex and sophisticated moral reasoning than students who engaged with narratives individually. This finding supports the epistemologies of contemporary educational theory, which posit that knowledge is co-constructed through social interaction, and it is through collaboration that learning becomes interactive and reflective. Aslantürk Altıntuğ and Güneyli (2025) further support this claim by demonstrating that students who engage in storytelling also learn to take on new perspectives and develop empathy—a key aspect of moral reasoning. Their research points out that dialogic pedagogy (an educational approach that utilizes dialogue and interaction to facilitate student learning) centered around film narratives notably improved social-emotional development in students (Aslantürk Altıntuğ & Güneyli, 2025). This finding implies that while stories may be effective on their own to foster emotional engagement, facilitating collaboration also serves to enhance moral reasoning and essential interpersonal skills.
V. Storytelling produces measurable cognitive and physiological effects.
The fifth insight drawn from the conducted interdisciplinary research is that the cognitive and physiological effects produced by engaging with stories are measurable, extending data beyond theoretical ambiguity to observable biological responses. Brockington et al. (2021) first point this out, showing that storytelling notably increased levels of oxytocin and decreased cortisol and perceived pain levels in hospitalized children. The presence of these physiological changes indicates that narrative engagement promotes cognitive function by decreasing stress and increasing pleasure. Grady et al. (2022) compliment these physiological findings and provide neurocognitive evidence that storytelling synchronizes brain activity among individuals, particularly during climactic moments. This insight shows that not only do well-structured stories facilitate engagement, as mentioned previously in insight III, but it also produces measurable cognitive activity. It does so by activating specific neural networks associated with empathy, attention, and social cognition, thereby demonstrating that storytelling has tangible effects on the brain and body, reinforcing the value of narrative-based instruction as a pedagogical tool (Grady et al., 2022). By leveraging these physiological effects, educators will not only engage students in learning but will also produce measurable effects that support the base cognition necessary for language development and moral reasoning.
VI. Storytelling fosters relational unity.
Within this same research, our sixth insight is drawn; storytelling fosters relational unity. In their research, Grady et al. (2022) found that well-structured narratives synchronize diverse audiences’ brain activity during climactic moments. This suggests that individuals process and experience narratives in a collectively aligned manner, even when audiences may come from diverse backgrounds or contexts. Brockington et al. (2021) also suggest physiological evidence that stories foster relational unity by producing oxytocin, which is commonly known as the relational or bonding hormone. As stories produce oxytocin and reduce stress, they facilitate the biological conditions that are conducive to emotional connection, trust, and relational openness (Brockington et al., 2021). Moreover, as Aslantürk Altıntuğ and Güneyli (2025) and Bonasera (2025) highlight, because stories encourage students to engage with complex and unfamiliar perspectives, storytelling cultivates empathy, which works to strengthen interpersonal relationships in classroom environments. In this way, storytelling goes beyond being merely an instructional strategy; it becomes a mechanism for relational development, uniting students through shared emotions and experiences.
Park et al. (2025) highlight the impact of this insight as they demonstrate how each child’s cognitive development is shaped largely by external factors such as family background, socioeconomic status, and community environment. With every student in the classroom bringing a unique set of complex and individual experiences, storytelling may thereby bridge across these differences by exposing students to experiences and perspectives that are outside their personal contexts. This shows that narrative-based instruction not only supports moral reasoning by presenting ethical concepts but also by fostering relational unity, awareness, and a shared sense of human experience within the learning environment.
VII. Storytelling supports holistic development.
Finally, within each of the other insights, storytelling has proven to support elementary students’ holistic development. Holistic development in this case refers to students’ physical, cognitive, moral, emotional, social, and spiritual growth. Tinkler (2017) argues that storytelling fosters wellness by promoting empathy, resiliency, and community within the classroom environment. This perspective aligns well with each of the other insights from this research. Holistic education recognizes that all aspects of student development are inseparably linked; therefore, storytelling must play a role in each aspect of student development (Tinkler, 2017). Zugai et al. (2025) support this conclusion by showing that storytelling enhances students’ perception of learning experiences by strengthening engagement and comprehension. This shows how storytelling can serve as a potent pedagogical tool for fostering social (as seen in its ability to unite), emotional, physical (as seen in its physiological effects), moral, spiritual (as will later be discussed in brief), and cognitive growth.
Conflicts Between Insights
In pulling interdisciplinary research together, it is inevitable that, to some extent, disciplinary perspectives or insights will conflict. To preserve the integrity of this interdisciplinary study, it is necessary to address conflicting materials and define common ground. The first major conflict emerges in considering the nature of priorities between sources. For example, Abdelwahab (2026) and Matsuoka et al. (2026) consider the effects of storytelling on cognitive outcomes, whereas Tinckler (2017) and Zugai et al. (2025) highlight storytelling’s social-emotional effects. This disparity in the outcomes researchers prioritize raises questions of whether narrative-based instruction should be measured through observable gains or less quantifiable emotional growth.
A second conflict arises when considering students’ contextual variability. As Park et al. (2025) point out, cognitive development is significantly shaped by students’ environmental contexts. This detail complicates Liang et al.’s (2025) research, which demonstrates that the effectiveness of emotionally framed narratives depends upon the stage of the learner. For this reason, Liang et al. (2025) create tensions between the purpose of this paper and several of the articles used. For example, Abdelwahab’s (2026) research was conducted on college students in Egypt, indicating that the result of those findings might not be applicable to an elementary school context. Liang et al.’s (2025) finding also suggests that pedagogical techniques (like using narrative-based instruction) may not yield the same results for every student.
Lastly, Bonasera (2025) challenges the assumption that emotional engagement always yields positive effects on moral reasoning. By introducing the concept of negative empathy (a phenomenon where individuals empathize with morally reprehensible characters), this article challenges the educational epistemology that all moral development is virtuous. Since constructivist educational theory sees experience as the key to student development and learning, empathy necessarily becomes central to social learning as it consists of experiences, allowing individuals to relate to one another. If empathy is not inherently beneficial, but neutral in student development, then the presence of negative empathy in elementary students challenges the educational assumption that all individuals are morally neutral until interacted with by external forces.
Common Ground Discovered
Considering the presented conflicts, it is necessary to create common ground so that the insights they offer are not myopic or easily undermined. As Repko and Szostak (2025) suggest, common ground is not found by eliminating the fundamental differences between sources, but by identifying shared assumptions and reframing jargon to unveil deeper conceptual meaning.
While Abdelwahab (2026) and Matsuoka et al. (2026) may prioritize measurable gains such as fluency and comprehension, it does not negate the value of Tinckler (2017) and Zugai et al.’s (2025) focus on social-emotional development. Instead of viewing these differing priorities as competing with one another, they can be understood as complimentary elements of holistic development (which includes both cognitive and social-emotional development).
In a comparable manner, the conflict of student achievement being limited by student context can be transformed. As Park et al. (2025) highlight the significant role of environmental factors, and Liang et al. (2025) highlight that the effectiveness of narrative instruction varies by developmental stage, the technique of transformation can flip this conflict on its head, asking a question of cultural responsiveness rather than universal effectiveness. By not asking the question of whether story-based pedagogy is universally effective, it becomes evident that these sources are not in conflict at all; rather, they are both articulating that students’ developmental contexts play key factors in determining the effectiveness of this strategy. Israelsen-Augenstein et al. (2022) and Adnyani and Landrawan (2022) further support this perspective, suggesting that the effectiveness of storytelling depends upon how it is implemented. In this view, narrative-based instruction is no longer understood to be a one-size-fits-all strategy; rather, it is an instructional tool that must be adapted to the specific contexts of the specific classroom environment in which it is used.
Regarding Bonasera’s (2025) challenging concept of negative empathy and its conflict with the educational assumption that emotional engagement inherently produces positive moral upshots, common ground can be established by redefining emotional engagement as a neutral mechanism rather than an inherently beneficial one. By redefining the education discipline’s assumption about emotional engagement, the concept of emotional engagement no longer stagnates; instead, it becomes a tool that can be manipulated to produce positive moral development results. Baker et al. (2023) support this perspective, demonstrating that emotional engagement is most effective when paired with intentionally designed scaffolding and instruction.
Conclusions Drawn
Orchestrating the findings from this study together, narrative-based instruction emerges as a potent pedagogical resource that leverages emotional engagement to enhance language learning and moral development in elementary students. Specifically, storytelling has been shown to improve fluency, comprehension, and higher-order vocabulary usage by positioning language within concrete contexts and experiences (Abdelwahab, 2026; Matsuoka et al., 2026; Israelsen-Augenstein et al., 2022). Simultaneously, storytelling utilizes emotional engagement as a neutral mechanism by which students may develop moral reasoning, empathy, and internalize ethics by means of relating to characters (Adnyani & Landrawan, 2022; Bonasera, 2025; Liang et al., 2025; Sulastri et al., 2024). These effects can be shaped through intentional utilization of narrative structure and teacher scaffolding (Berger et al., 2021; Bonasera, 2025; Grady et al., 2022; Baker et al., 2023), while collaborative interpretation can foster unity and perspective taking (Grady et al., 2022; Park et al., 2025; Brockington et al., 2021; Aslantürk Altıntuğ & Güneyli, 2025).
Integrating education and writing clarifies how to apply narrative-based instruction in classrooms. Altogether, these rich discipline-specific sources demonstrate that narrative-based instruction is most effective when it is intentionally designed, contextually adapted, and guided through reflection-based collaborative interpretation.
Topic-Related Ideas for Future Research
Future research should consider the long-term effects of narrative-based instruction on student development, as well as how cultural contexts shape how students engage with narratives. Moreover, classroom-based instructional experiments could be run to test how specific literary techniques influence students’ outcomes, contributing to findings like that of Berger et al. (2021) and Grady et al. (2022).
Addressing the Topic from a Biblical Perspective
Considering this interdisciplinary problem through a biblical lens, it is clear that narrative is not merely a stylistic choice but a means by which God shapes moral and spiritual understanding in the minds and hearts of believers. Jesus’ use of parables in the Gospels, such as the parable of the Prodigal Son (found in Luke 15:11-32), demonstrates a concrete and comprehensible depiction of the otherwise abstract nature of God’s own heart for his people (English Standard Version). This mirrors the impact of contextually grounding abstract concepts discussed by Adnyani and Landrawan (2022). Similarly, in 2 Samuel 12:1-7, as Nathan the prophet confronts King David about his sin against Uriah, Bathsheba, and ultimately God, he does not approach the king with direct accusation, but instead, he tells a story of a rich man who steals from a poor man. In this story, David’s emotional engagement leads him to pronounce judgment, only to then realize that he has played the part of the rich man in the story. This story from 2 Samual 12 demonstrates how emotional engagement precedes moral understanding and repentance (this illustrates storytelling’s interaction with the spiritual aspect of holistic development).
The book of Proverbs stands out as relevant, as it utilizes rich imagery to communicate wisdom. A fitting example of this is Proverbs 26:11, which reads, “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.” (English Standard Version) This Simile is just one of countless examples where literary techniques function as a tool for teaching, adding longevity to the findings of Berger et al.’s (2021) and Bonasera’s (2025) findings.
Scripture also cautions that while narrative is a powerful tool, it requires proper interpretation. In Matthew 13:10-17, Jesus explains that parables can both reveal truth and conceal it, depending on the heart of the listener (English Standard Version). This reinforces Baker et al.’s (2023) and Bonasera’s (2025) implications that storytelling needs to be scaffolded with instruction, as emotional engagement does not necessarily guarantee correct interpretation. All this to say that storytelling is a divinely modeled method for shaping understanding, developing moral reasoning, and fostering character transformation; it engages the student holistically, leading them to enduring formation.
APPENDIX A
Commentary on Abdelwahab’s Research
Introduction
In the article, Exploring the Impact of Discursive Narrative Construction-Based Instruction to Enhance English Majors' Speaking Performance, Abdelwahab (2026) explores how discursive narrative construction (DNC) can improve speaking skills. This article stands within the disciplines of education and linguistics, comparing DNC with more traditional “focus-on-form” methods of instruction, in order to identify which method best supports student accuracy, fluency, and appropriacy. This critique will cover a brief review and an analysis of its interdisciplinary foundations using step six of Repko and Szostak’s (2025) IRP.
Article Review
Purpose of the Study
The primary purpose of this study was to explore whether or not discursive narrative construction-based instruction has any significant effect on English majors’ speaking performance when compared to more traditional approaches. This study sought to address a gap in existing research, as existing studies only considered discursive constructionism to be a theoretical framework, rather than a realistic teaching method (Abdelwahab, 2026).
Research Methods
The study utilized a mixed-method research strategy involving quantitative and qualitative data. In it, 86 freshman English majors from Zagazig University in Egypt were divided evenly and randomly into two groups of 43—one serving as a control group, receiving traditional focus-on-form instruction, the other receiving DNC-based instruction (Abdelwahab, 2026).
Quantitative data were collected through pre- and post-speaking performance tests, adapted from the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) speaking section (Abdelwahab, 2026). The purpose of these tests was to measure students’ fluency, accuracy, and appropriacy. Furthermore, qualitative data were gathered through partially structured interviews with randomly selected participants, enabling deeper insights into the students’ thoughts and experiences regarding the instructional methods used (Abdelwahab, 2026).
Study Results
The results from the study revealed that both the control group and the DNC group showed improvement in their speaking performance; however, the DNC group demonstrated significantly more improvement than the control group (Abdelwahab, 2026). To be more specific, students who received DNC-based instruction showed higher levels of accuracy, fluency, and appropriacy, with the greatest improvement occurring in fluency (Abdelwahab, 2026). While fluency in students improved the most, statistical analysis proved that each area demonstrated large effect sizes (Abdelwahab, 2026).
Qualitative data further emphasized the significance of these results as students in the experimental group reported during their interview that analyzing and constructing narratives helped them learn language patterns, integrate cultural and social contexts, and gain notable confidence in speaking (Abdelwahab, 2026). One student noted that learning English through patterns and meaning improved their ability to produce language effectively (Abdelwahab, 2026). In contrast, though the control group demonstrated improvement, Abdelwahab (2026) revealed that many students still struggled to apply the knowledge they learned in communicative contexts.
Interdisciplinary Analysis
Disciplines Represented
This study draws from two primary disciplines, including linguistics and education, and two subdisciplines, including applied sociolinguistics and instructional psychology. Each of these fields contributes to the study’s understanding of how students learn language as both a social and cognitive process. For the purposes of this critique, this analysis will refer exclusively to the two primary disciplines, with each related subdiscipline subsumed under their respective overarching categories.
Disciplinary Insights
Each discipline contributes distinct insights into this study. The discipline of linguistics offers a foundation for understanding how language is a system of formed-meaning pairings, ultimately emphasizing how learners acquire linguistic comprehension. Sociolinguistics thereby emphasizes the roles that social and cultural contexts play in shaping our use of language. The discipline of education contributes a comprehensive understanding of pedagogical strategies, highlighting the importance of instructional design when it comes to shaping learning outcomes in students. Likewise, instructional psychology offers educational insights into how learners can process, apply, and internalize information. These disciplines come together in Abdelwahab’s (2026) study to support the central idea that language learning occurs most effectively when instruction integrates structure, meaning, and social contexts, like DNC (Abdelwahab, 2026).
Disciplinary Theories
Within these disciplines, several key theories present themselves. Within the discipline of linguistics, Abdelwahab (2026) presumes that students develop schematic patterns to learn and understand language through form-meaning pairing. Furthermore, the presumption that reality and meaning are defined through social and cultural contexts implies that language is tied to interaction instead of to any objective rules. But this social constructionism theory is also present in the discipline of education, which argues that students actively construct knowledge through interaction and experience (Abdelwahab, 2026). This is seen most clearly through Abdelwahab’s (2026) promotion of narrative deconstruction and co-construction frameworks. The author also presupposes that learning occurs through acting immediately on information and reflecting upon experiences, as the theory of experiential learning claims, which is tied to constructivism. This becomes evident as Abdelwahab (2026) has students engage in active discourse analysis and reflect upon narrative work.
Bias and Jargon
This article demonstrates a strong disciplinary bias toward constructionism (and thereby social constructivism) as it emphasizes the social and cultural experiences of language learning over traditional cognitive perspectives. This constructivist perspective does provide valuable insight, especially as the results of the experiment yielded desirable results, but too much reliance on this theory alone risks overlooking other important aspects of student language learning that may be presented in outside theories.
Additionally, the article utilizes an array of specialized disciplinary jargon, including but not limited to “discursive practices,” “narrativization,” and “semiotic resources” (Abdelwahab, 2026). While this terminology is used effectively and appropriately, it may limit this article’s accessibility to those who are unfamiliar with such jargon, ultimately demonstrating its academic nature, which risks hindering practical application.
Research Topic Relation
This study is relevant and useful to my research in education and writing, particularly as it demonstrates the effectiveness of narrative use in cognitive growth and literary development. The emphasis on narrative further supports approaches that prioritize storytelling and meaning-making for student engagement. Challenges of this article include that it is research conducted specifically with collegiate-age students, likely in the stages of late adolescence or early adulthood, rather than the preferred elementary age. Furthermore, this article does not address moral development. Nonetheless, its finding that narrative construction practices can develop a student’s ability to think critically and promote communicative competence proves this article to be an invaluable resource.
Biblical Integration
This study lays a strong groundwork for biblical integration in my personal interdisciplinary project. Matthew 13: 34-35 reads, “All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.’” (English Standard Version) These verses demonstrate that truth and understanding can be relayed through storytelling. Just as parables invite listeners to reflect deeply and make meaning, DNC encourages learners to construct understanding through narrative engagement and reflection. Other cases of Jesus’ parables also support storytelling as a means of moral development.
A second valuable integration is Ephesians 4:29, which instructs believers to use language that builds others up according to their needs. This ties directly to Abdelwahab’s (2026) insistence upon appropriacy and meaningful communication, rather than insisting upon general grammatical correctness. This supports my IRP by demonstrating the importance of communication that facilitates understanding, relational growth, and encouragement.
Third and finally is the principle that wisdom and understanding are developed through intentional formation and guided instruction. An example of this can be found in 1 Kings 12:6-15 when King Rehoboam refuses the wisdom of the council of old men and turns to a council of young men in his stubbornness. In this passage, the reader is presented with the value of wise counsel and the hardships that come when we forsake it. As Abdelwahab (2026) seeks a more effective method for language learning, he is pursuing wisdom. It is the responsibility of the educator to be the wise council for their students, and that often means seeking more effective ways to educate.
Conclusion
While Abdelwahab’s (2026) study provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of DNC as a method for improving speaking performance, it poses the risk of disciplinary bias and inaccessible jargon. Nevertheless, its findings remain relevant for educators seeking to improve their language instruction, particularly when integrated with biblical principles that emphasize the pursuit of wisdom, meaningful communication, and intentional teaching.
APPENDIX B
Commentary on Conflicts Presented in Bonasera’s Research
Introduction and Article Review
In the article, Does Literariness Influence Negative Empathy? A Study on the Effects of Foregrounding on Readers’ Affective and Aesthetic Reactions, Bonasera (2025) explores how literary styles affect empathy, especially as it pertains to morally ambiguous characters. Not only does literary style serve the reader as a way to make texts beautiful, Bonasera (2025) illustrates that it actively shapes how readers feel and empathize. This critique will include a brief review and an analysis of its central conflicts using step seven of Repko and Szostak’s (2025) Interdisciplinary Research Process.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of Bonasera’s (2025) research is to identify how literary styles, specifically foregrounding (which is best described as a brief but significant deviation from literary norms), contribute to readers’ emotional engagement and empathetic responses to narrative texts. The study highlights negative empathy, which highlights readers’ emotional engagement with morally flawed or ambiguous characters. The article ultimately seeks to determine whether stylistic elements shape engagement and moral interpretation.
Research Methods
This article by Bonasera (2025) uses an experimental research design process, which involved assigning undergraduate literature students to read narrative excerpts that were either original texts or stylistically simplified versions of those texts. The simplified versions focused on removing features of foregrounding, such as figurativeness and complex syntax. Data was collected through surveys that measured empathy, emotional engagement, and aesthetic appreciation, while also allowing for open-ended qualitative responses.
Study Results
In the end, Bonasera (2025) found that the texts that utilized stronger foregrounding significantly increased readers’ level of emotional engagement and empathy, even demonstrating negative empathy toward morally grey and problematic characters. Bonasera (2025) also found that foregrounding did not significantly increase readers’ empathetic distress, which suggests that emotional engagement does not necessarily result in moral discomfort. Furthermore, aesthetic appreciation was shown to be a key mediating factor between empathy and literary style, demonstrating the emotional effectiveness of a well-written story.
Analysis of Conflicts
As Repko and Szostak (2025) emphasize, analyzing conflicts within interdisciplinary research is a critical aspect of analyzing research results, and it is important to consider these conflicts before drawing any conclusions. In conducting research, identifying conflicts does not weaken research results, but deepens them, considering the nuances in which the findings may be applicable or affectatious. While much of the research conducted for this study demonstrates that storytelling uses emotional engagement to promote literacy and moral reasoning, Bonasera (2025) presents tensions that complicate the assumptions presented in the other sources by illustrating that emotional engagement is not necessarily moral, predictable, or even beneficial in every context.
Conflict #1: Uncertainty of Moral Results
Perhaps the most significant conflict emerges between Bonasera’s (2025) findings and the dominant assumptions within the education discipline. Many of the educational sources conduct their research under the assumption that emotional engagement from storytelling leads to positive emotional engagement (e.g., Adnyani and Landrawan [2022], Liang et al. [2025], and Sulastri et al. [2024]). Assuming that children are naturally good until corrupted by society, the discipline of education expects that younger children, such as those in the elementary ages, are more likely to internalize virtues such as honesty, empathy, and responsibility from stories. This leads to the assumption that emotional engagement only leads to desirable outcomes in student ethical development. Bonasera (2025), however, challenges this moral optimism by considering the concept of negative empathy, in which readers expressed emotional alignment with characters who are morally reprehensible. These results cause these assumptions to yield to ethical uncertainty. If emotional engagement can lead students to ambiguous or conflicting responses, then educators cannot afford to assume that narrative-based instruction will lead students toward positive moral conclusions. Rather, they must plan for potential misalignment and provide adequate scaffolding to ensure the students reach the desired moral conclusions.
Conflict #2: Significance of Narrative Quality
A second conflict becomes present in the discipline of writing itself as Bonasera (2025) concludes that stylistic features, such as foregrounding, play pivotal roles in students’ emotional engagement and empathetic responses. As the study demonstrated, even when the narrative of the story remained the same, the quality of the story and the literary elements used dramatically changed how the reader interacted with the text. If, therefore, emotional engagement hinges on whether a story is presented with stylistic excellence, then narrative-based instruction cannot merely rely on the inclusion of stories. Instead, instruction would need deeply integrated, well-told stories to engage the listener effectively in order to attain the desired moral growth. This fact undermines the educational assumption that storytelling is universally effective as a pedagogical tool and instead highlights the importance of literary aesthetics and craft.
Conflict #3: The Nature of Emotional Engagement
Bonasera’s (2025) article presents a third conflict, which pertains to the nature of emotional engagement. Throughout other research, emotional engagement has been presented as a positive outcome of listening to narratives, leading students to improved motivation, comprehension, empathy, and moral reasoning. However, Bonasera (2025) frames emotional engagement less optimistically, describing it as not inherently beneficial to students. Instead, it is seen as capable of producing discomfort, confusion, and even detachment, ultimately determining that emotional engagement is highly dependent upon the nature of the text.
Conflict #4: Bonasera’s Assumption
A final conflict becomes prevalent when considering the assumption Bonasera (2025) brings to this study. The assumption is that empathy is a neutral feeling, which can lead to good or evil depending on how the individual responds, which is also assumed to be unpredictable and variable. This contradicts widely accepted educational theories that frame empathy as a key moral virtue leading toward social-emotional development. Constructivist educational theory sees experience as key to student learning and development; therefore, empathy becomes central to social learning as it consists of experiences that allow individuals to relate to one another.
Biblical Considerations
Scripture sheds light on these conflicts by affirming the power of narrative and emotional engagement while also cautioning against misinterpretation. Through Christ and his parables, we see that storytelling is an appropriate means of fostering moral reasoning. This implicates the educational claim that narrative-based instruction is effective for developing character.
Scripture also warns that emotion is not a reliable guide to truth and reason without God’s intervention. Jeremiah 17:9 reads, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (English Standard Version) This verse suggests that emotional responses can be misguided, which credits Bonasera’s (2025) assumption that empathy is neutral.
Lastly, Hebrews 5:14 highlights the importance of needing to guide moral discernment through maturity, stating, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (English Standard Version) By this verse, we can infer that in order for students to develop their moral reasoning, they need to be guided to discern good from evil through provided scaffolding and structured teaching.
Conclusion
While much of the research conducted for this IRP supports the use of narrative-based instruction as a means of promoting language development and moral reasoning, this article’s findings introduce important conflicts that must be considered. The nature of narrative-based instruction is not inherently effective because it taps into students’ emotional engagement, instead, its impact is dependent on teacher scaffolding and complimentary instruction.
For narrative-based instruction to be most effective, it would require stories to be deeply integrated, well-told, and provided with adequate scaffolding to foster moral reasoning in students.
APPENDIX F
Commentary on the Integration of Faith and Learning
Truth itself belongs to God. It is not merely that God has created truth for our knowledge and benefit, but God himself is truth. Jesus says he is the way, the truth, and the life in John 14:6. He is the foundation upon which all philosophical frameworks, seeking metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological truths, are to be built. “He [Jesus] is before [has headship over] all things and in him all things hold together.” (English Standard Version, 2001, Col. 1:17) It is this very preeminence that is so foundational to academics. How could one even begin to understand the world and the way it works without knowing the one who created it? For this reason, faith and learning must be integrated, or truth itself will be set aside in the pursuit of knowledge.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” (Proverbs 1:7a) God is truth, therefore, truth belongs to God. For academics seeking to learn more about their perspective disciplines, it only makes sense for the revelation of God to be the first place to go in the quest for knowledge. Secular culture values empirically founded logic and reason as the highest source of truth, but God's revelation to us, scripture, precedes even that in importance. Furthermore, through scripture, we are given a framework for understanding truth. The Christian metanarrative—creation, fall, redemption, consummation—serves as a foundation for learning to be built upon. Lastly, scripture commands us to pursue a right knowledge of God with our minds. “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” (Matt. 22:37) From this verse, it is clear that it is not only beneficial to integrate faith and learning, but it is commanded of us, for what better way is there to love God with your mind than to meditate and learn about the Creator-God who loved us so dearly. Whoever should seek one truth at the expense of another truth undermines their pursuit altogether.
There are limitations to the integration of faith and learning, primarily because of our finite and sinful nature. Dennison (2006) writes, “simply put, the creature’s knowledge has a microcosmic resemblance to the macrocosmic knowledge of the Creator.” (p.17) While our minds resemble God’s mind with our ability to produce thought and reason, our finite minds cannot begin to comprehend what the infinitude and wonder of God is capable of. To believe we can know God and the world fully around us is like filling up a cup of sand and expecting to have collected every grain on earth. There is no way we can begin to comprehend him! We are also limited by our sinful nature. For the sake of pride, we can have the truth of God in front of us and still distort it or misapply it. Romans 1:16-32 tells us that we are prone to suppressing truth in unrighteousness. It is only by grace that we can live and learn by faith.
The Bible offers insights into countless disciplines, including but not limited to, anthropology (Gen. 1:26-27; 3:6-24), sociology and law (Gal. 3:28; Micah 6:8), science (Gen. 1:1), arts and music (Ps. 150), writing (e.g., all of Hebrew poetry,), education (Prov. 22:6; 2 Tim. 2:2) finance (1 Tim. 6-10; Acts 4:32-37), citizenship (Rom. 13), business (Matt. 25:14-30), etc. Even in the introduction of this paper, the philosophical implications of Christ’s nature were briefly mentioned. He is the way (relating to metaphysics), the truth (relating to epistemology), and the life (relating to axiology). Acts 17:16–34 expounds on the discipline of philosophy as the Apostle Paul engages with philosophers of the time. Another fitting example of disciplinary insight offered throughout scripture is rhetoric. In Genesis 1, it is through speech that God creates the world and everything in it. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Gen. 1:3) Furthermore, in John 1:1, Christ is described as the word incarnate—a promise that has finally come to its time of fulfillment. Ephesians 4:15 commands us to speak the truth in love. Paul uses rhetoric to defend his ministry and calls us to do the same in 2 Corinthians 10:5. Lastly, Paul also offers a rhetorical model in his letter to Philemon, appealing to Philemon’s ethos, pathos, and logos for the sake of Onesimus.
In the article “In Search of a Starting Point: And a Method for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Context of Christian Theism,” Dennison (2006) proposes that King Solomon was an interdisciplinarian. One way this is true is found between the disciplines of leadership and political science. Proverbs 11:14 states, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” The interdisciplinary insight he provides is that to rule effectively, one must seek the counsel of others, otherwise a people will fall. Proverbs 14:28 illustrates the importance of political legitimacy. Without political legitimacy, no king, prince, emperor, or authority would be able to ensure order or establish justice. In Proverbs 20:28, Solomon says that a king is preserved, and his throne is upheld, through steadfast love. Proverbs 29:4 states that it is upon an exaction of justice that a king builds a nation, but a king who demands gifts will destroy a nation. Here, the concept of political legitimacy comes up again, bribery and exploitation, especially from a king, are wicked. To pursue wickedness over justice undermines a ruler’s authority and will cause his people to desire a different ruler. Lastly, Proverbs 21:1 tells us that the Lord has sovereign control over any leader put into power. This is a strong example of Solomon’s interdisciplinary wisdom and of his integration of faith into various disciplines.
In conclusion, the integration of faith is important to learning, for without it, we would be setting aside the most valuable source of knowledge and wisdom: God. The foundation provided by scripture offers learners a clear framework upon which to build their knowledge. Without this framework, if we were to ignore God in pursuit of a ‘purer’ academics, we would be lost in the chaos of purposeless empathy and mindless assimilation (Dennison, 2006). It is through Christ, who holds all things together (Col. 1:17) that we can even begin the practice of learning.
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