Abstract
Educational texts play an essential role primary and secondary education. However, many Dutch students find their educational texts too difficult to understand and/or consider them boring. Text characteristics that enhance the vividness of these texts might offer a solution. In this dissertation we 1) define narrative and voice elements within the educational domain (WHAT), 2) characterize their application in Dutch educational textbooks (HOW), and 3) find out the educational publishers’ rationales behind the use of these elements (WHY). In addition, we investigate students’ appreciation of texts with such elements.