Although very little research has been conducted on instruction involving the use of literature compared to explanatory text, examining how instruction dealing with literature influences students’ cognitions, such as their mental representations and beliefs, is important because it can contribute to an understanding of the value of enjoying literature. Literature permits readers to conjure up images when reading; it allows construction of more kinds of mental models than does reading explanatory text. Among the many types of Japanese literature, haiku (a 17-syllable poem) strongly promotes such processes in readers, because haiku uses a minimal number of syllables, making cognitive compensation necessary in order for readers to be able to deal with the abbreviated information provided. However, most current instruction about haiku consists of reading classic haiku for which interpretations have already been determined; activities such as writing haiku and discussing the resulting poems with peers are not usually included. Thus, it is difficult to promote children’s interest in haiku, because the present methods of instruction do not facilitate the experience of perceiving many types of imagery when reading haiku. In the present study, a new approach to teaching haiku was used, and how this method influenced the students’ cognitions was examined. The new method included writing haiku and engaging in appreciation activities with peers. The appreciation activities had the following features: (a) the haiku written by the students were presented anonymously, in order to create a situation in which the writers could actively participate in the discussion and appreciation of their own poems, along with the other readers, and (b) techniques for writing haiku and for appreciating literature were explicitly taught to the students. Effects of this unit were examined in one elementary school sixth-grade Japanese language class (
N=14 students) by analyzing the process of appreciation that occurred when the students discussed a haiku written by one of the students. The results suggested that sharing the mental models of the haiku made by the readers contributed to creating a new, richer mental model that the students found surprising; this seemed to inspire the students to develop a deeper interest in literature.
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