The purpose of this study was to quantitatively and qualitatively examine the teaching units for writing within Japanese language textbooks for high schools. The author surveyed 16 textbooks that were published between Showa

60 (1985) to 62 (1987) by ten publishing companies,21 textbooks that were published between Heisei 6 (1994) to 9 (1997) by ten publishing companies, and 22 textbooks that were published between Heisei 19 (2007) to 22 (2010) by nine publishing companies. The results indicated that textbooks between Showa 60-62 (1) contained many model essays written by professional writers, and (2) contained many teaching units for writing personal narratives and personal responses to literature, textbooks between Heisei 6-9 (1) contained few explanations and model essays, and (2) the number of pages was smaller than those for Showa 60-62 and Heisei 19-22,and textbooks between Heisei 19-22 (1) contained many model essays written by students, (2) contained many teaching units for writing letters,argumentative essays, and book reviews, and (3) contained many teaching units showing how to write for each genre. It was demonstrated that these characteristics reflected the National Curriculum Standards for High Schools. Furthermore,almost all the teaching units did not show that the writing process was recursive.

This study explored the understanding of multiple emotions expressed by characters in narratives. Previous studies have shown that university students read and understand texts adequately when a character expresses only one emotion at one time. One might also hypothesize that students would be able to identify and comprehend text in which a character expresses more than one emotion at one time. By changing the wording of the target sentences,we developed three conditions for use in this study. These conditions,differing in the degree to which the text was congruent with the context in which it was embedded,consisted of:1)matched,2)less-matched,and 3)mismatched conditions. The reading times under each condition were measured in a sample of fifty-one female university students. The results showed longer reading times under the mismatched condition and no differences in reading times between the matched and less-matched conditions;the latter two conditions did not involve the sort of lengthy reading times obtained under the mismatched condition. These results suggest that university students can also adequately understand emotions that are less congruent with the context in which they are embedded.

This paper examines a decadeʼs worth of May Reading Survey conducted by the School Library Association in Japan annually,collecting the data as “free reading.” Also collected are data of books for “thinking” accepted at the national reading report competition co-organized by the association and the Mainichi Newspapers Co.,Ltd.and studied in this paper by dividing these into fiction and non-fiction books. The data collected present the history of school childrenʼs reading activities,show the selection of books preferably to be read by school children for a long time to come,as well as serving as a reference for school libraries when choosing books.

Of books to be read for “thinking” by school children of younger grades in primary schools,Satchan No Maho

No Te was the most selected fiction title,while Fabreʼs Book of Insects was the most selected non-fiction title. On the

other hand,as free reading books,the Harry Potter series is the most read by school children of higher grades in primary schools,while books for “thinking” saw Happy Birthday as the most selected fiction title and Gotai Fumanzoku (No

Oneʼs Perfect) as the most selected non-fiction title. In the case of junior high school students,the Harry Potter series

was also the most read as free reading,while Natsu no Niwa was the most read fiction book for “thinking” and Dakara

Anata Mo Ikinuite (So Can You) was the most read non-fiction book for “thinking.” The Harry Potter series is also

the most read as free reading among senior high school students,while books most read for “thinking” were the fiction

Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human) and non-fiction Dakara Anata Mo Ikunuite.

In the decade since 2000,the greatest achievement in book reading at schools was the establishment of morning reading at junior high schools,with about half of all schools implementing it daily in 2009.

Notable works read by junior and senior high school students have been those written by Kiyoshi Shigematsu,Risa Wataya, and Kazuo Aoki. On the other hand, we wish to further recommend works by Keigo Higashino, Hideo Yokoyama,and Takeru Kaido for free reading.

Future issues will be to include manga books as part of the morning reading,the reading of natural science books among junior and senior high school students,as well as further promoting of morning reading at the senior high school level.