In Plato’s second letter, Plato left a mysterious expression: that his writings did not exist, and writings of his that were thought to exist, now were “those of Socrates become new and beautiful”. Previous studies said that theses expressions were based on Plato’s assertion from Plato’s seventh letter, and Phaedrus. That is to say, Plato insisted that writing books was not important but a diversion. But they can’t explain why the expression “Socrates become new and beautiful" seems to praise Plato’s writings. In this paper, we tried to get over this aporia by referring to an opinion of Roland Barthes. Through this method, we can understand that this expression was an evaluation of Plato as a reader. And, strictly speaking, Plato didn’t think writing books was a diversion. Plato thought that books were a diversion for everybody but himself. On the other hand, Plato thought however excellent his writings were, he couldn’t help that his reputation would fall because of shallow people who misread them. Through the denial of Plato as an author, we can interpret that Plato wished to remove himself for writing that may have been misinterpreted.

This study conducts a comparative study on the “Japanese Language Arts” textbooks used for local people in Manchuria and Korea under Japanese rule and those for Japanese people in Manchuria. The contents analyzed here are the folktales in the textbooks. The analyses show the following findings.

  i) Some folktales in the textbooks reflecting “type indexes of folklore (wakei),” and others do not. It is possible to say that the materials without type indexes might be created for a certain intention or meanings of the material developers.

  ii) Some textbooks have the same contents, but examination on the texts reveals that there are differences in motifs and plots.

  iii) After examining each version in details, the following characteristics are found.

    a) Textbooks for Japanese in Manchuria have local geographic information and traditions as leaching contents. In addition, they implicitly show the developers’ intentions to foster students' ideology of Japanese dominance.

    b) Textbooks for Chinese in Manchuria have contents to encourage leaners’ making efforts and learning actively, but they show some intention to reduce the disciplinary contents. It is possible to say that this characteristic shows the concerns towards The Republic of China.

    c) Textbooks for Korean in Korea have ethical contents to emphasize the importance of developing filial piety to parents and gratitude to others. In addition, some contents are to convince Korean students of their social status.

The influence of textbooks on learners obtaining a librarian certification is significant. Textbooks relating to library service for children are not exceptions. These learners will eventually become librarians, and they will select picture books as part of their library service for children. For studying the implications of selecting picture books in librarian training courses, we have analyzed the characteristics of textbooks on library service for children using the descriptions about picture books in five textbooks published after 2009. We have investigated the picture books’ title, publisher, year of publication, and other details. In addition, qualitative evaluations of the descriptions about selecting books has been carried out on the five textbooks. As the result, the majority of the picture books introduced and recommended in the textbooks were those which have been popular for a long time. Additionally, approximately half of all picture books introduced in the five textbooks have been published by Fukuinkan Shoten. On the other hand, newly published picture books have been introduced and recommended in the textbooks,but they are fewer in number. The investigation also indicates that the newly published textbooks introduce fewer picture books than the older textbooks. However, the newer textbooks tend to introduced a larger percentage of newer picture books. The emphasis in newer picture books as compared to older classics and the reduction in the number of recommended picture books in the more recent textbooks indicate a change in values.

In this research, the author conducted media literacy education applying coaching approach to support students’ self-directed learning, which is one of the objectives of media literacy education. Coaching in educational settings aims to increase self-awareness and a sense of personal responsibility through the self-directed learning, whereas media literacy education aims to enhance students’ autonomy in their daily life situation, which is to increase self-awareness and to consolidate self-directed learning.

In this paper, the author aims to figure out what kind of skills the students can acquire, by analyzing reflection papers which students made, using SCAT, which is characterized by its explicit process of analysis and the integration of theoretical coding and qualitative data analysis. 20 students of senior high school took media literacy class during the first term and 5 students took coaching sessions. As a result of the study, the author found that the students nurtured the skills of setting goals particularly and specifically, the ability to solve problems, and self-awareness.