Understanding metaphors in poetic texts: towards a determination of interpretative operations in secondary school students’ engagement with imagery

Pieper, Irene

doi:10.17239/l1esll-2012.01.03

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…For the first evaluation of data, we worked with qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2000;2008). Starting from our pilot study (Pieper & Wieser, 2012), reconsidering theoretical approaches on metaphor and consulting other think-aloud-studies on literary understanding, we extended the coding system in order to specify students' approaches to metaphor. Thus, the codes were developed both deductively and inductively and adapted during coding.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learners’ approaches to poetic metaphor: A think aloud study with secondary school students in Grade 6 and 9

Pieper¹,

Strutz²

2018

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

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This article investigates the challenges of understanding poetic metaphor for lower secondary students. It draws on a think aloud study that was carried out with 69 students from Grade 6 (mean age 12) and 9 (mean age 15) in Germany (higher academic track and middle schools) who thought aloud on three different poems. A coding system was developed deductively and inductively and applied to the protocols. Also, a procedure of global assessment was applied on the basis of the codings. For selected cases a sequential analysis was carried out. The results were analysed with regard to levels of understanding and to the strategies students apply when approaching the metaphorical poems. Results show that metaphorical understanding of poetic metaphor is still difficult for students even in Grade 9. Furthermore, results indicate that some poems and their metaphors are processed more easily than others, depending on relations between vehicle-and tenor-domain and the degree of metaphorical tension. With regard to the strategies, the analysis of two contrastive cases of sixth-graders shows that an initial experience of tension seems crucial for achieving metaphorical understanding and that strong students show affective and evaluative responses as well as flexibility in generating meaning. Besides, they monitor their reading process. An aesthetic reading mode can already be traced with some sixth graders. Results indicate that teaching should provide students with opportunities to focus on poetic metaphor, and introduce ways of imagining and analogising on and around metaphor. Also, room should be provided for realising and articulating affective and evaluative response.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learners’ approaches to poetic metaphor: A think aloud study with secondary school students in Grade 6 and 9

Pieper¹,

Strutz²

2018

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

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“…Research conducted in the context of the literature classroom among adolescents, on the other hand, has often been confined to reading engagement and/or analytical skills in terms of interpreting literary texts (e.g., Eva-Wood, 2004;Janssen, Braaksma & Couzijn, 2009;Peskin, 1998;Pieper & Wieser, 2012;Tengberg, Olin-Scheller & Lindholm, 2015). Although many of these studies incorporated the perspective of what readers bring to the text -in particular Eva-Wood (2004), who developed a thinkand-feel-aloud pedagogy -the perspective of what literary fiction might mean to adolescent readers and what they can take away from it for their (social) lives, remained largely unexplored.…”

Section: Adolescents In the Literature Classroommentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of literature education on students' perceptions of self and others: Exploring personal and social learning experiences in relation to teacher approach

Schrijvers¹,

Janssen²,

Fialho³

et al. 2016

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

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The Dutch Institute for Curriculum Development argues that literature education is important for broadening students' personal, social and cultural horizons. Indeed, reading literary fiction may alter readers' self-and social perceptions, but little is known about whether adolescents gain such personal and social insights through reading in the secondary literature classroom, nor about how these perceived learning outcomes are related to their teachers' approaches to various aspects of literature teaching. Thus, the aims of this study were to examine the impact of literature education on students' self-and social perceptions and to explore relationships between students' learning experiences and their teachers' classroom practices. Dutch students (N=297, grades 10-12) wrote a learner report about what they learned about themselves and other people through literature education, and completed a measure on familiarity with fiction. Their teachers (N=13) completed the Teachers' Approaches to Literature Education Questionnaire (TALE-Q), which indicated more analytical-interpretative or personal-experiential approaches to three 2 M. SCHRIJVERS, T. JANSSEN, O. FIALHO & G. RIJLAARSDAM aspects of teaching. Students of teachers with distinct approaches to these aspects were grouped to compare their learning experiences. Findings showed that nearly all students (99%) reported to have learned something about themselves and others through literature education, mainly personal characterizations of oneself and others, learning about oneself and others as literary readers, descriptions and evaluations of people's behaviors, and lessons for life. In addition, teachers' reports of more classroom interaction and student autonomy were related to students' more frequent reports of personal and social insights, but this may also partly be explained by students being more familiar with fiction and having a more positive attitude toward literary reading. Implications for personal and social learning in the literature classroom are discussed.

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“…Lexical comprehension is related to the actual understanding of words. Cultural comprehension implies that lack of general knowledge of the surrounding world might impact the understanding of a literary text (Pieper & Wieser, 2012). Mimetic comprehension refers to a strong connection to the student's own personal life and to the world outside the fictional text.…”

Section: Comprehension and Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Literary socialisation through education. A comparative study of Swedish and French upper secondary school students’ reception of a narrative text

Johansson¹

2021

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

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Different ways of teaching literature in school are often a result of tradition, cultural heritage, and the underlying assumptions of the motivating reasons for studying literature at all. This paper presents results from a comparative study of Swedish and French upper secondary school students' reception of a narrative text and discusses the impact of literary socialisation in relation to curricula. In the first part of the paper, Swedish and French upper secondary school students' written comments on a short story are analysed in terms of literary socialisation, comprehension and interpretation. The study displays differences in the way the students interact with the text. The French students pay more attention to literary aspects, such as style and language, whereas Swedish students tend to focus more on content and extratextual aspects. In the second part of the paper, the Swedish curriculum for the subject Swedish for upper secondary school is analysed. The study argues that a combination of analytic and emotional reading seems to be the most efficient way to create skilful readers. Reading for pleasure in a school context is challenged by the strong framing provided by knowledge requirements and examinations. The study concludes that this paradox of literature education can be met by focusing on the reading experience as a point of departure for in-depth literature studies.

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Understanding metaphors in poetic texts: towards a determination of interpretative operations in secondary school students’ engagement with imagery

Cited by 8 publications

References 10 publications

Learners’ approaches to poetic metaphor: A think aloud study with secondary school students in Grade 6 and 9

Learners’ approaches to poetic metaphor: A think aloud study with secondary school students in Grade 6 and 9

The impact of literature education on students' perceptions of self and others: Exploring personal and social learning experiences in relation to teacher approach

Literary socialisation through education. A comparative study of Swedish and French upper secondary school students’ reception of a narrative text

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