Teaching and Learning Critical Aesthetic Response to Literature: An Instructional Improvement Study in Grades K-5. Elementary Subjects Center Series No. 75.

Designed to improve the teaching and learning of critical aesthetic response to literature, a 2-year collaborative study involved 20 teachers, 2 university-based researchers, and approximately 300 elementary school students in the Lansing, Michigan, area. The study examined aspects of the teachers' understanding of the theory and their practices pertaining to some crucial issues that affect this approach to literature. The issues examined included: the nature of literature and of critical thinking, critical aesthetic response to literature, and assessment procedures). Major objectives of the study were: (1) to help students become acquainted with all types of literature; (2) to create an environment in which literature is valued and enjoyed for the aesthetic experience it offers; and (3) to create an environment in which literature is valued and enjoyed for the varied and valid uses one can make of it. While all of the teachers taught some aspect of critical aesthetic response to literature, individual teachers chose different kinds of literature and encouraged different aspects of response. Results indicated that: (1) through the study and implementation of questioning techniques and through the activities they chose, the students learned to verbalize more precisely their responses to literature; and (2) critical aesthetic development consists of a very gradual acquisition of insights about the aesthetic aspects of a literary selection. The study concluded that elementary school students, even those in kindergarten and first grade, are quite capable of learning how to respond critically aesthetically to literature. (Six tables of data are included; 21 professional references and a 70-item children's literature bibliography are attached.) (RS)