Dissertation

INTERMEDIATE-GRADE CHILDREN'S PREFERENCE IN POETRY

SIMMONS, MARTHA POOLE

1980

Overview

The purpose of the study was to determine from a preselected list of poems: (1) the poetry preferences of children in the intermediate grades of the elementary school; (2) the relationships among the poetry preferences of groups based on grade level, sex, and chronological age; (3) the types of poems liked best and least by the total group of children and by groups based on grade level, sex, and chronological age; and (4) the reasons given by the various groups for liking poems best and least. The population for the study consisted of 271 children from the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade classrooms of two elementary schools in the Tuscaloosa City School System, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The schools were chosen because they had average classrooms which were balanced with respect to socioeconomic, racial, and academic factors. Data for the study were collected by playing six cassette tape recordings of poems daily for a period of 20 days in each classroom. After listening to the recordings, children were asked to express their responses on a prepared instrument. Some of the data were analyzed by two statistical techniques, the Chi Square and the Contingency Coefficient. The following major findings resulted from the study: (1) Based on the total number of responses, children liked best poems dealing with animals, especially animals in amusing situations. (2) Children expressed uncertainty about and dislike for poetry containing personification and abstract ideas that were difficult to understand. (3) Haiku was liked very little by children participating in the study. (4) The choices of children in groups based on grade level, sex, and chronological age were similar in most instances and differed more in degree of disliking or uncertainty. (5) Similarities between and among groups in their poetry preferences were much more noticeable than were differences. (6) Children, especially the youngest children, liked poems because they were funny. (7) Boys may have had more difficulty in expressing their reasons for liking and disliking poems than did girls. (8) Fourth-grade children had more difficulty in explaining their reasons for liking and disliking poetry than did fifth-grade or sixth-grade children. (9) Sixth-grade children preferred poetry dealing with an interesting subject. (10) Children disliked poetry dealing with unfamiliar subjects or unfamiliar childhood experiences. (11) Children in the ten-year-old age range had most difficulty in indicating reasons for liking and disliking poems. (12) The five poems liked best by most of the children in the intermediate grades were (a) \"The Day I Spent the Night in the Shelby County Jail,\" (b) \"The Woodpecker,\" (c) \"We Real Cool,\", (d) \"Kindness to Animals,\" and (e) \"My Dog.\" (13) The five poems liked least by most of the children in the intermediate grades were (a) \"In Time of Silver Rain,\" (b) \"Aloneness,\" (c) \"High on a mountain...,\" (d) \"The Listeners,\" and (e) \"Rain went sweeping on...\" (14) The five reasons given most often by the children for liking poems were (a) \"funny or humorous,\" (b) \"subject,\" (c) \"was good,\" (d) \"undefined,\" and (e) \"rhymed or had rhythm.\" (15) The five reasons given most often by the children for not liking poems were (a) \"didn't make sense and didn't understand,\" (b) \"boring, dull, not interesting,\" (c) \"not the right length,\" (d) \"undefined,\" and (e) \"wasn't good.\" (16) People in the field of children's literature generally were not reliable sources for determining selections of poems for children.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Elementary education
• ISBN: 9798660765919