Teaching Children’s Literature Criticism Through Literary Theory to Pre-Service Turkish Language Teachers

This study aims to teach children’s literature criticism to pre-service Turkish language teachers based on literary theories. In the quantitative strand of the embedded mixed-methods design, a one-group pretest–posttest experimental design was employed, while a case study was used in the qualitative strand. The participants consisted of forty-two pre-service Turkish language teachers at a state university in Istanbul who had completed a course on children’s literature. Over a six-week intervention period (two class hours per week), participants were taught an introduction to literary criticism, along with formalist, Marxist, psychological, feminist, and biographical criticism theories through theoretical readings and in-class applications. Data were collected using a holistic rubric and a semi-structured interview form. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and content analysis. According to the quantitative findings, prior to the intervention, the pre-service teachers did not apply (made no attempt to apply) Marxist, psychological, feminist, or biographical criticism to the selected children’s literature text, and although they attempted to do so, they were unable to apply formalist criticism. Post-intervention, statistically significant increases were observed in the application of Marxist, psychological, feminist, and biographical criticism. However, the participants had not yet attained full proficiency in applying these theories. No significant change was observed in the application of formalist criticism. According to the qualitative findings, before the intervention, the pre-service teachers defined criticism as a pedagogical activity evaluating the text’s suitability for children and its potential benefits, rather than analyzing it from a literary perspective. Following the intervention, this perspective shifted considerably. The pre-service teachers redefined criticism as a process of analyzing the multilayered structure of children’s literature in line with literary theories to reveal deeper meaning, and they gained critical awareness of children’s literature. Furthermore, they regarded children’s literature criticism as an important professional asset..