Reader response criticism and can tho university students’ critical thinking improvemen

Can Tho University

English Department

Reader- Response Criticism and Can Tho
University Students’ Critical Thinking
Improvement

B.A THESIS

Supervisors:
Nguyen Thi Nguyen Tuyet, M.A
Ho Phuong Thuy, M.A

Researcher:
Vuong Ngoc Tien
Student’s code: 7032582
Class: NN0354A4

Summer, 2007

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CONTENTS
Contents…………………………………………………………………………i
Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………ii
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………iii
List of tables and figures………………………………………..………………iv

Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Rationale……………………………………………………………..1
1.2 Research aims…...…………………………………………………...2
1.3 Research questions…………………………………………………...2
1.4 The outline of the thesis………………………………………….......3

Chapter two: Literature Review
2.1 What is Reader- Response Criticism?.................................................4
2.2 What is critical thinking?....................................................................8
2.3 How s reader-response criticism related to critical thinking?.............10
2.4 Why should reader-response criticism be applied in
literature classes?................................................................................11
2.5 Is reader-response criticism developed in Vietnamese classroom?.....13

Chapter three: Methodology
3.1 Participants……………………………………………...……………16
3.2 Research instruments…………………………………...…………….16
3.2.1 Questionnaire……………………………………………………....16
3.2.2 Observation……………………………………………………...…17
3.3 Research design………………………………………...…………….17
3.4 Procedure of data collection and interpretation……………………....17

Chapter four: Results and discussions
4.1 Questionnaires collection and discussion……………………….……18
4.2 Responses to literary works collected from observation……………..29

Chapter five: Limitations, suggestions, and conclusions
5.1 Limitations…………………………………………………...………32
5.2 Suggestions…………………………………………………..………32
5.3 Conclusions…………………………………………………………..33

Appendix
1. Questionnaires………………………………………………..……….35
2. Observation sheet………………………………………………….…38
References……………………………………………………………..……….40

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I want to show my gratitude to the teaching staff of the English Department for
their enthusiastic contribution and devotion in transferring me the knowledge during four
years of study here.
Secondly, I would like to say thanks indeed to Ms. Trương Thị Kim Liên, the very first
teacher to bring me the love for literature and new way of criticizing literature.
The next persons I am deeply indebted to are Ms. Hồ Phương Thùy and Ms. Nguyễn Thị
Nguyên Tuyết, my two supervisors who enthusiastically contributed and spent time to give me
their precious suggestions and advice. They spent their time from reshaping my research
paper, providing me with materials transferring their experiences as well as correcting all of
my drafts. Without their valuable help and support, guidance, I would not be able to finishing
my research.
I also wish to send me deep gratitude and sincere thanks to Mr. Trịnh Quốc Lập, who also
gave me with precious ideas and supply me with valuable materials. I would nearly stop my
thesis without his advice and suggestions.
I also owe debt to Mr. Daniel White for his essential provision of materials and suggestions so
I could complete my questionnaire.
Finally, I am gratitude to my friends and the forty-nine students of English ,course 30 for their
cooperation in working on my research questionnaire.

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to examine the critical thinking improvement of the third- year
students of English branch, Cantho University through the Reader- Response Criticism
learning method. A questionnaire was designed and developed to forty-nine students of the
English department for their answers to multiple- choice questions and reflections to an openended question. The survey data was analyzed both in qualitative and quantitative methods to
show the improvement in critical thinking of these students. It was full of happiness and
enthusiasm to find out that the juniors’ critical thinking has been improved much in
comparison with their limitation in thinking in the previous year(2006)

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LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURGE

Table 4.1.1 The quantity of students’ understanding about critical thinking……..19
Table 4.1.2 The correlation between question one and question 10……………....22
Table 4.1.3 The importance of critical thinking in the study of literature………...24
Table 4.1.4Ways of studying literature before entering university……………….26
Table 4.1.5 Factors made students feet disgusted with literature …………..…….27
Table 4.1.6 The degree of confidence..……………………………………………29
Figure 4.1.1The frequence of using critical thinking in analyzing a literary text…25
Figure 4.1.2What students do in the phase of analysis a literary work…………....25
Figure 4.1.3Techiniques applied in studying literature…………….……………...28

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
1. 1 Rationale
When we were born into this life, when we were sleeping in cradles, our mothers sang
us sweet singings of the village, the bamboo trees, the flying kites, the ripe paddles in the
harvest time, and so forth. As we grow up, those images become more beautiful through a
poem, a story, a short literary text that we read. It is undeniable that through literature, we can
know about new lands with fascinating sceneries, new people, new customs and practice, so
literature indirectly supplies us with the cultural information. Furthermore, literature helps us
to understand more about every aspect of the reality- the human concerns, needs; offers us
valuable lessons of moral, and thus perfects ourselves. In addition, as we see that literature is
one of the most important subjects in the curricula of all nations in the world. However, in the
recent year, in Viet Nam, students have nearly ignored this subject.
“The real situation that has to be mentioned is the serious decline in the interest of
students in studying literature,” stated Dr Nguyen Thuy Hong in the magazine “The Gioi
Trong Ta” (2006). A survey carried out in 2006 by her also showed that, among five
thousands elementary and high school students, the number of students uninterested in
literature made up to 47,6%, while 13,8% is the number of students like the subject, and the
rest of the total feel very normal, do not like or love literature. In addition, in “The Gioi Trong
Ta”, an article with title “An Alarm On The Uninterest Of Students In Studying Literature” by
Nguyen Thi Thuan and Le Cong Minh, when these two teachers discussed the matter with
some students, the students said, “Literature is unrealistic and abstract to understand”. Not
only these students, but I also fell into this situation. When I was in high school, although I
loved literature, I got bored with this subject because of the way my teachers transferred me

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the lessons. Every time in class, teachers just introduced a literary text and then read aloud the
analyzed patterns for us to write down. Therefore, to us, to understand and perceive as well as

interpret a literary work is hard. That was why I gradually did not like the subject anymore.
Luckily, when I became a student of Can Tho University, I had chance to expose to a new
learning method in British Literature course. This theory once evoked my ideas and feelings
towards literary works and helped me understand their values more deeply. Moreover, Mr.
Pham Van Dong(1973) voiced his opinion “Teaching literature is mainly to teach students
how to express what they think honestly, clearly, exactly, and to set off what they want to
say”. Therefore, is there any “Yeast” to stimulate students get more involved in this subject? I
have read a research (2006) about this problem of a student of English Department, Can Tho
University. In his research, he studied the theory Reader- Response Criticism and observed the
reaction of students towards this theory. Therefore, in my research, I am very enthusiastic to
check the critical thinking improvement after more than one year implicating this literary
theory in studying literature of students who participated in Long’s study in 2006.

1.2. Research aim
This study is carried out to examine the improvement in critical thinking of Can Tho
University students, English Department, after more than one year applying

the theory

Reader- Response Criticism in their study of Literature.

1.3 Research questions
As I have just mentioned, literature fosters human’s emotional growth and takes the
humanity values itself, so it is very necessary to make students interested in subject. “Whether
the critical thinking of students becomes more profound in compared with their reaction of the
previous year” is always one of my concern. Basing on this aim, I form my research question:
“To what extent is English students’ critical thinking improved in their study of
literature through the theory Reader-Response Criticism after more than one year?”

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1.4 The outline of the thesis
The order of the thesis covers in five chapters. Chapter One includes the rationale, and
the research questions. Chapter Two focuses on the literature review consisting of the theory
Reader- Response Criticism, its relation to critical thinking, and its application. Chapter Three
describes the methodology. The fourth chapter is about the results got from my methodology,
and discussions. My limitation, suggestions, and the conclusion will be in Chapter Five. The
references, questionnaire are also displayed on the last pages.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, I would like introduce the theory “Reader-response criticism”, the
relation between Reader-response criticism and critical thinking, the significant of applying
the theory in classes and its application in Vietnamese classrooms.

2.1. What is Reader- Response Criticism?
Reader-Response Criticism is one of inspiration that readers should send in comments
on articles and review, readers asking for information or just wanting to share their own
stories, views (wikipedia.org). In literature, Reader- Response Criticism, as its name implies,
focuses on readers’ responses to literary texts. This theory is against one called “New
Criticism”, which was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the
mid twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. New Criticism adheres emphatically
in the advocacy of close reading and attention to texts themselves, and their rejection of
criticism bases on extra-textual sources, especially biography. At their best, new critical
readings were brilliant, accurately argued, and broad in scope, but sometimes they were
idiosyncratic and moralistic (wikipedia.org). The notion of “ambiguity” is an important

concept within New Criticism, several prominent new critics have been enamored above all
else with a way that a text can display multiple simultaneous meanings. In 1930s, I.A. Richard
borrowed Sigmund Fereud’s term “over-determination” to refer to multiple meanings which
he believed were always simultaneously present in language. To Richards, claiming that a
work has one and only one “True Meaning” is an act of superstition (The Philosophy of
Rhetoric, 1930).

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In 1954, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published an essay entitled “The
International Fallacy”, in which they were strongly against any discussion of an author’s
intention, or “intended meaning”. For them, the words on the page were all that mattered;
importation of meanings from outside the text was quite irrelevant and potentially distracting.
Before 1960s, much more of literary criticism and theory had had a reader-response
element than people had ever admitted. However, in 1960s, Reader-Response Criticism
officially appeared and seemed to be approved of by most of literary critics at that time.
Reader-Response Criticism is a group of approaches to understanding literature that explicitly
emphasizes the reader’s role in creating the meaning and experiences of a literary work. More
specially, Reader-Response Criticism refers to a group of critics who study, not a literary
work, but readers or audiences responding to a literary work. This school emerged in the
1960s and 1970s, particularly, in America and Germany.
In 1973, Holland had conducted case studies of particular readers reading and free
associating to particular poems and stories when he published Poems in Persons (1973) and 5
Readers Reading (1975). He concluded from the evidence that it is readers and audiences who
shape literary experiences.
Reader-Response Criticism is a literary critical theory, promoted by Stanley Fish in
1980s, which suggests that a text gains meanings by the purposeful act of a reader reading and
interpreting it. The relationship between reader and text are highly valued in such a way that
text does not exist without a reader. Fish laid out his theory regarding interpretive strategies.

In Reader-Response Criticism, the reader and the interpretive community to which the reader
belongs judge the work. Reader- Response Criticism might look at the way in which different
interpretive communities value a text, for historical purposes or such critics may examine the
way in which some interpretive communities pose the best method for reading a text.
Traditionally, Reader-Response Criticism often adhered to formalist or new critical

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approaches in reading texts. However, in 1980, Fish suggested that the reader be taken into
account. . New critics evaluated text without prejudices, but Fish argued that such a thing was
not possible. The “I” of the reader will always color the text. The reader’s preferences in
interpretation will always make certain aspect of a work more important than others.
According to Hans Robert Jauss(1980), Reader-Response Criticism’s emphasis on the
construction of a text originated in the branch of Philosophy called phenomenology. The
phenomenology deals with the “understanding” of how things appear.” The phenomenological
idea of knowledge is that reality is to- be found not in the external world itself, but rather in
the mental perception of externals. That is, all that we human beings can know - actual
knowledge- is our collective and personal understanding of the world and our conclusions
about it. As a consequence of this concept, Reader-Response theory holds that the reader is a
necessary third party in the author-text-reader relationship that constitutes the literary work.
The work, in other words, is not fully created until reader makes a transaction with it by
assimilating and actualizing it in the light of his or her own knowledge and experience.
Dewey (1960), a pragmatist, and a philosopher claimed that practically constructive
thinking usually occurs when there is conflict or discomfort or when habitual behavior and
new behavior be made. As a consequence, such thinking grows out of tension bringing up the
stimulus to seek a solution Moreover, the validity of thought will usually depend on whether
emotion has been controlled and has not darkened the actual situation.” Impulse is needed to
arouse thought, incite reflections and enliven belief. But only thought notes obstruction,
invents tools, conceives aims, directs technique, and thus converts impulses into an art which

lives in objects” (Dewey, 1930).
Since Louis Rosenblatt first published Literature as Exploration in 1938, critical
theories have been risen and crashed, but the preeminence of her theories, particularly since
the mid 1960s, underscored most of the innovations in critical theory associated with the

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dominant teaching approach since then; that is reader-response to literature. This work was
primarily interested in describing readers’ processes of engagement and involvement, for
composing their own “poem” (1964), focuses on responding as an “event”. Rosenblatt (1938)
wrote “The special meaning, and more particularly, the submerged associations that these
words and images have for the individual reader will largely determine what the work
communicates to him. The reader brings to the work personality traits, memories of past event,
present needs and a particular physical condition. These and other elements in a never-to-beduplicated combination determine his response to a peculiar contribution of the text”.
Rosenblatt(1960) proposed that the meaning of a text derives from a transaction
between the text and reader within a specific context, thus emphasized the essentiality of
reader and text. Transaction permits emphasis the to-and-fro, spiraling, nonlinear,
continuously reciprocal influence or reader and text in the making of meaning. The meaning
happens during the transaction between the reader and the signs on the page (Transactional
Theory, 1960).
Rosenblatt also reacted critically to the narrow focus of much literature instruction on
literal recall or recitation of teacher- made meaning prompted her to provide a useful
distinction between the two opposing modes of experiencing a text, the efferent and the
aesthetic. When responding from the efferent stance, we are motivated by specific needs to
acquire information contained in the text; we basically just want to understand what the text is
saying. In contrast, when we read the aesthetic mode, we experience personal relationship to
the text that we focus on our attention on the emotional subtleties of its language and
encourage us to make judgments (Rosenblatt, The Reader, The Text, The Poem, 1978)
In brief, Reader-Response Criticism has a peculiar role because it offers chances for

readers to interpret literature by their own ways.

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2.2

What is Critical Thinking?
“Critical thinking( appeared in the Socrates time) is that mode of thinking about any

subject, content, or problem in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by
skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual
standards upon them” (Michael Screven and Richard Paul, 1985).
Therefore, to these two authors, critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and
evaluating information gathered from, or generated by observation, experience, reflection,
reasoning, or communication, as a guide to believe and action. In addition, in its exemplary
form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter division: clarity,
accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reason, depth, breath, and
fairness. In addition, according to Michael Screven and Richard Paul (1992), a well-cultivated
critical thinker has these following characteristics: raising vital questions and problems,
formulating them clearly and precisely, gathering and assessing relevant information, using
abstract ideas to interpret it effectively coming to well- reasoned conclusions and solutions.
Then, he or she, the critical thinker, would test them against relevant criteria and standards,
think open-mindedly within alternative system of thoughts, recognize and assess, as need be;
their assumptions, implications and practical consequences, and communicate effectively with
others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.
Another famous definition critical thinking is from Ennis (1991). He defined critical
thinking “as reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do”. To
Ennis, critical thinking includes such acts as formulating hypotheses, alternative way of

viewing a problem, questions, possible solution and plans for investigating something. In his
definition, Ennis distinguishes between skills (analyzing argument, judging credibility of

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sources, identifying the focus of issue, asking, answering, and asking clarifying and/or
challenging question), and attitudes, the so-called dispositions (be prepared to determine and
maintain focus on the conclusions or question, calling to take the whole situation into account,
prepare to seek and offer reasons, amendable to being well informed, willing to look for
alternatives and withholding judgment when evident and reason are significant) (Ennis
1987,1991;Kenedy, Fisher, Ennis 1991).
Although most authors agreed that critical thinking involves both skills and
dispositions in empirical, often psychological, research attention is primarily paid to the
thinking skills.
Pascarella and Terenzini (1991, p.118) noted that critical thinking has been defined and
measured in a number of ways, but typically involves the individual’s ability to do some or all
of the following: identify central issues and assumptions in an argument, recognize important
relationships, make correct inferences from data , deduce conclusions from information or data
provided, interpret whether conclusions are warranted on the basic of their data given, and
evaluate evident or authority (Furedy & Furedy,1985).
Several authors also emphasized the reflective, self-evaluative nature of critical
thinking, and point out that the meta-cognitive skills needed for this should be addressed in
instruction (e.g.Halpern, 1998). Paul (1992) even calls critical thinking spurious when students
are not being taught standards and criteria for assessing their own thinking. For Kuhn (1999),
meta-cognitive skills, meta-cognitive knowledge and epistemological beliefs are crucial for
critical thinking.
In general, critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone
is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a
matter of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience in

a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a

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critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such
insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies toward self-delusion (Michael
Screven and Richard Paul, 1985).
For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a lifelong endeavor.

2.3 How is Reader-Response Criticism related to critical thinking?
As I have just mentioned in the previous section, we can infer that readers are critical
thinkers because they themselves give personal reflections, comments, critical thinking to
what they read. Fish (1972) claimed that a work of literature becomes reality for the “critic”
through the act of reading, a process he termed “reception”. As reading occurs through time,
the experience of literature involves a continuous readjustment of perceptions ideas, and
evaluation with the meaning of the work encountered in the experience of it. Literature
becomes a process in which criticism involved the processing of phrases and sentences in a
slow sequence of discussion, revisions, anticipations, reversals, and recoveries.
Also, reader’s response is to the texts, it is the continuous shaping of the events of
reader’s mental process that slowly adjusts the thought to finally gain an understanding of
the actual meaning of the text. Whereas to critical thinking, the critical person is someone
like a critical consumer of information, he or she is driven to seek reason and evidence.
Enrich (1987) suggested that critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is
focused on deciding what to believe or to do.
Mathew Lipman (1988) wrote “the improvement of student’s thinking depends heavily
upon student’s ability to identify and cite good reason for their opinions”. As students, readers
can freely give their opinions, expressions ,i.e., they can use all their personal knowledge
about individuals, and bring all available literary, educational, sociological and

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communicative knowledge to bear in studying the meaning- making situation, meanwhile
critical thinking is independent thinking, free from external pressure because the readerscritical thinkers must be autonomous, that is, free to act and judge independently of external
constraint on the basic of his or her own appraisal of the matter at hand (Siegel, 1988 ).

2.4 Why should Reader- Response Criticism be applied in
literature classes?
The phase of giving responses by readers can be considered of post- phase. The prephase is the process of meaning- making. During this process, readers play the role of the
intermediate to keep the literary texts being discussed and make certain time for reflection to
share their opinions and to listen to other’s as well as to give and to get comments. The entire
procedure there is one of meta-cognition in which readers are assisted in gaining an awareness
of their own thought processes as meanings grow and are shaped personally and socially. This
proves that during the process, readers give their responses after reading any literary text.
They gather their knowledge in many fields of study to analyze, to perceive and then to give
reflections to the problems. They use cognition- the process by which knowledge and
understanding are developed in the mind- to do this task. As I mentioned above, not only do
readers use cognition but after the procedure of sharing opinions they gain meta-cognition.
Mial and Kuken(1998), mentioned that readers’ responses to literature are the
reflections of their own concepts, perceive to what they sensed. Additionally, this mode in
which readers are self-required greater efforts to absorb literary texts causes the impact on the
readers’ understanding and feeling. Reader- Response Criticism is the mode that reflects
expression of inner truths of each of us, of individuals because our individual, our “selves” is
something unique to each of us, something essential to our inner core; therefore, readers
perceive means they criticize. By this way, readers will develop their critical thinking as they

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can move beyond the passive learning of evaluative standards to the creation of their own
standards of criticism.
David Bleich applied Reader- Response Criticism in the 1960’s by collecting
statements of students about their feelings and associations towards stories and poems. He
used these both to theorize about the reading process and to refocus the classroom teaching of
literature. He also claimed that his classes “generated” knowledge, that is, knowledge of how
particular persons recreate texts.
During the 1970’s, Holland and his co- writer at the state of New York at Buffalo,
Murray Schwartz, developed a style of reader- response teaching which they call the “Delphi
seminar”. In the seminar, for the first part of the semester, students were introduced poems and
stories by their instructors. After reading, they together with instructors had to write whatever
came to mind those to poems and stories. In the second part, the students and instructors took
one another’s free associations as the text to which they responded. The seminars provided
those who participated in a sense of their own style of responding to literary texts and to other
people, in short, a sense of their own identities.
One peculiarly important figure is the literary theorist and English educator, Louis
Rosenblatt, the first person to apply Reader-Response Criticism in her literature classes. By
stressing primarily experiences in literature classes she hoped to restore the aesthetic value of
literature as well as to enhance its instrumental value in achieving broad educational aims. She
encouraged students to take an active role in constructing meaning, her Reader-Response
theory suggested that each experience with a text and other readers brought a host of new
potential of responses and new meanings as well( Literary Theory, 1965)
To sum up, we see that readers’ response criticism is really beneficial in term of
improving readers’ critical thinking, Therefore its application in classrooms is very necessary.

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2.5 Is Reader- Response Criticism developed in Vietnamese
classrooms?

The previous section proves that Reader-Response Criticism has been applied so
widely in literature classes in America and Europe; and has contributed a significant role in
helping readers to perceive literature in their own ways. In other words, Reader-response
criticism is the newest approach of literary criticism approved by literature critics and readers,
so has it been applied and developed in Vietnam?
A study named “The students’ reactions toward literature through Reader-Response
Criticism” carried out by Tran Ngoc Phi Long at Can Tho University in 2006, showed that
when being asked about the awareness of reader-response theory, 52, 63% knew very little
about Reader-Response Criticism while the others knew the theory. However, when reading,
the students’ responses toward the story “The Lady or The Tiger?”, he realized that students’
critical thinking was not profound because their answers were merely on the surface. What
students interpreted was just the “determinate meaning” referring to what might be called the
facts of the text, certain events in the plot or physical description provided by the words on the
page. Therefore; Reader-response criticism is not so popular in Vietnamese classrooms.
Due to the fact that studying literature in Vietnam has been going into “paths” in the
recent years, educators have looked into this problem and trying to solve it. Particularly,
Vietnamese literature testers have gradually changed into giving open exam questions on
exams on literature.
In the magazine “The Gioi Trong Ta” (2006) of the Mouthpiece of PsychologyEducation Science Association of Vietnam, Dr. Nguyen Thuy Hong shows that there has been
a change in testing literature in lower and upper high school examinations. To lower school
graduation examinations, testers pay attention to give questions in terms of exploring the
perception ability of students. In addition, the tests require students to analyze and criticize a

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literary work that they have learned before, and write an essay about some certain aspects like
lifestyle or morality, and so on. In higher school competitive examinations, testers ask students
to apply their knowledge about literature history, reasoning, criticizing and authors’ lives into
their tasks. In addition, such questions aim to test not a certain literary work, but in a higher

sphere, through intertextual reader- response questions, testers require students synthesize
knowledge of some of the contemporary literary works so that testers not only can examine
what students have learned but also their own ideas about the matters involved in those works.
These ways of giving questions on particular exams are to give chances to students to evoke
their free associations, feelings, encourage their creativity, and show their critical thinking.
As we see that Reader- Response Criticism approach has been put into practice in
English literature classes at Can Tho University. However, it is just applied through giving
tests in some certain examinations in elemantary, lower and higher schools in Viet Nam, but
the popular implication of this theory in classrooms in these schools is still minor.

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CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes how the research was designed. It includes the groups of
participants, the instruments used to do the research, research design, and the way to collect
and analyze the data.

3.1 Participants
There were 60 third-year-letter students of English, belonging to English Department, Can
Tho University, taking American literature course in the second semester, school year 20062007, and two literature teachers got involved in the research. These participants have spent
totally three semesters accustoming to and getting familiar with the theory Reader- Response
Criticism from the previous courses “Introduction To Literature” and “British Literature”.
However, only 49 students took part in the study at last because when the researcher came to
their classes to observe and deliver questionnaires, 11 students were absent.

3.2. Research instruments
Two kinds of instruments were used in this study; they were the questionnaire and

class observation. The statistical program Excel was used to analyze the data.

3.2.1. Questionnaire
The questionnaire consists of totally three main parts. The first part is the statement of
the researcher’s purpose of designing the questionnaire.
In the second part, the researcher provided students with a general definition of the
theory Reader-Response Criticism by Hans Robert Jauss (1980) so as to remind them clearly
and scientifically the method that they are applying in their study of literature.

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Multiple-choice questions and an open-ended question were designed to examine the
student’s critical thinking improvement in the last part.

3.2.2. Observation
The researcher designed the observation sheet as a tool to take notes activities in the
participants’ literature classes. The observation sheet consists of three main parts. The first
part is the statement of the reason for designing the sheet. The second part is about the
teacher’s activities, and in the last part, the students’ activities were mentioned. The material
teachers used to teach students was the course book “ American literature”, and when the
researcher came to the classes for observation, the teachers were teaching the lessons “ In
Another Country” by Ernest Hemingway, and and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell.

3.3 Research design
This research followed the quantitative and qualitative approach.

3.4 Procedure of data collection and interpretation
The researcher directly attended the four literature classes to observe their study in
class, and in the end of the class, she delivered questionnaire to students and collected right

away after they finished answering all of the questions. It took each person approximately 20
minutes to answer all of the questions.

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CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this chapter the researcher will analyze and discuss questionnaires collected and
students’ responses to some of the literary work that they were studying when the researcher
attended their classes for observation.

4.1 Questionnaire collection and discussions.
Among 49 students who answered question one, there were 24 students, making up to
48.98%, giving the correct answers. Ten students circled choice “c”, covering 20.4%; and 7
students assumed that choice “b” was correct. While one student thought that choice, “a” was
right and the rest of students chose “d as their best answers. Although choice “e” is the best
answer, other answers are also correct because all of the statements that the researcher
designed are definitions of critical thinking from critics. The number of students answer
question one are described in Table 4.1.1

Choice

Statement

Total

Percent

a

Critical thinking is a diverse
cognitive process and associated
attitudes critical to intelligent
action in diverse situations and
fields (Glock,1987)

1

2.04%

b

Critical thinking is the capacity of
unifying and making connections
in one’s experience; following an
extended line of thought through
propositional,
thematic,
or
symbolic development; engaging
in mature moral reasoning and

8

16.32%

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forming judgments of quality and
taste (Donaldlazere,1987)

c

Critical thinking includes such act
as
formulating
hypothesis,
alternative ways of viewing a
problem,
questions,
possible
solutions, plans for investing
something.
(Ennis, 1991)

10

d

Critical
thinking
is
the
individual’s ability to identify
central issues and assumptions in
an argument, making correct
inference from data, interpreting

whether conclusions are warranted
on the basis of the data given,
evaluate evidence, recognize
important
relationship,
etc.
(Pascardla and Terenzini,1991)

7

e

All of the above

24

20.4%

14.24%

48.98%

Table 4.1.1 The quantity of students’ understanding about critical thinking.
We see that 24 students of 49 partly have a quite complete general knowledge of
critical thinking. However, this does not mean that the other students who chose other answers
do not know anything about critical thinking, but while they were studying literature, these
students used their critical thinking in the process which is nearly the same as the processes of
thinking which are formed by critics.
In fact, all of the choices of critical thinking of 49 students show that their critical
thinking is various and profound. Therefore, they expressed their thinking very critically in

question ten, an open-ended question. Followings are some of forty-nine ideas for the
question.

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Ideas

Agree

Question 10

Question Student
1

-

The princess does not want to
“LOSE” her love, so she will signal
the young man to the door with the
tiger inside.
- In a barbaric society, love might
be the only hopeful thing that can
help people to get over the separation
of the upper class to the lower one.
Love exists forever no matter what a
person is in. The man never dies.
- Everyone is selfish in love, and the
princess is, too. If the man cannot
live with her, he “MUST” die.

- People have to lose sometimes in
love; the princess will lose her love
for
her
father’s
barbaric
characteristics.
- The young man has no way to
escape from the barbaric king if he
loves his daughter.
- The princess certainly has a part of
her father’s characteristics, so she
will keep the man for herself by
showing him the door with the tiger.
- The man will face death, and that is
the only way to keep his love to the
princess. When you truly love
someone
you
can
sacrifice
everything for her or him.
- It is hard to explain why everyone is
selfish in love, but there is no doubt
that people can share everything
except for love.

e

27

e

12

e

30

e

48

e

8

c

1

c

36

c

41

- Life is not as beautiful as we think

and love is, too. Being a loser in love
is normal.
- The tiger behind the door is a
challenge for a man.

b

43

b

15

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Disagree

- The man “MUST” die if he cannot
live with the princess.

b

31

- Every detail in the story support the
barbarism, I strongly believe that the
princess will kill her love.

d

47

- Love does not mean “possession”.
The princess cannot live for herself
and witness her lover die.
- There will be no beautiful girl
behind any doors, but only tigers
because the king does not want his
daughter to get married with such an
every man.
- Because of the generosity of the
princess, she will be happy with the
happiness of her true lover.
Therefore, the young man will not be
dead and marry the lady inside the
door.
- I like something happier and more
joyful than this ending because I
myself was in such a miserable
situation when my parents did not
allow me to have any special
relationship with my boyfriend.
- The man may win the tiger but he
will not marry the lady because he
will determinedly insist the king on
giving another favor. Probably the
man would have to fight against a
monster to win the barbaric king.
- Happy endings of stories make

readers’ views of real life more
beautiful and joyful.
- There is no boundary in love, or
distinguishment between the rich and
the poor. The man has no mistake
when he loves the princess. If he can
not marry her he will meet another
beautiful lady, not the death.
- If the king really wants to kill the
young man, he could be very

e

37

e

46

e

13

e

16

e

21

e

20

c

3

c

10

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