ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to reveal the subject trends of university students according to species. This is a qualitative study based on document review. The data of the study was obtained from 67 volunteering in-service Turkish teachers’ worksheets. The worksheets were classified according to text types. Text types were determined based on the opinions of three experts in the field. Text types were classified in the following order: 1. Story, 2. poem, 3. memoir, 4. biography, 5. travel and 6. essay. The study group comprised of 67 volunteering third grade pre-service teachers studying at Turkish Education. The teacher candidate was used to mean a student who is studying at the faculty of education. Students were coded 1F (female student in the first place), 2M (male student in the second place). Students wrote essay every two weeks for a period of 12 weeks. Students were given an average of forty minutes for each text type. Each student was coded and subjects written were classified based on main themes. Three copies of subjects were made and given to three scholars. The papers were evaluated in terms of subjects and subjects were evaluated in terms of frequency. Next, content analysis was performed for codes and themes. As a result, it was discovered that pre-service teachers chose to change subject based on the type of texts and it was shown that it was effective in the variation of subjects.
Key words: Turkish, subject disposition, types of text.
Writing skill is regarded as the language area which develops the last and the hardest of all other language skills (Demirel, 1999; Ozbay, 2007; Sever, 2004). The reason for this is that this skill has different scopes as compared to the others (Raine et al., 2011). It has aspects including psychological, physical, physiological and sociological processes. Within this context, since the skill and habit of writing require a long time and several abilities, students tend to announce it as an undesired skill. This can be attributed to the fact that writing has different levels of knowledge and learning. It is known that students generally have difficulty in expressing themselves in written language in their daily life (Yalcın et al., 2010; Hamarta et al., 2010). Students that experience problems while talking, experience even more while writing. It is required for a student to have sufficient amount of vocabulary and writing skill to make writing a habit (Deane et al., 2008; Yigzaw, 2013).Students can express their emotions and their thoughts in different ways (Yalcın and Sengul, 2007). Tools used by human beings since first ages to express themselves have constantly changed (Tekin, 2016; Alp, 2009). This change has varied from literature to history, medicine to astronomy. Considering how individuals have expressed themselves in different periods, it is seen that they did so sometimes through poems, paintings or texts. Therefore, thoughts have been transferred constantly through different dimensions throughout history. One can use different types of texts while expressing himself in written language. The use of types affects the motion and change of an individual’s emotions and thoughts. Emotions and thoughts are used in the types of texts in which they can be expressed more effectively. Within this context, it is imperative that theoretical and practical studies should be conducted in education and instruction with regards to the use of the types of text. It is crucial that studies on the students’ disposition of types in elementary school should be done. By conducting studies on students’ disposition of types in elementary school, future researches can be supported. Together with this, determining the subjects based on students’ psychological, mental and sociological development and using them in educational settings will contribute to developing students’ writing skills. This study was conducted for the purpose of determining the students’ subject disposition. Subjects and genres are determined by six experts. Responses to the following questions were sought in line with these goals:
1. Is selection of subjects differentiated according to the story type?
2. Is selection of subjects differentiated according to the poem type?
3. Is selection of subjects differentiated according to the memoir type?
4. Is selection of subjects differentiated according to the biography?
5. Is selection of subjects differentiated according to the travel writing type?
6. Is selection of subjects differentiated according to the essay type?
This is a study with a survey model, which was conducted via document examination. Data obtained were subjected to content analysis. Content analysis was interpreted by associating the data (Yıldırım and Simsek, 2013).
Working group
The study group comprised 67 volunteer third grade pre-service teachers studying at Turkish Education. Teacher candidates are used as students who study at the faculty of education. Students were coded 1F (female student in the first place) and 2M (male student in the second place).
Data collection tools
Determination of printed papers
The writing subjects were determined with the common opinion of three scholars. It means what is said on the subject. The type was used in the sense of experiment, article and story. The topics are printed in the following order: 1. story, 2. poem, 3. memoir, 4. biography, 5. travel 6. essay.
Student’s papers
Students wrote essay every two weeks for a period of 12 weeks. Students were given 40 min for each type. Subjects chosen by students were classified based on themes. The students chose the subjects. Six field experts were identified. Subjects collected under a code written by students who work on similar subjects and which cannot be taken under any code were directly given. The subjects cover include: family code, interfamilial misunderstandings, childhood, friendship relationships, events in the environment, family picnics, helping each other, sightseeing, health code, health problems, school code, graduation, escape from school, in-class events, teacher behaviors, school report, passing exams and school memories. Other codes are taken directly.
Assessment of student’s papers
Three copies were made out of worksheets and given to the scholars. They were evaluated in terms of subjects and the subjects were classified in terms of frequency.
Analysis of data
The codes and themes were evaluated by content analysis. The codes and themes are classified according to the specified topics. Girls are coded "F" (female) and men "M" (male). The findings were interpreted according to codes and themes.
Limitations
The study is limited to stories, poems, memoirs, biographies, travels and essays.
Finding a subject and writing fluently on that subject could be mentioned as a challenge by the students. Subject disposition of students according to text types are shown Table 1. As seen in the table, students tended to choose subjects with more social aspect for their writing. Subjects that Turkish pre-service teachers chose according to the type of text are demonstrated in the Table 2. The choice of subjects that directly affect life in written narratives of students can be interpreted in relation to their age level.
It was discovered that students chose different subjects. The subject dispositions of the students could be the ones they were experiencing in their daily life.
It was noticed that students tended to write on different subjects after selecting the story type. The first five subjects most frequently chosen by the students in the story type are interesting. The subjects are as follows: 1. Friendship (10); 2. loneliness, (7); 3. longing (5) and success (5); 4. love (4) and patience (4); 5. love (3). Values such as loyalty, responsibility, death, happiness and honesty are in this list. The other subjects chosen were dreaming, travel, lies, hope, usury, vacation, not listening to advice, regret, school, hate, compassion, curiosity, gifts, peace, the importance of humanity, escape and heroism. The fact that pre-service Turkish teachers studying at 3rd grade chose their subjects from social values is important in terms of their personality development.
It is also shown that pre-service teachers tend to choose different subjects while writing poems. The five most chosen subjects for poems are as follow: 1. Loneliness (30); 2. love (15); 3. longing (11); 4. serenity, love, imagination, nature (2); 5. peace, death, hope (1). It is seen that pre-service teachers used the family concept a lot while writing memoirs. The following list is seen when they are ranked: 1. Family (37); 2. school (25); 2. business (2);3. health, friendship, animal love (1). It was also realized that pre-service teachers tended to choose the following subjects while writing biographies. 1. Poet (17), 2. author (15), 3. scientist artist (10), 5. sportsman (9). Other topics are listed below. Other topics are businessmen and teachers.
It is seen that pre-service teachers used different subjects while writing essays. The five most chosen subjects of poems are as follow: 1. Friendship (12), 2. time (8), 3. loneliness and imagination (6), 4. success, romance, love and life (4), 5. nature (3). Other topics listed are maturity, hospitality, childhood, the importance of life, technology, sport, health, happiness, tolerance, future, education system, friendship and habit. It is seen that the greatest variety in subjects is presented in the essay type. In this kind, the individual is concerned with the front plan.
The first five cities chosen by the Turkish pre-service teachers are as follows in their travel essays: 1. Usak (11), 2. İstanbul and Denizli (6), 3. Eskisehir (5), 4. Mugla, Antalya and İzmir (4), 5. Manisa, Ankara and Sanlıurfa (3). Other places in travel essays are as follows: Mersin, Konya, Canakkale, Amasya, Sakarya, Sivas, Ordu, Mardin, Aydın, Agrı, Balıkesir, Burdur, Bursa and Elazıg. Although, students came from different places, the city of Usak was in the first place, which may be the result of the fact that students live there.
Several factors influence the development of writing skills (Chokwe, 2013; Endut et al., 2016; Peder and Majnemer 2007; Cifci, 2001). The subject of the text has a significant place among these factors. The student’s interest in the subject may affect the student’s enthusiasm for positive or negative writing (Schneider and Andre, 2005; Engın, 2014; Marzban and Jalali, 2016; Rad, Khojasteh and Kafipour, 2014; Woody et al., 2014). It is not possible for students to write on subjects they do not like. Particularly, there is research on what kind of literature type increase the willingness of a student to write (Hismanoglu, 2005; Graham, 2008; Mintz, 2004). This study shows that students varied in terms of subjects they chose to write about. It is seen that students believed one of the most easily written type of text is story. While students write stories, it was observed that their subjects were different. Students chose “friendship and loneliness” as the subjects of stories. Subjects chosen were parallel to the students’ social development.
It was also discovered that students chose less subjects when they were writing poems than when they were writing stories. Poem is regarded as people’s way of expressing their personal emotions, thoughts and states in a subjective way. It is a type of writing that shows one’s skills because the ability to write poetry can vary from person to person. When these types of texts are examined, they emphasized subjects like "loneliness", "love" and "longing". Students mainly focused on abstract concepts. This is closely related to the students’ emotional state.
Memoirs are series of archives representing important sections of one’s life. This series sometimes include childhood, sometimes family or school or at times it includes unexpected events. In this study, the most frequent written code was “family. Because one of the most common values of life can be family values.
Biography is one of the text types that transfer the lives of people who came to front in the society from generation to generation. It has a nature of historical documentary and gives the clues for success while transmitting life experiences systematically. This type of text is one of the main forms that affect students mostly and guide them in their lives. The use of high quality biographies particularly in education and instruction is significant in this context. Students have shown trends such as "writer", "poet" and "scientist".
This type of essay requires high level of experience and know-how, although it is thought that it is the easiest to write among all literary types. This type of writing shows that the individual has reached a level of maturity and it makes one’s sharing meaningful. One can write an essay on almost all subjects. Subject variation can be more in this type than the other types. It is seen that students mostly chose the subject of “friendship” when writing an essay. It can be said that other subjects varied depending on students’ personal preferences.
Travel writing is one of the types of written expression by which people share their observations about the places they visit. This type of writing is the main tool appropriate for the principle of experience and living in education. Students’ skill to describe a place or an object develops through this type of writing. It also makes the students to express abstract concepts by making them concrete. The city chosen the most in this study by the students was the city of Usak, then Istanbul. It can be interpreted that students chose Usak as the subject for their travel writing because they lived in that city.
In conclusion, it is shown that as the type of text changed, the subjects chosen by the students’ changed as well. This shows that education and instruction should support students at all levels with similar studies. One of the most important findings that came to the forefront as the subject disposition of students in all text types was friendship, loneliness and friendship because the students considered them important. This finding is parallel to students’ current level of social and cognitive development. It is thought that making various studies would be beneficial in other grades and levels for text types written by students.
The author has not declared any conflicts of interest.
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