Journal of Educational Practice and Research (Jun 2023)
A Study on Chinese Poetry Reading Characteristics and Strategies of High School Students
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the reading characteristics and strategies of high school students regarding Chinese poetry. Students from three public high schools in northern Taiwan were selected for this investigation. Through analyzing students’ poetry reading and interview data, the researcher closely examines variations in students’ engagement with poetry. The findings are as follows: In terms of reading characteristics, students generally find it challenging to understand words with special contextual meanings and associations. Those with better reading abilities demonstrate proficiency in recognizing words in poetic lines and offer unique insights when interpreting poetry. Students with average reading abilities are able to grasp the general content but struggle with abstract implications. Conversely, those with weaker reading abilities lack foundational reading skills and show limited inferences and imagination in textual analysis. In terms of poetry reading strategies, students are able to connect clues across poetry lines through elements such as people, events, time, places, and objects, and they mutually expound and supplement between the overall theme and the nuanced connotations of individual words. Students with higher reading abilities focus on unique writing features, imagery arrangement, and poetic structure, facilitating independent reading. Average readers recognize important poetic imagery and focus on the implications of the poem’s ending in relation to the poet’s attitude, whereas weaker readers tend to interpret poems word by word. The researcher, in the end, summarizes how students of varying reading abilities employ different poetry-reading strategies, thereby developing their own unique poetry-reading characteristics. The study concludes with two instructional suggestions for high school Chinese teachers: 1) Use stylistic elements of poetic genres to design and organize the teaching themes, aiding the development of systematic poetry reading strategies. 2) Adjust teaching content and methods flexibly based on students’ reading levels and learning needs to enhance their understanding of poetry.
