Turkish Language and Literature education between 1940 and 1960

Literature is the art in which thoughts and feelings are expressed orally or written in an appropriate manner with aesthetics and sense of beauty. Literature education is the work of training individuals who have advanced aesthetic pleasure, critical thinking skills and perspectives and can use the language accurately and express their feelings and ideas with good expression and transform them into creativity by applying their literary knowledge. Literature education is considerably important in terms of these qualities that are supposed to improve artistic admiration, expression of cultural values in a concrete way, utterance experiences with different care. In addition to this, the main aim of the education is to educate individuals who can understand what they have read and express what they have understood. Literature contributes to accessing to their minds, mental and moral developments through education. Literature education not only introduces students to literary works, but also aims to help them gain knowledge and love of literature through these literature resources. At the same time, by introducing literary resources of current period, it provides that they are interested in theories related to literature and current issues in the field. All of these developments affect written and oral expression skills of individuals. In this sense, literature education plays a crucial role in revealing a sense of beauty in the individual, developing and enhancing it. Moreover, such education contributes to educating individuals who have gained good speaking and accurate writing skills and tact and sense of beauty. In this study, the development process of Turkish Language and Literature education was examined between the years 1940-1960. This study also deals with education studies, carried out after the proclamation of the republic, education system, teaching programs, secondary school institutions and course books. The topics discussed within the specified time were examined by consıdering the information provided by other researchers. Key Words: Turkish Language and Literature education, curriculum