Death theme in children's literature (A reader oriented research)

This research was conducted to determine the responses of fifth-graders to the death-themed works of children's literature. Qualitative research has been carried out to understand how they perceive the death they encounter in children's literature. Phenomenology was used in the research. This pattern is preferred because it is the most suitable qualitative pattern for the determination of experience and perceptions. The working group consists of 17 individuals. Research has been done with Atatürk School Fifth grade students in Artvin city center. According to the forms of death, the five death-themed works of art in different categories were read together with the working group in the classroom for a period and the children's responses to the work were determined in various ways. The works are divided into sickness, accident, no-killing, death for purpose and forced killing; the students' reaction against each piece was tried to be understood by observing, interviewing and writing expressions of the students. Then the content was analyzed by content analysis technique. In order to increase the validity and reliability, literacy autobiographies, library records and literacy biographies written by Turkish teachers were used. In order to identify the factors that elicited the reactions afterwards, the results obtained for each subject were examined in relation to participants' reading habits, recent experiences related to death and gender. Remembrance talks were held after a period of readings. These interviews aim to determine how students remember the works. The study found the following conclusions: participants' reaction to death led to categories such as emotional escape, logical escape, direct escape, indirect escape, acceptance, change. It has been determined that these responses differ according to the level of reading habits, gender, and recent experience with death.