Research on the Nature of Literary Criticism

Author(s): Lois N. Nelson

Source: The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 67, No. 6 (Mar., 1967), pp. 323-328
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1001032
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LOIS N. NELSON

San Francisco State College

Research on the Nature of Literary Critici

The evaluation of written composi-

The need for basic research to sup-
tions has long been done at a mystical
port current practices in the teaching
ofjudg-
level. Criteria implicit in literary written expression has been stressed
ments have been disguised by the and Mulry (1), DeBoer (2),
by Shane
and Meckel (3). Shane states:
highly subjective nature of the evalua-
tive process; for an appraisal of a
"Interest in creative writing con-
novel, a musical score, or a work ofto be high, but definitive re-
tinues
art requires value judgments-value search in the area remains at a low
judgments of an aesthetic product. ebb (1: 64).
Therefore, if one's reactions to a "There is literature available which
written composition are to be justified, hopefully presents viewpoints and
it is necessary to identify the atti- techniques for helping children learn
tudes, feelings, or values that are basic to write creatively, but there is little
to the judgment. The empirical prob-if any basic research to substantiate
lems inherent in this type of research these positions with evidence" (1: 61).
are complex and numerous. The move- Research is needed on the teaching
ment toward objective linguistic eval-of composition and on concomitant
uation has been further thwarted bypupil learnings. DeBoer cites the lack
the philosophical point of view, heldof research on the evaluation of writ-
by many scholars and school people,ing abilities: "Little substantial evi-
that the creative process and the crea- dence has appeared within the last
tive product are not quantifiable. Some three years to indicate progress in the
scholars of English argue that attempts objective evaluation of students' writ-
to objectify criteria in the affectiveing abilities" (2: 164).
domain may invade individuality and The present investigation was de-
lead to the categorization of intuitionsigned to assess judgments, made by
or of creativity itself. Small wonder,professors of English and elementary-
then, that there is an absence of basic school teachers, as to the quality of
research in this field of study: thechildren's language products and, at
practical and the theoretical problemsthe same time, to identify the criteria
are formidable. implicit in the evaluations. The judg-
323

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324 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL March 1967

ments of elementary-school teachers

mary grades through the junior college
and professors of English were chosen
or university level. Eight of the twenty
for the study because differences in regular or provisional out-of-state
held
their judgments might be attributedcredentials;
to nine held regular Califor-
nia teaching credentials.
differences in the value systems basic
to their assessment. It was thought The university instructors of Eng-
that teachers of elementary-school lish or speech ranked from teaching
pupils might place greater emphasisassistant to associate professor. Two
held Doctor of Philosophy degrees,
on the quantity of writing or the me-
chanics of written expression than and
on two held Master of Arts degrees.
The length of teaching experience
the content or the quality of writing.
ranged from two to nine years at the
Professors of English and speech might
view content or quality of writing as
college or university level. The mean
more significant than mechanics. Two was 8.25 years.
major questions were explored: The instrument used to elicit judg-
Will elementary-school teachers and ments of the literary quality of written
compositions was a modified Q sort.
professors of English differ significant-
ly in their rankings of children's lan-
The Q-technique has been successfully
guage products? used in personality assessment. Shel-
don and Sorenson state:
Will the criteria used in this literary
criticism differ significantly with the ". . Q-technique would appear to
different professional groups sampled?offer educators a means of dealing
The design of this study involvedmore systematically with some of
sampling elementary-school teacherstheir evaluation problems .... (4: 2).
and professors of English to compare "Q-technique permits appraisal of
the beliefs, attitudes, values and self-
their judgments of the quality of writ-
ten compositions. The first sample concepts
was of individual students in a
a group of twenty elementary-schoolway not provided for by conventional
teachers enrolled in a graduate course
psychological tests and inventories.
in language arts at the University Consequently
of it offers educators a
California, Los Angeles, duringmeansthe of solving problems of meas-
urement which could not heretofore
summer of 1964. For comparison, four
professors of English and speech atbe
thedealt with .... (4: 19).
University of California, Los Angeles,"... Q-technique can be applied in
were sampled during the fall of 1964.
many intriguing ways to important
Data on the group of teachers indi-
problems of educational measurement.
It is highly feasible to use Q-tech-
cated that of the twenty teachers sam-
pled, ten held a Bachelor of Arts nique
de- with groups of students-in-
deed, for some purposes, the tech-
gree and ten held a Bachelor of Science
degree. The mean number of years ot is more flexible and less time-
nique
consuming than conventional meth-
teaching experience was 5.20, ranging
from teaching experience in the ods"
pri- (4: 19).

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 WRITING 325

ucts.
The Q-technique was selected be-The compositions were to be
cause this measure provides a method
sorted into three categories: superior,
for objectifying some of the subjective
equal, or inferior when compared with
elements of content and style inall
com-
the products in the group. The pro-
position not assessed by conventional
fessors of English and the elementary-
measures. This approach to theschool
evalu-teachers were then asked to
ation of written expression also pro-
rank the products within each category
from
vides a way of circumventing 1 to 10. Rank 1 was to be as-
one
problem basic to the evaluation of ato the best product and rank 10
signed
literary product. That problemtoisthe the worst in each category. At the
lack of agreement among authoritiessame time, judges were asked to
in English as to the criteria that identify
should the criteria implicit in their
evaluations.
be basic to literary criticism. Thus, Thus, rank and criteria
the design of the study facilitatedwere obtained simultaneously.
judging the quality of writing and, The data
at obtained for the two meas-
ures were processed separately. On
the same time, identifying the criteria
implicit in the judgments. the first measure, ranking of products,
The present Q sort was derived
it was necessary to create a composite
ranking for each group of judges be-
from an earlier instrument of fifty-two
language products secured from thir-
fore any comparisons could be made,
teen children of primary age enrolled
because of the discrepancy in the num-
in the University Elementary School,
ber of judges in each group. First, the
median ranking for each product was
University of California, Los Angeles,
during the 1961-62 school year (5).
determined for each group of judges.
From the fifty-two language products,
Then these thirty medians were ranked
thirty were selected to make separately
up the for each group of judges.
(See Table 1.) These median rankings
instrument used in the present study.
The fifty-two products were became
sortedthe composite rankings needed
into piles that represented various
to compute rank order coefficients of
correlation.
forms of written expression: descrip-
tions and verse; short stories, folkWhen the rank order coefficient of
tales, and science fiction; newscorrelation
writ- was computed, using Tau,
ing, reports, and records. From theeach
coefficient of correlation was found
pile a proportional representation
to bewas
.60, with a z value of 4.65, which
chosen at random by using numberswas significant at the .001 level of
selected from One Million Random confidence. This result meant that the
Digits by the Rand Corporation (6).rankings of these two professional
The thirty products selected then be-groups were significantly related to
came a random stratified sample. each other in a positive manner. It is
Each of the thirty compositions wasalso evident from an inspection of
typed on a separate card, and judges Table 1, which shows the rank of the
were asked to sort and rank the prod-medians, that the two groups seemed

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326 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL March 1967

judges, a list made up of similar items

to rank the thirty products in a similar
way. was developed. Criteria on the list
The second phase of the study con-were classified into eight major areas:
Quality of Writing (Style), Develop-
sisted of correlating the criteria used
by the two groups of judges in evalu-ment of Ideas, Content, Sentence
Structure, Mechanics, Grammar, Spell-
ating the written compositions. Before
ing, and Volume. A frequency distri-
comparing the criteria used by the two

TABLE 1. Rank of Median Ratings of Written Compositions Made by

Elementary-School Teachers and Professors of English
ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL PROFESSORS OF
NUMBER OF TEACHERS ENGLISH
PRODUCT Rank Median Rank Median
2 1 2.5 1.5 3.5
10 2 5.17 20.5 19.5
13 3 6.0 8 8.0
22 4.5 7.0 3 5.0
23 4.5 7.0 1.5 3.5
18 6 8.5 11 11.5
4 7 8.7 15 15.5
6 8 9.0 6 6.5
1 9 9.5 7 7.0
20 10 11.0 4.5 5.5
17 11 12.0 24.5 22.0
19 12 12.17 9 9.0
27 13 12.5 12 13.0
21 14 13.0 4.5 5.5
8 15 14.0 24.5 22.0
3 16 15.0 10 9.5
14 17 15.5 22 20.0
12 18 16.0 13 13.5
24 19 18.5 17 18.5
9 20.5 19.5 14 14.5
28 20.5 19.5 20.5 19.5
11 22 20.0 16 17.5
30 23 21.5 18.5 19.0
5 24.5 22.0 23 21.0
16 24.5 22.0 18.5 19.0
15 26 22.5 26 24.0
26 27 23.0 28 26.0
29 28 24.0 29 26.5
25 29 25.5 27 25.5
7 30 26.5 30 29.83

sets of judges, it
bution was tabulated, and was
the rankings
develop a from
list each criterion
ofwere computed.
crite
represent Bythe range
using Kendell's of
rank-order correla-
tion coefficient,
to assess the merits the value of Tau
of was
This list evolved from the criteria found to be .54. A z value of 1.86 was
significant at the .05 level of confi-
identified by the two groups as basic
to their judgments. After analysisdence.
of These findings suggest that the
criteria
the criteria cited by both groups of used by the two groups are

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 WRITING 327

significantly related to each other the

in auniversity level, generalists as
positive way; the more one group well as specialists in English or speech,
used a criterion, the more the other
select the same written compositions
group tended to use the same criterion.
of primary children as superior or in-
These elementary-school teachersferior. The findings also confirm con-
and professors of English agreed on in the criteria implicit in these
sensus
judgments. Both groups tend to value
the products they rated as superior or
inferior in quality, and they qualitative
also criteria more highly than
quantitative or mechanical criteria.
agreed on the criteria basic to their
judgments. An inspection of Table
This2finding suggests that the value
indicates that both elementary-school
system of the two groups sampled may
be more similar than different. On the
teachers and professors of English
basis
ranked the quality of writing and theof these data, one would have to
development of ideas as the criteria
reject the notion that there is a basic

TABLE 2. Per Cents of Times Each Criterion Was Used by Elementary-School Teachers and Pro
of English in Judging Written Compositions
PER CENT OF TIMES CRITERION WAS USED
Develop- Sentence
GROUP Quality of ment of Con- Struc- Me- Gram- Spell-
SAMPLED Writing (Style) Ideas tent ture chanics mar ing Volume
Elementary-School
Teachers 35.5 24.7 11.1 6.9 12.8 2.9 3.6 2.5
Professors of English 50.7 40.0 3.3 0.0 0.0 2.7 3.3 0.0

most frequently used difference in judging between the lan-

emphasis of
guage performance. Asacademicians Table working
2 shows, in the humani-
60.2 and 90.7 per centtiesof the
and the times,
emphasis of elementary-
elementary-school teachers and
school teachers pro-
working daily with
fessors of English used the
children. Thecriteria
only difference in em-
Quality of Writingphasis and Develop-
appears to be in the mechanics
ment of Ideas in judging of writing, a standard that is more
compositions.
The criterion on which the two valued by elementary-school teachers
groups differed significantly is Me-
than by professors of English. The
chanics of Writing. For the teachers'
teachers' emphasis on such mechanics
group this criterion ranks third; for
as punctuation, capitalization, and par-
the professors of English groupagraphing
this may be an outcome of the
criterion ranks seventh, tied with
curriculum loadings at certain grade
Sentence Structure and Volume, levelsason these skills. Societal pres-
sures
the criterion least frequently used by together with an abundance of
professors of English in judginginstructional
com- aids, particularly text-
positions. books, that emphasize proficiency in
The findings suggest that teachers, language usage and form, may account
at the elementary-school level and at for teachers' concern with these lin-

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328 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL March 1967

guistic skills in written compositions. oncile qualitative standards with a

One might ask several questions reward system that values perfection
about the relevance of these findings in structure and form.
to curriculum-planning in the language
arts. If college professors of English REFERENCES

and elementary-school teachers agree 1. Harold Shane and June

that the qualitative aspects of written Language Arts Instruction
expressions are most important, are Washington, D.C.: Assoc
vision and Curriculum D
these qualitative standards being main-
2. John DeBoer. "Compos
tained in schools where creative writ-
and Spelling," Review o
ing is minimized and compositions are search, 31 (April, 1961),
graded on excellence in grammatical3. Henry Meckel. "Rese
usage and mechanics of writing? If the Composition and Literat
quality of language is of prime im- Research on Teaching, pp
go: Rand McNally, 1963
portance, is not a disproportionate4. Stephen Sheldon and G
amount of time spent each day on the the Use of Q-Technique in
structural and mechanical aspects of tion and Research. Santa M
language? How many language lessons System Development Cor
5. Lois Nelson. "The Effect of Classroom In-
are devoted to developing quality in
teraction on Pupil Linguistic Performance."
pupils' products?
Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Los
If educators really value the quality Angeles: University of California, 1964.
of language, curriculum reform is in
6. Rand Corporation. One Million Random
the offing. For it is impossible to rec- Digits. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955.

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