The effects of summarization strategy on efl students reading comprehension of literary prose texts m a

ABSTRACT This study investigated the effects of summarization strategy, applied to story summary writing, on Hoa Sen University EFL students’ reading comprehension of short stories.. LIS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF SUMMARIZATION STRATEGY

ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION

OF LITERARY PROSE TEXTS

Submitted to the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS &LITERATURE

In partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF SUMMARIZATION STRATEGY

ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION

OF LITERARY PROSE TEXTS

Submitted to the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS &LITERATURE

In partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis

is my own work The thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes I certify that the content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged

Ho Chi Minh City, May 20th, 2014

Lê Thị Hiếu

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL,

I accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities relating to the retention and use of the thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree the original version of the thesis to be copied in whole or in part without further reference to the author, by the Department’s Library or the English Resource Center (ERC), for study and research purposes only, subject to normal conditions of the acknowledgement

Ho Chi Minh City, May 20th, 2014

Lê Thị Hiếu

I am also grateful to Dr Nguyen Thu Huong for his valuable comments and suggestions Getting to know him and work under his wing at Hoa Sen University have been a special opportunity for me

My thanks also go to many teachers in the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, who have made possible the expansion of my knowledge and academic development during the TESOL course

I also wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my special class-mate, Trinh Hoang Yen, who supported me and made the implementation of my research possible I am also indebted to the 34 Literature students who joined in my experiment in my investigation

I appreciate the friendship of many individuals for their warm friendship and support me through highs and lows of my work My heartfelt thanks also go to other class-mates who have accompanied me over the research years

Finally I would like to dedicate this thesis to my beloved ones for their love and encouragement that have been indispensable for maintaining my morale when

I met with health problems during my research

Lê Thị Hiếu

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effects of summarization strategy, applied to story summary writing, on Hoa Sen University EFL students’ reading comprehension of short stories It also examined the students’ attitudes towards the summary writing task and their problems in doing the task The participants for this study were 34 third-year English major students enrolled in an introductory course in Literature at Hoa Sen University The students were from an intact Literature class

The data used for the study were the students’ scores on a reading comprehension test, written questionnaires with 34 respondents and entries of the student’s feedback (93 writings) The comparison of means scores between pretest and posttest revealed that the students benefitted more by reading short stories with summary writing More importantly, the findings showed that there was a statistically significantly difference on reading comprehension of short stories before and after the training Furthermore, half of the students reported they had positive attitudes towards the task while the rest showed their neutral or negative responses The findings also indicated most of the students had difficulties in summary and writing skills when doing the task

This study suggests that reading short stories and writing summaries may improve students’ text comprehension The findings have implications for the direct and explicit instruction of story summary writing, and writing can be a tool for improving reading comprehension The thesis makes recommendations for future research on EFL students in an introductory literature class by considering the possibility of using more writing tasks and different text types

Key words: summarization strategy, reading, reading comprehension,

plot, summary writing, writing skills

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY i

RETENTION OF USE ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Statement of the Problem 2

1.3 Purposes of the Study 3

1.4 Research Questions 4

1.5 Significance of the Study 4

1.6 Definitions of Terms 5

1.7 Scope and Limitation of the study 5

1.8 Outline of the Thesis 6

1.9 Summary 6

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 8

2.1 ESL/EFL Reading Comprehension 8

2.1.1 Nature of Reading 9

2.1.2 Purposes of Reading 9

2.1.3 Reading Processing… 10

2.1.4 Factors in Comprehension 11

2.1.4.1 Reader factors in comprehension 12

2.1.4.2 Text Factors in Comprehension 12

2.1.4.3 Instructional Factors in Comprehension 13

2.1.5 Bloom’s Taxonomy on Comprehension… 13

2.1.6 Reading Comprehension Strategies 15

2.2 Literary Prose Texts 17

2.2.1 Definition of literary prose text 17

2.2.2 Literary Prose Text structure and features 20

2.2.3 Reading comprehension of literary prose texts 23

2.3 Approaches to teaching literary texts 24

2.3.1 Maley’s Approach 24

2.3.2 Carter and Long’s Approach 25

2.3.3 Amer’s Approach 25

2.3.4 Van’s Approach 27

2.3.5 Timucin and Savvidou’s Integrated Approach 27

2.4 Summarization Strategy 28

2.4.1 Definition of Summarization 28

2.4.2 Summarizing, Paraphrasing and Retelling 29

2.4.3 Story Summary Writing 31

2.4.3.1 Story Elements in Summary Writing 31

2.4.3.2 Approaches to Summary Writing 33

2.4.3.2.1 Story Structure Approach 33

2.4.3.2.2 “Somebody-Wanted-But-So” Approach 34

2.4.3.3 Summary Writing Process 35

2.4.3.4 Evaluation of Summary Writing 36

2.4.3.4.1 Evaluation Criteria 36

2.4.3.4.2 Methods of summary evaluation 37

2.5 Previous Studies on Summarization and Summary Writing 38

2.6 Conceptual framework of the study 42

2.7 Summary 43

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 44

3.1 Research Design 44

3.2 Research Site 44

3.3 Participants 45

3.4 Research Instruments 45

3.4.1 The pilot study 45

3.4.1.1 Instruments 45

3.4.1.1.1 The RCT 45

3.4.1.1.2 The Questionnaire 46

3.4.1.2 Results of the pilot study 46

3.4.1.3 Implications for the Main Study 48

3.4.2 The Main Study 48

3.4.2.1 Tests 48

3.4.2.1.1 Pretest 48

3.4.2.1.2 Posttest 52

3.4.2.2 Questionnaire 52

3.4.2.3 Students’ Written Feedback 53

3.5 Data Collection Procedures 53

3.5.1 Phase 1 54

3.5.2 Phase 2 55

3.5.3 Phase 3 55

3.6 Data Analysis Methods 56

3.7 Summary 56

CHAPTER4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 57

4.1 RESULTS 57

4.1.1 Findings from the Reading Comprehension Test (RCT) 57

4.1.1.1 Pretest Results 57

4.1.1.2 Posttest Results 59

4.1.1.3 Participants’ Performance in Terms of Test types 60

4.1.1.4Effects of the Summarization Instruction on Reading Comprehension 62

4.1.2 Findings from the Questionnaire 63

4.1.2.1 Basic information about participants’ pre-class assignments 64

4.1.2.2 Students’ Attitudes towards perceived story summary and reading ability 65

4.1.2.3 Students’ Attitudes towards Summary task 67

4.1.2.4 Students’ Problems towards Summary task 69

4.1.2.5 Students’ Suggestions towards Summary 70

4.1.3 Findings from the Students’ Written Feedback 72

4.1.3.1 The First Entry of Feedback 72

4.1.3.2 The Second Entry of Feedback 74

4.1.3.3 The Third Entry of Feedback 75

4.2 DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS 76

4.2.1 Answer to Research Question 1 77

4.2.2 Answer to Research Question 2 77

4.2.2 Answer to Research Question 3 79

4.2.4 Discussion 80

4.3 SUMMARY 82

CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY OF FIDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 83

5.1 Summary 83

5 2 Implications 84

5.3 Strength and Limitation of the Study 86

5.4 Recommendations for Further Research 87

5.5 Conclusion 87

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Text Difficulty According to Students

Table 3.2 Pilot test’s Cronbach alpha coefficient

Table 3.3 Story Summary Rubrics

Table 4.1 Means, SD of Participants’ Performance on the Pretest

Table 4.2 Means, SD of Participants’ Performance on the Posttest

Table 4.3 Correlation coefficient of participants’ Pretest Results

Table 4.4 Correlation coefficient of participants’ Posttest Results

Table 4.5 Means, SD of Participants’ the Pretest and Posttest Results

Table 4.6 Comparison of Participants’ Performance on the Pretest and Posttest Table 4.7 Frequency and percentage of respondents’ pre-class assignments towards story reading and summary task

Table 4.8 Means of the Participants’ Attitudes in term of perceived Summary task Table 4.9 Means of the Participants’ Attitudes in Terms of perceived story Reading and Summary writing Ability

Table 4.10 Frequency/Percentage of Respondents’ Attitudes towards summary’s advantages

Table 4.11 Frequency/Percentage of Respondents’ Attitudes towards summary’s disadvantages

Table 4.12 Frequency, percentage of the participants’ problems in summarizing a story

Table 4.13 Students overall attitudes in the three writing entries of feedback

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Freytag’s Pyramid

Figure 2.2 Conceptual Framework

Figure 4.1 Pretest’s results

Figure 4.2 Posttest’s results

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS RCT = Reading Comprehension Test

SGA = Story Grammar Approach

EFL/ESL = English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

It is agreed that well-developed reading comprehension is the key to students’ academic success This comprehension ability is not a passive state which a learner possesses, but is an active mental process which needs to be nurtured and improved If the process is to occur, comprehension involves a complicated combination of skills

in which students utilize their understanding of various elements, how to find main ideas and details and make a distinction between the two As Clark (1982) believes this kind of active cognitive process of thinking and learning is accompanied by the reconstruction, interpretation, and evaluation of reading materials

The importance of academic reading has been recognized by many researchers Anderson (2000) stated that the ability to read academic texts is considered one of the most important skills that university students of EFL/ESL need to acquire Indeed, reading comprehension skill has come to be the “essence of reading” (Durkin, 1993), essential not only to academic learning in all subject areas but also to professional success and lifelong learning

However, due to the complexity inherent in the reading process, reading is also one of the most difficult skills to develop to a high level of proficiency (Grabe, 2002) Many students have difficulty in understanding what they read, particularly, in comprehending academic texts

Reading literary texts and writing summaries have recently received much attention in teaching an introductory course of literature This interest has evolved as researchers have attempted to describe fundamental processes, i.e forming a plot structure, that take place when readers comprehend and summarize a literary text In Vietnam, many university English Departments offer a wide range of courses including a required course in British and American literature Studying language for aesthetic purposes

enables students to enjoy literary texts at a level suitable to their language proficiency and develops in them the ability to express themselves creatively” (Nadia, 2003) Students need large amounts of comprehensible input, and reading many literary texts provide the most readily available source Stephen Krashen (1982) states that introductory courses of literature provide students with interesting and comprehensible language input in a low anxiety setting, i.e texts that are based on a narrative genre like novels, short stories Therefore, reading and understanding literary texts written in different cultural and historical periods require skills, information, and imagination Readers have to rely on their prior knowledge and world experience when trying to comprehend the texts The reading process, therefore, involves identification of the text genre, text structure and topic, all of which activate schemata and allow readers to comprehend the texts successfully

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Students majoring in English at Hoa Sen University are often assumed to be proficient readers, and writers of the foreign language when they reach an introductory course in British and American Literature However, the fact is that very few students meet this assumed standard of proficiency in this course, and many students are unable to understand the assigned texts (Redmann, 2005) As a matter of fact, what the students often lack is experience with the target language, especially when reading literary texts Their L2 reading of literary texts could be somewhat slower and less successful than L1 reading because of the levels of readers’ proficiency, text difficulty, and task demands (Alderson, 2000)

Meanwhile, the relationship between reading and writing has long been recognized, and it is agreed that reading and writing cannot be separated Reading and writing interaction has received considerable attention from theorists and researchers Findings of research in L2 reading and writing repeat each other to a large degree Many researchers point out that successful L2 readers and writers use similar strategies interactively in reading and repeatedly in writing In contrast, according to Leki (1997), less successful readers and writers seem to do the same thing They

access the text on the page rather than the meaning potential of that text, the forms of the letters and words rather than the important connections between them

Up to now, language skills are still mostly taught as distinct skills (Lee, 2008) Low comprehenders have difficulty using writing to make sense of their reading, and this is

a serious problem because tasks that require students to write about texts are required

at all levels of schooling and assessment Also, research on reading comprehension and research on writing make little mention of interventions for helping EFL students

to develop their abilities for writing about text Therefore, Grabe (2004) suggested that it is essential to give consideration to reading as well as writing in reading-writing research

Based on Hoa Sen University English majors’ problems in reading comprehension of literary texts on the one hand, and the strong connections between reading and writing

in a Literature course on the other hand, one of the ways to improve the students’ reading comprehension of literary texts might be to introduce writing tasks into the Literature classroom Some might suppose that story summary writing as a kind of reading comprehension strategies would be an effective strategy to smooth the progress of the cognitive process of text comprehension However, in an introductory literature class, students are generally told to summarize the literary texts but they are not given enough instructions for making the best use of this strategy, as a result, limiting, or sometimes counteracting the effective use of it

1.3 Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study is two-fold:

- To find out the effectiveness of the summary instruction on EFL students’ reading comprehension of literary prose texts

- To investigate students’ attitudes on the summary writing of literary prose texts and their difficulties in doing this task

1.4 Research questions

The three research questions below will guide the study

1 How does the summary writing instruction facilitate EFL students’ reading comprehension of literary prose texts?

2 What are students’ attitudes toward the summary writing of literary prose texts? To what extent do students have positive and negative views on the task of summary writing?

3 What are students’ difficulties in writing summaries of literary prose texts?

1.5 Significance of the study

Though there have been many L1 researches on the roles of summarization, they have seldom been examined in ESL/EFL, especially in summarizing literary texts to support reading This study aimed to fill in the gap and examine the effects of the summarization strategy on EFL students’ reading comprehension of literary prose texts through summary writing The primary significance of this study is that it may add new information to L2 studies on reading comprehension of literary works

Second, besides adding information to L2 studies on reading comprehension, this study may improve insight into the reading-writing relationship in a Literature classroom by involving to source-based writing, that is, summary writing Shanahan (1988) noted that combining reading and summary writing instructionally is complex, and he argued for the need to design experiments that show how to do that most productively

Finally, the findings of this study may have implications for students learning English Literature Students can improve reading comprehension of literary texts by applying the summary writing task developed from this study As the result, story comprehension may motivate them to appreciate the literary texts in some other ways, like writing responses or rewriting the texts

1.6 Definitions of Terms

The following terms are used in the present study:

Summarization: summarizing is a broader, more synthetic activity for which

determining importance is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition The ability to summarize information requires readers to sift through large units of text, differentiate important from unimportant ideas, and then synthesize those ideas and create a new coherent text that stands for, by substantive criteria, the original This sounds difficult, and the research demonstrates that, in fact, it is (Dole, Duffy,

Roehler, and Pearson, 1991)

Literary Prose Text: A literary prose text is a literary work written in complete

sentences which formed into paragraphs Short stories, novels and manyplays are written in prose and considered as literary prose texts The coverage of this study is

on short stories due to the characteristics of course materials

Story Summary: Basically, a story summary is based on a plot summary, adding more

basic information about the story’s name of author, setting and characters and theme

A standard story summary should include important elements of the setting of a story, the main characters, and the plot, presented as a condensed from the complete story

(Kazantseva and Szpakowicz, 2007)

1.7 Scope and Limitation of the Thesis

This thesis was conducted to chiefly determine the impact of summary writing instruction on Hoa Sen University English majors’ comprehension of short stories during the first semester of the academic year 2011-2012 Due to the fact that many L1 researches focused on the effects of summarization strategy on expository texts, the researcher chose literary prose texts to measure how summary writing instruction affects students’ reading comprehension of these texts

In this academic year 2011-2012, there were not many students who registered the course of British-American Literature The total number was 34 students Due to that

situation, the sample could not be divided into 2 groups, the control group and the experimental one Therefore, the thesis was carried out using the One Group Pretest-Posttest Design

1.8 Outline of the Thesis

This thesis is organized into five chapters Chapter One provides an overview of the study, including background of the study, statement of the problem, the purposes and research questions, the significance of the study, and definitions of key terms

To answer the research questions, the researcher has reviewed the related theories and previous research studies in the field This is developed in Chapter Two and includes

a literature review on L2 reading, comprehension of literary texts, and summary writing (writing based on sources)

Chapter Three provides an overview of the methodological design of the study, including the description of the participants, the variables, the data collection instruments, and data analysis methods, as well as data collection procedures Also, it reports the results of the pilot study and describes the main study

Chapter Four presents the result analyses of the data elicited through the pretest and posttest, the students’ attitudes and difficulties towards summarization from the questionnaires It also elicits students’ written feedback on the matter Chapter Four also discusses the results of the research findings of the present study

Chapter Five summarizes the main findings of the present study in response to the research questions, establishing the pedagogical implications of such results and their limitations Some suggestions for further research in the field are outlined in this chapter

1.9 Summary

In chapter I, the researcher has given a description of the background of the study The statement of the problem, the research purpose and questions, the significance of the study, and the key terms used in the study were briefly discussed An outline of this study was given in the final part of the chapter In the next chapter, a review of

the theories and research on L2 reading, comprehension of literary texts, and summary writing will be presented

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 ESL/EFL Reading Comprehension

For ESL/EFL learners to read, they have to be prepared to use various skills and strategies they already possess from their reading experiences in their native language Researchers have established that the act of reading is a non-linear process that is recursive and context-dependent Among many studies in reading, two of the most widely cited and agreed-upon definitions of reading are as follows:

Reading is the process of constructing meaning from written texts It is a complex

skill requiring the coordination of a number of interrelated sources of information

(Anderson et al., 1985)

Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction

among: (1) the reader's existing knowledge; (2) the information suggested by the text

being read; and (3) the context of the reading situation (Wixson, Peters, Weber, &

Roeber, 1987)

For newer definitions, different researchers use the term “reading” in different ways According to McNeil (1992), reading is making sense out of texts Although writers structure texts for their given purposes, readers interpret what they read in order to arrive at their own construction of what the text means to them Heilman, Blair, and Rupley (1998) defined reading as the active process of constructing meaning from written text in relation to the experiences and knowledge of the reader Grabe (2004) suggested the following five abilities should be seen as definitional for reading: a rapid and automatic process, an interacting process, a flexible and strategic process, a purposeful process, and a linguistic process As far as reading comprehension is concerned, Grabe (2004) also suggested that it “implies processing efficiency, language knowledge, strategic awareness, extensive practice in reading, cognitive resources in working memory to allow critical reflection, and appropriate purposes for reading” (Grabe, 2004, p 19)

2.1.1 Nature of Reading

According to Alderson (2000), reading is such a complicated process that researchers have found it impossible to identify its overall features Nevertheless, there are some

characteristics which have been commonly recognized

First, there is an interaction between a reader and the text during the process of reading While reading, the reader thinks about what the text means to him, how he understands it or how the text is useful, entertaining, or boring to him Consequently,

as Alderson (2000) pointed out, the reading process may be dynamic and variable Different readings of the same text vary, not just from reader to reader but from reading to reading by the same reader, depending on how each reading configured within the reader’s experience

Second, there are different levels of understanding of a text Alderson (2000) suggested that “reading for inferred meanings is deeper than it is for literal meaning.”

At the same time, reading for critical evaluation of a text is even more highly valued than literal understanding In other words, the levels of understanding vary from one

to another in a hierarchical way

2.1.2 Purposes of Reading

Reading is an activity with purpose Grabe and Stoller (2002) say that reading is always purposeful not only in the sense that readers read in varied ways derived from differing reading purposes, but also in the sense that some individual purposes or tasks, whether imposed internally or externally, activate readers’ motivation to read a given text According to Grabe and Stoller (2002, p.11), there are four main reading purposes as follows:

1) Reading to get general comprehension which is the most basic purpose for

reading;

2) Reading to search for information when a reader scans the text for some specific

information and skims for a general idea;

3) Reading to learn when a reader needs to learn a considerable amount of

information from a text; and

4) Reading to integrate information when a reader responses, evaluates, composes,

selects and critiques information being read

Different purposes for reading determine that one text may be read in a variety of styles Most researchers would agree that the major purpose of reading should be the construction of meaning – generally comprehending and actively responding to what

is read

2.1.3 L2 Reading Processing

Reading is dynamic, requiring active, meaningful communication between the author

and the reader (Heilman et al., 1998) Fluent reading requires efficient cognitive

processing by the reader In the history of research on reading comprehension, there

have been three processing recognized: bottom-up, top-down, and interactive

processing

Bottom-up Processing

Readers are assumed to decode precisely from letters into words, from words into larger grammatical units and finally to the understanding of the text Readers recognize letters, words, sentences, and text structure In this view, reading is initiated

by examining the printed symbols and requires little input from the reader (Walberg et

al., 1981, as cited in Roe et al., 2005) In bottom-up models, reading comprehension

is achieved through accurate and sequential processing of text and comprehension is regarded as text driven and controlled by the text only (Gove, 1983)

Top-down Processing

Different from decoding in precise or sequential fashion in bottom-up processing, down processing requires readers to attack the text with expectations of meaning developed before and during the processes, making use of the text information when they need to confirm and extend their expectations (Eskey, 2005) In top-down processing, the act of reading begins with the reader generating hypotheses or predictions about the material, using visual cues in the material to test these

top-hypotheses as necessary (Walberg et al., 1981, as cited in Roe et al., 2005)

According to top-down proponents, prior knowledge plays a vital role in reading

Interactive Processing

According to the interactive model of reading, the information-processing system in reading consists of different levels of processing that operate in a parallel manner It depicts reading as a combination of top-down and bottom-up processing in continuous

interaction (Roe et al., 2005) This view assumes that students are simultaneously

processing information from the text being read and information from their background knowledge The readers form the meaning of the text through interaction

of a variety of their mental processes to work at different levels such as using the bottom up process to identify the meaning and grammatical category of word, sentence syntax, and text details At the same time that the data-driven processing level is doing visual analysis, the syntactic and semantic processing systems are operating to generate hypotheses about the interpretation of the visual information coming from visual analyses (Nassaji, 2003) Harmer (2007) considered a wider range

of potential interactions by asserting that “meaning is not entirely in either the text or

the reader but is created as a result of the interactions among reader, text, teacher and classroom community”

It can be seen from the above review of L2 reading processing that reading is more than active Reading is a dynamic interaction between the writer and the reader The reader creates meaning for the text by “retaining newly acquired knowledge, accessing recorded and stored knowledge and attending to the writer’s clues as to the meaning intended for the text” (Cohen, 1990) In short, reading calls for the reader’s active interaction with the text being read

Paul Van den Broek and Kathleen E Kremer (2000), in the book Reading for

Meaning: Fostering Comprehension in the Middle Grades, note that at each point

during reading, the comprehender attempts to make sense of the information explicitly stated in the current sentence by connecting it to two other sources of information: associated concepts in background knowledge and a subset of concepts from preceding sentences When the reader is satisfied with the attained level of comprehension, he or she proceeds to the next sentence and the process repeats itself (p.7)

At its core, reading for general comprehension is “an interactive process involving the reader, the text, and the context” (Block et al., 2002, p.5) Comprehension is a complex process that involves three factors as follows and can succeed or break down based on the reader’s own skills

2.1.4.1 Reader factors in comprehension

The reader factors influence comprehension ability According to Van den Broek and Kremer (2000), students have many characteristics that can limit or enhance their capacity to comprehend text These qualities include the reader’s attention span, short-term memory, ability to concentrate, motivation, knowledge of comprehension strategies, reasoning skills, decoding and grammar skills, and prior knowledge

Moreover, reading requires the student to “construct a mental ‘picture’ of the text”

(p.2), involving the learner’s ability to decode words in order to understand the purpose of the information With proficiency and perseverance in these skills, students can magnify their success with reading comprehension and reach their goals

of learning and understanding

2.1.4.2 Text Factors in Comprehension

Van den Broek and Kremer (2000) point to two textual qualities that influence a reader’s comprehension level: content and structure A book’s content refers to the subject matter and the amount of supplemental information provided According to the authors, when a text’s content contains unclear or extraneous information, the reader becomes easily distracted and confused with the text Similarly, a text’s

structure influences the reader’s comprehension Grammar and organization can easily expand a reader’s comprehension ability If mechanics is incorrect or disorganized, students will spend most of their energy on decoding the individual words instead of understanding the material as a cohesive whole Generally, text’s content and structure equally cooperate to create the mental picture in the student’s mind and can make or break the reader’s comprehension abilities

2.1.4.3 Instructional Factors in Comprehension

The context of reading instruction can also affect the student’s comprehension abilities Van den Broek and Kremer (1999) list instructional factors in comprehension, including the presence of distracters, the teacher’s explicit or implicit instructions, the teacher’s expectations, and educational goals As students become more proficient in reading they may be able to ignore distractions, but early and struggling readers must read in environments that minimize disruption Explicit instruction is another key to unlocking a student’s reading potential Armbruster,

Lehr, and Osborn (2001) explain that, “in explicit instruction, teachers tell readers

why and when they should use strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them” (p 53) Clearly explaining and instructing reading comprehension strategies are

critical teacher activities that prepare students for reading success By explaining and modeling appropriate use of comprehension strategies, teachers can influence students

to actively apply comprehension tactics in order to increase their understanding of reading material Similarly, teacher expectations and goals can influence reading comprehension If a teacher has too-low or too-high expectations for student achievement, learners may not take reading assignments seriously or be so overwhelmed by the task that they set themselves up for failure

2.1.5 Bloom’s Taxonomy on Comprehension

Bloom’s Taxonomy (the revised one) includes six cognitive process categories - one

most closely related to retention (Remembering) and the other five increasingly

related to transfer (Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating and Creating)

These cognitive processes are intended to be mutually exclusive

For the goal of instruction is to promote retention, the most important cognitive

process is Remembering However, when the goal of instruction is to promote transfer, the focus shifts to the other five cognitive process categories, Understanding through Creating Of these, the arguably largest category of transfer-based educational objectives emphasized in schools and colleges is Understanding (Mayer, 2001) Students are said to comprehend or understand when they are able to construct

meaning from instructional messages including oral, written, and graphic communications, and material presented during lectures, in books, or on computer

monitors Students understand when they build connections between the new

knowledge to be gained and their prior knowledge More specifically, the incoming knowledge is integrated with existing schemas and cognitive frameworks Cognitive

processes in the category of Understanding include interpreting, exemplifying,

classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining

 Interpreting (also called clarifying, paraphrasing, or translating) occurs when

students are able to convert information from one form of representation to another

 Exemplifying (also called illustrating) occurs when students find a specific example or instance of a general concept or principle

 Classifying (also called categorizing) occurs when students determine that something, e.g., a particular instance or example, belongs to a certain category (e.g.,

concept or principle)

 Summarizing (also called abstracting or generalizing) occurs when students

produce a short statement that represents presented information or abstracts a general theme The length of the summary depends to a certain extent on the length of the presented material For example, a sample objective in history could be "Learn to write summaries of events portrayed pictorially." A corresponding assessment item involves asking students to watch a videotape about the American Revolution and then write a cohesive summary

 Inferring (also called concluding, or predicting) involves drawing a logical

conclusion from presented information

 Comparing (also called contrasting, mapping, or matching) involves detecting similarities and differences between two or more objects, events, ideas, problems, or situations

 Explaining (also called constructing models) occurs when a student mentally constructs and uses a cause-and-effect model of a system or series

2.1.6 Reading Comprehension Strategies

In order to instruct and remediate students in reading comprehension strategies, teachers must first understand the meaning of comprehension and its influence in literacy Many authors define comprehension, but J David Cooper (2000) clearly

depicts the concept in his book Literacy: Helping Children Construct Meaning when

he writes, comprehension of a text is a process by which the reader constructs or assigns meaning by interacting with the text The main point of comprehension is to make meaning of a text in a way that is understandable and relatable to the reader (Tompkins, 2007) Reading comprehension is based on the reader’s ability to interact with the text and assign a meaning to the topic presented in the material, as well as the

text’s clarity in communicating ideas to the reader

From the above basis, some reading comprehension instruction is implicit, providing students with an opportunity to use strategies without directly telling them which strategy to use and how to use it For example, asking students to write their ideas in a journal as they read is an implicit instruction Other students, however, especially struggling readers, require explicit instruction, in which teachers explain and model various strategies that successful readers use to promote comprehension

Research has found evidence for the efficacy of eight specific reading comprehension strategies as follows:

• Comprehension monitoring is a metacognitive process by which readers decide

whether or not they understand the text they are reading These strategies include restating, looking back, and even looking ahead for clues that might help with comprehension (Bereiter and Bird, 1985)

• Cooperative learning allows students to learn while being engaged in the learning

process with other students For example, small groups of students translated content text from “teacher talk” to “children talk” and showed gains in reading comprehension (Klinger, Vaughn, and Schumm, 1998)

• Graphic organizers are visual representations of text that teachers can use to help

students understand text structure or arrange textual information in a way that makes recall easier Using of graphic organizers after reading has shown improvement in students’ written summaries (Bean and Steenwyk, 1984)

• Story structure refers to the common components in a story or narrative text, of

which some students already have complete knowledge, but others do not It is proved that having knowledge of these components helps the reader comprehend stories better than not having such knowledge (Singer and Donlan, 1982)

• Question answering is one of the most prevalent forms of comprehension

assessment, but it is also an effective comprehension strategy An example is the Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) technique (Raphael and Pearson, 1985), in which students are taught that questions can be answered by referring to the text

• Question generating is a technique in which students are taught to create (and then

answer) their own questions about information in a text It teaches students to think about text from a variety of perspectives and take ownership over their own learning

• Summarization, as a strategy, requires students to identify the most important

information in a text and eliminate redundant and unnecessary details It also requires that students read and re-read text, which promotes greater comprehension Research

shows that summarization facilitates comprehension and enables students to be independent learners (Brown and Day, 1983)

• Several of the above strategies can be used together as a Multiple Strategy

Approach For example, Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar and Brown, 1984) is an

instructional strategy that utilizes multiple strategies, such as question generating,

summarization, and vocabulary In general, evidence suggests that teaching

strategies in multiple combinations is superior to teaching strategies one at a time During the previous decade there also have been numerous efforts to identify instructional practices that improve student’s reading comprehension Such efforts also include systematic reviews of researches to identify effective instructional practices for improving the comprehension of struggling adolescent readers (Scammacca et al., 2007, Graham and Perin, 2007, Rogers and Graham, 2008), which

is called Writing to Read Approach (writing based on sourses)

Writing to Read Approach indicates that writing is one often-overlooked tool for improving students’ reading comprehension Writing has the theoretical potential for enhancing reading in three ways First, reading and writing are both functional activities that can be combined to accomplish specific goals, such as learning new ideas presented in a text (Fitzgerald and Shanahan, 2000) Second, reading and writing are connected, as they draw upon common knowledge and cognitive processes (Shanahan, 2006) Consequently, improving students’ writing skills should result in improved reading skills Third, reading and writing are both communication activities, and writers should gain insight about reading by creating their own texts, e.g, writing summaries, leading to better text comprehension (Tierney and Shanahan, 1991)

2.2 Literary Prose Texts

2.2.1 Definition of literary prose text

To begin, let’s consider what is meant by the term 'literary text' According to Wolfgang Iser (1974) a literary work has two poles: the aesthetic and the artistic The artistic pole is the author's text, and the aesthetic is the realization accomplished by the reader Therefore, the literary work cannot be considered as the actualization of, or

identical to, the text, but is situated somewhere between the two Wolfgang Iser (1974) also speaks of the text as a virtual character that cannot be reduced to the reality of text or to the subjectivity of the reader, and it derives its dynamism from that virtuality Readers passing through the various perspectives offered by the text relate the different views and patterns to one another, thus setting the work and themselves in action

According to Eagleton (1996), the definition of 'literary', as advanced by the Russian formalists, is the “peculiar use of language” Literature is said to transform and intensify ordinary language, deviating from the everyday colloquial tongue The literariness of the language spoken could be determined by the texture, rhythm and resonance of the words used There is a kind of disproportion between the signifier and the signified, by virtue of the abstract excesses of the language, a language that flaunts itself and evokes rich imagery Eagleton (1996) also argues that what distinguishes the literary language from other forms of discourse is the way it 'deforms' ordinary languages in various ways:

“Under the pressure of literary devices, ordinary language is intensified, condensed,

twisted, telescoped, drawn out and turned on its head” (T Eagleton (1996, p.58)

Another characteristic of literary text which can be seen in its definition is its objectivity The objectivity of literary text had been discussed for a long time in the history of literature Aristotle emphasized the objective features of the literary text (Greek epics and dramas) as means that are more or less appropriate to the full realization of various literary intentions The idea of objectivity in the literary text is

also analyzed in Peter Barry’s book: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory

(1995) as follows:

(1) The literary text contains its own meaning within itself The best way to study the text is to study the words on the page, without any predefined agenda for what one wants to find there

(2) The text will reveal constants, universal truths, about human nature, because human nature itself is constant and unchanging People are pretty much the same everywhere, in all ages and in all cultures

(3) The text can speak to the inner truths of each of us because our individuality, our

"self," is something unique to each of us, something essential to our inner core This inner essential self can and does transcend all external social forces (4) What critics do is interpret the text (based largely on the words on the page) so that the reader can get more out of reading the text

From different viewpoints by different theorists above, a literary text is seen as a worthwhile body of work It can be defined as a written work of literature that includes a wide variety of creative and imaginative writing and generally conveys a message

Literary texts do the following (Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 2008): (i) It aims to entertain the reader (ii) It often tells a story, even if it is a partially true one like a historical novel (iii) It uses descriptive words, including adverbs and adjectives (iv) It uses images or 'word pictures' that help us to imagine what is being described

Literary texts can be divided into three main types: Prose, Poetry and Drama Prose is the most typical form of language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure as in traditional poetry Prose is reciprocal to poetry While there are critical debates on the construction of prose, its simplicity and loosely defined structure has led to its adoption for the majority of spoken dialogue, factual discourse as well as topical and fictional writing It is commonly used, for example, in literature, newspapers, broadcasting, film, history, and many other forms of communication

Webster (1998) defined prose is a literary medium expressing the loose and natural language of man as opposed to verse or metrical composition Shklovsky (as cited in Benjamin Sher, 1990) stated that literary language is fundamentally different than the

language that we use everyday: “Prose is ordinary speech – economical, easy and proper” But literary prose, which is different from non-literary prose, is unconfined

to poetical measure with its greater irregularity This distinction between literary language and everyday language make it more difficult to understand

In short, a literary prose text can be seen as a literary work written in complete sentences which formed into paragraphs Short stories, novels and many plays are written in prose and considered as literary prose texts Literary prose texts are written mainly to entertain the reader - they usually tell a story, but they can often be thought-provoking Some may help readers to make sense of, or understand, life better; some

are a way for the writer to give their views and opinions of the world

2.2.2 Literary prose text structure and features

According to L.W Clarke (2006), the linguistic properties of a literary prose text may

be sub-divided into five characteristics:

(1) Diction: the choice of particular words, not least the use of imagery or figurative

language (metaphors, similes, etc.) by which connections are drawn between concepts;

(2) Schemas (a term drawn from rhetoric): the particular sequences (phrases,

sentences, paragraphs) into which the words chosen are ordered;

(3) Text Development: the precise process by which a play, novel, short story

proceeds from beginning to end: often in “plot” (or “plot-structure”); the difference being that in a play, the actions and words of a character(s) are presented directly, while in a novel, a story depicting the actions of a character(s) is told by a narrator and related most often in the third person;

(4) Structure: the organization or pattern of relationships shared by the concepts

which are implicit (rather than explicit) in and thus may be inferred indirectly from the development of a text For example, according to the New Critics and, later, the Structuralists, the meaning of many texts is predicated on a series of binary

oppositions, such as those pitting good against evil, rich against poor, day versus night, and so on

(5) Key Literary Elements: there are key elements that go into every short story: plot, conflict, character, setting, imagery, point of view and theme

(a) Plot is how the author arranges events to develop his basic idea; it is a planned,

logical series of events having a beginning, middle, and end The short story usually has one plot so it can be read in one sitting There are five essential parts of plot according to Freytag’s pyramid (1863):

Figure 1: Freytag’s Pyramid

 Introduction/Exposition - The beginning of the story where the characters and the setting is revealed

 Rising Action - This is where the events in the story become complicated and the conflict in the story is revealed (events between the introduction and climax)

 Climax - This is the highest point of interest and the turning point of the story The reader wonders what will happen next; will the conflict be resolved or not?

 Falling action - The events and complications begin to resolve themselves The reader knows what has happened next and if the conflict was resolved or not (events between climax and denouement)

 Resolution/Denouement - This is the final outcome or untangling of events in the story

(b) Conflict is essential to plot Without conflict there is no plot It is the opposition

of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move Conflict is not merely limited to open arguments, rather it is any form of opposition that faces the main character Within a short story there may be only one central struggle, or there may be one dominant struggle with many minor ones As with the short story, novel

and drama, the resolution of a central conflict is the essential element of the literary

piece In the short story, the conflict is clearly defined and can often be defined between a central character and event which the author has chosen to develop

(c) Major characters control the action, events, and decisions while minor or

supporting characters respond to or receive the effects of the major characters Short

stories use few characters A major character is clearly central to the story, so he/she

is the protagonist while the opposer of the main character is called the antagonist

(d) Setting is the physical landscape and social context in which the action of story

occurs Time and place may vary widely both in definition and development In some cases, one or both elements is essential to the conflict - its resolution and interpretation - as in the case of historical fiction based upon real people or events In other cases, the influence of setting is minimal

(e) As in the other genres, image patterns evoke a sense of the "reality" of the

literature, connecting richly and distinctively to the store of our own experiences and perceptions Images which, through the evolution of their associations in a story, take

on significance or meanings other than their denotation (their standard definitions)

become symbols These symbols with their wider meanings can help a story expand

its value for readers

(f) Point of view refers to who tells the story In any genre, an author may record

events as would a reporter or tell the story through the voice of a character The first is

called "third-person point of view" since the story is told in the "third person" - he,

she, it, they When "I" tells the story, the writer limits the relation of the events and

conflict through the perceptions and interpretations of a single character In some stories, the point of view is maintained consistently throughout the work; in others, the point of view changes

(g) Theme in a short story is its controlling idea or its central insight It is the author's

underlying meaning or main idea that he is trying to convey The theme may be the author's thoughts about a topic or view of human nature The title of the short story usually points to what the writer is saying and he may use various figures of speech to emphasize his theme, such as: symbol, allusion, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or irony

2.2.3 Reading comprehension of literary prose texts

Generally, a literary prose text, in particular a short story, is easier to comprehend and remember than expository text For one thing, the content of a short story is usually more familiar than the content of an informational or factual material Most research

on narrative text has focused on teaching students to utilize story structure as an organizing framework for understanding critical aspects of the stories they read

At some point, every literature student will be asked to do a critical reading of a literary text before writing a response to a piece of literature However, whether doing

a formal assignment or simply reading for pleasure, students can benefit from learning how to read literary texts closely

Close reading is an essential skill for understanding, enjoying, and writing about

literature Students can note and ask questions directly in the text by using annotation

They annotate the text by underlining or highlighting words, phrases, references to people, places and time, or anything else interesting or unusual Students write questions and observations of actions or events in the margins They can also use circles, arrows, or any other helpful notation technique

Scott Filkins (2010) suggested some guidelines below for close reading of a short story:

 First note the title and second, the first impressions of the text

 Look at characterization and point of view Is the piece written from the point of view of one of the characters, or is it written from the point of view of an unseen narrator? How does the author show us what the characters are like? How do the reader and the author feel about the characters and their actions?

 Be aware of the author's word choices, and pay attention to syntax, rhythm, and tone What words, patterns, and literary techniques does the author use to achieve these effects?

 Examine the author's writing style Narration, description, dialogue and interior monologue are some writing styles the author may use Does she or he use one or two

of these throughout, or many?

 Identify the themes the author explores in the piece Themes are ideas like family, love, marriage, friendship, revenge, race and ethnicity, and so on

In short, for better comprehension, reading a literary prose text closely means paying close attention to the literary elements of the text When students read – and especially when they are reading for their own enjoyment and not for a course assignment, they may understand the meaning of the words but still not gain a deeper understanding of how the author conveys that meaning and the message he or she is trying to convey When students read a piece of literature closely, they explicitly note and examine all the elements of that piece, especially the author's use of figurative language – such as metaphor, simile, allusions, slang, alliteration – as well as imagery, and more By reading a literary prose text this way, they can recognize larger themes and ideas the author may be trying to convey

2.3 Approaches to teaching literary texts

2.3.1 Maley’s (1989) Approaches

The critical literary approach

According to Maley (1989, cited in Saeed, 2011), in this approach we focus on the literariness of the texts including such features as the plot, characterization, motivation, value, psychology, background, etc Adopting this approach we should be

cautious that our learners should have already mastered the intermediate levels and are currently at a level above that Furthermore, the students should have the

knowledge of literary conventions

The stylistic approach

Maley (1989, p.11) states that in this approach we focus on literature as ‘text’ This approach is closely in tandem with what EFL/ESL teachers need for their language classes Contrary to the critical literary approach, here we have description and analysis of language prior to making interpretations

2.3.2 Carter and Long’s (1991)

Language-based Model

As the name speaks for itself, this model mainly considers literature for language development and awareness purposes In other words, in this model the aesthetic aspect of literature is achieved only through the linguistic and discoursal quality of literature (Lazar, 1993) However, care should be taken into account not to let the linguistic aspect “vitiate the pleasure of reading literature” (Lazar, 1993) This

approach to teaching literature is similar to what Maley (1989) calls the stylistic

approach

Literature as Content or Culture Model

In this model, literature is an ideal vehicle for presenting the cultural notions of the language such as the history, literary theories, theory of genres, biography of the authors (Carter & Long, 1991; Lazar, 1993), geography, custom, politics, art, etc

Literature as Personal Growth or Enrichment

Finally in this approach personal experience is capitalized upon as a way to engage the students in literary works (Carter & Long, 1991; Lazar, 1993) Here the learners are not to churn out the new words or solely work out on the linguistic features, but

cherish the “literary experience” which is associated with the learners’ own real-life

experience

2.3.3 Amer’s (2003) Approaches

Amer’s Approaches are targeted to teaching L1 narrative texts in EFL/ESL literature

They are categorized into three specific approaches as follows:

Story Grammar Approach (SGA)

This approach is based on the idea that there is an interaction between the reader and the text In other words the reader gets aware of the text structure It is closely associated with genre-awareness in textual analysis and how this knowledge is conducive to a better understanding Knowing the difference will help the learners identify how ideas are developed in a text

Reader Response Approach

This approach is based on a premise of teaching literature for literature’s sake not for

language learning and development purposes It is similar to Maley’s (1989) critical

literary approach According to Ali (1994) this approach is rooted in constructivism

where each individual constructs his/her own version of reality when encountered with the text In other words, each individual respond differently to a single text Therefore, we can have multiple interpretations rather a single correct interpretation

of a text according to RRA (Amer, 2003) As cited in Amer (2003) there are different ways to implement RRA in literature classes including:

-Reading Logs (Benton and Fox, 1985; Carlisle, 2000);

-Response Journal (Sheridan, 1991);

-Writing Prompts (Pritchard, 1993);

-Critical Questioning and Writing (Probst, 1994; Hirvela, 1996);

-Self-questioning (Davis, 1989);

-Role-play, Drama and Letter-writing (Elliot, 1990; Baxter, 1999); and

-Rewriting Narratives from Another Character’s Point of View (Oster, 1989)

As Amer (2003) argues though SGA favors the cognitive aspect of the learners and RRA favors the affective aspect, these two approaches should not be considered as totally separate but they should both be used judiciously depending on the language ability level of the students

2.3.4 Van’s Approaches (2009)

New criticism

In this approach literature is conceived devoid of its author’s intentions, and the contextual factors such as the political, social, and historical background of the text Texts used for analysis in this approach are usually adopted from Old literature which contains long texts irrelevant to the learners’ immediate needs

Structuralism

This approach generally focuses on the linguistic and structural aspect of a text In other words, the concern here is more the form of the text This approach has a scientific approach to literature

Learners should acknowledge that there is always a hidden meaning behind the text which is controlled by social and political reasons

2.3.5 Timucin (2001) and Savvidou’s (2004) Integrated Approach

Apart from the above approaches, Timucin (2001) and Savvidou (2004) propose an integrated approach to teaching literature where some or all of the above-mentioned

approaches are reconciled in a systematic way It seems that this alternative approach can be very promising for EFL/ESL classes Timucin (2001) adopted an integrated approach comprising language-based approach and stylistics in the Turkish EFL context He investigated the students’ attitudes towards this integrated approach and how much it agrees with their tastes The results of his study indicated that there was

a significant relationship between the methodological approach the researcher adopted and the students’ level of motivation, involvement, and appreciation of the literary texts In her integrated model, Savvidou (2004) offers six stages, from stage 1 (Preparation and Anticipation) to stage 6 (Interpretation and Personal Response) Each of these stages is conducive to the betterment of teaching literature in EFL/ESL classes According to Duff and Maley (1991) as cited in Savvidou (2004), there are three main rationales namely linguistic, methodological and motivational for adopting such an integrated approach to teaching literature A more recent model for integrating literature in language classes is proposed by Khatib, Derakhshan, & Rezaei They provided how task-based language teaching stages can be applied to literature as an input for language classes through a "Whole Literary Involvement" experience

2.4 Summarization Strategy

2.4.1 Definition of Summarization

Summarization is one of the learning strategies that helps learners use deletion and super-ordination to construct and retain a succinct summary of important propositions from text (Brown and Day, 1983)

Dole, Duffy, Roehler, and Pearson (1991) describe summarization as follows:

“…summarizing is a broader, more synthetic activity for which determining

importance is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition The ability to summarize

information requires readers to sift through large units of text, differentiate important

from unimportant ideas, and then synthesize those ideas and create a new coherent

text that stands for, by substantive criteria, the original This sounds difficult, and the

research demonstrates that, in fact, it is”

Kintsch and van Dijk (1978) hypothesized that during the process of comprehension, readers form a macrostructure, or gist, from the microstructure, i.e., the semantic content of sentences in the text They have specified three macrorules for condensing information:

(a) deletion - any proposition that denotes an accidental property of a discourse referent may be deleted;

(b) generalization - an immediate superconcept may be substituted for a sequence of micropropositions; and

(c) construction - a global proposition that denotes normal conditions, components, or consequences may be substituted for a sequence of propositions that makes them explicit

2.4.2 Summarizing, paraphrasing and retelling

Summarizing, paraphrasing, and retelling are important parts of any reading and writing curriculum Although summarizing is usually mentioned first, it is actually the last stop on a pathway of increasingly complex skills (Kissner, 2006) This pathway begins with paraphrasing

2.4.2.1 Paraphrasing

When taking notes, students are asked to put things in their own words They are actually being told to paraphrase Therefore, paraphrasing is simply restating ideas in different words A reader can choose to paraphrase one statement, a group of statements, or an entire passage This is quite different from retelling and summarizing, both of which require a reader to gain a global picture of the text Paraphrasing can be oral or written Orally, it can be as simple as “put my last directions into your own words (Kissner, 2006)” A written paraphrase can be much more complex, as students could paraphrase formally written text by rewriting it in an informal style