The use of humorous content material and student attitude toward poetry

Using humor in educational settings is commonplace; however, few studies can be found exploring the effect of using humorous content material in teaching poetry to high school students. Implementing a Solomon three-group design, with a pretest-posttest component, one treatment group of tenth graders was introduced to poetry using only modern and contemporary humorous poetry while a control group was introduced using non-humorous modern and contemporary poetry. A second treatment group, with no pretest, received the humorous treatment and posttest only. An analysis of affective change indicated that both curricula, the humorous treatment and the non-humorous treatment, significantly enhanced students' attitude toward poetry at the .05 alpha level. Unlike the non-humorous curriculum, the humorous treatment curriculum significantly increased the students' likelihood to read poetry in the future. Recommendations are presented for incorporating humorous content material in the classroom and for training prospective and current teachers in humor theory, research, and practice.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Year dc:date.available

1998

Author dc:creator

• James, David

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Jacqueline Tilles

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/1227

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wayne.edu:oa_dissertations-2226