Creative writing exercises study in 1-8th grade Turkish textbooks

Abstract

Improving students` writing ability enables self-expression development as well as high-order thinking skills such as creative thinking. Alongside the active teaching in the classroom, the suitability of textbooks for creative writing contributes to the development of students’ writing skills. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to examine the distribution of creative writing exercises in Turkish primary school textbooks in terms of grade level, theme, instruction, and text type. The data of this study conducted on the strength of the qualitative approach, was based on the document analysis. The data sources were derived from 1-8th grade Turkish textbooks and workbooks belonging to various publishers approved by the Ministry of National Education (MEB) between the academic years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. In the scope of the research, Turkish textbooks and workbooks, which are affiliated with the MEB and private publishers, were analyzed. The content analysis method was used in evaluating the data. According to the results obtained from the research, it was identified as there is no balanced distribution in terms of grade level, theme, instruction, and text type. Some suggestions were made in accordance with the research findings.