The Effects of Writing Literary Response Paper on Different Aspects of Students’ Attitudes toward Literature

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of writing literary response
paper on different aspects of students’ attitudes toward literature. To this end, 30 EFL learners
studying English at Zabansara English Language Institute participated. They were divided into
two groups; one as the experimental group and the other as the control group. To collect the
data, the study was carried out in three phases. Both groups were pretested through the Literary
Response Questionnaire (LRQ) at the first phase. During the second phase, consisting of two
steps, the participants of the experimental group were asked to write literary responses to the
selected texts during six weeks, while the participants of the control group were asked to discuss
about the selected texts in class. After six weeks of treatment, the two groups were post tested
through the LRQ questionnaire at the third phase. The analysis of the data was done using
covariance (ANCOVA), t-test and descriptive statistics. The results demonstrated that the
experimental group outperformed the comparison group. Finally, it was concluded that writing
literary response paper affects EFL students’ attitudes toward literature, but reader type does not
mediate the effect of writing literary response paper on EFL students’ attitudes toward
literature.