The Contributions of Postmodern Narratives to Master's Degree Students' Higher-Order Thinking Skills

Abstract

postmodern This study has been prepared for the purpose of examining the contributions of postmodern narrations to literature education. It focuses on the outcomes of readings from postmodern narrations by 12 master's degree students studying in the Department of Turkish Language at a university in Central Anatolia. In the theoretical dimension of the study, the students were given information about new approaches and technological innovations in the sciences of physics and psychology to prepare the groundwork for bringing out postmodern narrations with a focus on the ontological approaches of the new realities of the world. The birth of new literary aesthetics was pointed out as ha ving resulted from these rooted changes. In this context, the novels Ulysses by James Joyce and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka were given as examples. The students were told to read Tutunamayanlar (The Good for Nothing by Oguz Atay), considered to be the first modernist work in Turkish Literature, as well as Kara Kitap (The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk) and Suskunlar (Taciturns by Ihsan Oktay Anar), which are regarded as developed examples of postmodernist narratives. Group discussions about these works were made in the classroom. On the semi-structured interview form applied in this study, students were asked to write what outcomes they had reached while reading in terms of the main components of postmodern narrations, metafiction, intertextuality, perceptions of space and time, mystery/detective fictions, and the question of existence. Collected data was analyzed by the researcher using descriptive analysis, and the results were verified through validity and reliability studies carried out by two experts. The following findings were obtained from the study through the patterns of qualitative research. The students expressed that postmodern narrations had contributed to the development of higher-order thinking skills. They pointed to the question of existence and different uses of time in the narrations. They expressed liking mystery fiction.