Abstract

This research project used observations of 80 episodes in high school English classes to give shape and validity to the widely held assumption that English teachers are primary interpreters of morals in public schools. In Chapter I, the researcher explains the urgency of research in moral education, clarifies the definitions, delimitations and assumptions that governed the study and states the main problem which powered the data collection and analysis: "To determine what, if any, patterns of communication on moral issues emerge when teachers and students in a high school classroom setting discuss works of literature.". Chapter II, "Related Literature," is divided into four sections: "Educators and the Teaching of Moral Values" ; "The English Teacher's Role in Moral Education" ; "The Impact of Reader Response Criticism on the Classroom" ; and "The Unique Self-image of the High School English Teacher." The research method combined both quantitative and qualitative methods. Research instruments were created to track the classroom activities and discussion as well as the actual moral values that emerged. Chapter IV offers a quantitative analysis of the data: how much time was devoted to discrete activities; how teacher talk related to student talk in number of utterances; and how often each virtue appeared. A qualitative analysis of the data divided the patterns into discourse management, teacher interpretation and transmission, and student response. How teachers managed the discourse of the classroom depended on which role they assumed at different times: counselor and caregiver, instructional manager, public employee, or critical reader. How the teachers interpreted and transmitted their own moral reading of the literature fell into three patterns: acceptance, extension, or contradiction. Student responses also fell into the same three patterns plus an additional pattern, "apathy." Twenty-one appendices and eleven tables support the data analysis