European Journal of Education Studies ISSN: 2501 - 1111 ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu Volume 3 │ Issue 10 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.943968 ROLE OF FAIRY TALES RECEPTION IN DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING OF PRIMARY SCHOOL LOWER GRADE STUDENTS Želimir Dragići Faculty of Philosophy, Teacher Education Study Programme, Banja Luka University, Bosnia and Herzegovina Abstract: Continual development of critical thinking of students is one of the crucial tasks of efficient teaching. Without constant encouragement of students’ critical thinking, there is no gaining their intellectual independence in the process of acquiring, deepening, expanding and creative application of knowledge. The paper explicated possibilities of using fairy tales reception for the purposes of encouraging and developing critical thinking of primary school lower grade students. Dynamics of fairy tales narration, their overall structure, but also the development of this literary genre (from the folk genre, over the authorial one strongly relying on the oral, to the authorial with much more authenticity) are extremely compatible with the outline that the literary reception theory defined for reception process. In addition, the reception process that we formulate methodically in teaching forming expectations’ horizon, presenting predictions and assumptions, reading and assessing aesthetic distance) has been recognized as a framework system of critical thinking: evocation, understanding of meaning and reflection. Keywords: the reception theory, fairy tales reception, critical thinking, a student, mother tongue, literature teaching 1. Introduction – on the literary reception theory The term reception originates from the Latin word receptio, and it means acceptance or a possibility of acceptance. From the aspect of the theory of literature, this would mean Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 99 Želimir Dragić ROLE OF FAIRY TALES RECEPTION IN DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING OF PRIMARY SCHOOL LOWER GRADE STUDENTS reader’s acceptance, receiving, understanding, experiencing and evaluating artistic elements in direct contact with literary work, without any intermediaries. Scientific reflection on reception of literary works began only in the sixties of the twentieth century. And until then, it was a glossed over and avoided topic. Since then, the relationship between an author, literary work and its consumer has been established as communication and aesthetic reception in many literary theories. The literary reception, apart from accepting and experiencing the work (which are in the focus), also refers to students’ independent perceiving of the work value, as well as critical and research action of students. Creator of reception theory is Hans Robert Jauss. Later, Jauss's teaching was accepted by another member of the Constance School, Wolfgang Iser. Jauss's reception theory (1982) quickly caught attention of the language and literature teaching theoreticians because of the determinants on literary text in which the readers override the so-called undetermined points in accordance with their readers’ experience and affinity, and also with the time they live in. Jauss has revitalized the role of a reader and determined its dynamic character, and thus has been given the possibility of processual and eventual perception of complex relationships in a triangle author-work-reader, as a factor that will be a binding element of aesthetic and historical dimensions of literature Vučković, , p. 10). A new literary text is not a novelty for a reader that appears in the information gap. On the contrary, the reader will receive the text on the basis of already existing abundant knowledge, the structure of which can be accurately identified within three key components: distinction between poetic and everyday language, relationship between the themes and forms, knowledge of literary genres and types Vučković, 2006). A new reading should result in determining aesthetic distance – a novelty that the literary work accomplished. To make the reader able to identify the aesthetic distance before, during and after the reading, he/she should think (co)creatively and critically. The theory of reception thoroughly describes the very act of reading (Iser, 1978) as well as the role of a reader in that process (Iser, 1974). Literature teaching in lower grades of primary school brings into focus the dialogue between literary work and a student as a reader. It places it before learning of history and theory of literature, and thus also modernizes these two important questions: first, the question of reception and action of literary text onto students in accordance with their age and conditions in which they receive the literary work, and, second, the question of emotional and rational abilities (observation, imagination, empathy, inference and judgement, critical and creative thinking...) through which literary text becomes the subject of aesthetic enjoyment and knowledge ”ajić, . Reception gives an active role to the reader to create new meaning of text depending on European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 10 │ 2017 100 Želimir Dragić ROLE OF FAIRY TALES RECEPTION IN DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING OF PRIMARY SCHOOL LOWER GRADE STUDENTS their personal, social, and cultural values (Kemelbekova, Shengelbaeva, Mukasheva, Kopbayeva, 2014) and to build reception experience based on their own conscience Yanling Shi, . Readers’ reception and its buoyancy enhance the literary text, giving it a new co-creative dimension. Through reception of literary work, students are actually in an active constructive-critical and co-creative relationship with it, which requires critical production Pavlović ”abić, Krnjajić, Pešić Matijević, Gošović, as a reception product. Students’ approach to independent viewing of literary text value is not possible until reception process has been performed and the text has not triggered them for emotional-thinking responses and mutual coaction. The meaning and essence of literary work reception is in its function to continually deepen and enrich readers’ cognition. Reception theory has significantly stimulated the role of subjectivity in studying literary work, allowing readers’ responses to be important for determining the value of the text. This theory activated readers’ response to text and additions to the points of indeterminateness. Such readers’ response partly filling in has not been generally accepted in the literature science or in methodology of teaching, i.e. it has not been taken without reservation. Readers’ co-creative intervention in the teaching process is desirable today and we encourage it, but with great extent of caution and with careful consideration of integrity of literary text as an aesthetic object. Through emphasizing subjective responsiveness, the receptionist theoretical structure has become important for teaching since it allows the principle of individualization and it permits linking of text to students’ life experiences of course and previous literary knowledge). Some contemporary ways, such as cognitive criticism, are even more supportive of readers’ involvement. Thus, cognitive criticism, supported by neuroscience, has shown that the brain, through recently discovered mirror neurons, reacts to fictional worlds (descriptions, events, characters) as if they were real (Nikolajeva, 2014, p. 8). A number of more recent works supports the thesis that we really respond to fiction as if it was a different reality (Zunshine 2006; Keen 2007; Vermeule . Since our involvement in fiction is a natural activity, directed towards understanding of the world Nikolajeva, , p. 9 , we observe fiction reading as an integral part of the learning process and we recognize the possibility of critical thinking development in this reading. Reception is a guide in further contemplative-critical activation and literary co-creation of primary school lower grade readers. Literary text influences the reader's taste and their attitudes, stimulates sensibility and develops abilities of comprehension, judgment and aesthetic evaluation. 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