Imagination in Literature Education Based on Mythic and Romantic Understanding of Eagan Theory

Human is known as an organism with great capacities and capabilities. One of these capabilities is imagination. This research was conducted with the goal of analyzing the function of education system with focus on the role of content of Persian Literature textbooks and teachers’ teaching methods on the development of students’ imagination. The research method was descriptive. Data was collected using content analysis and semi-structured interview. Twelve primary school Farsi textbooks were analyzed based on 2 components of imagination including mythic and romantic understanding and 15 teachers were interviewed as well. Findings of the textbooks’ content analysis indicated that comparing with romantic understanding; mythic understanding had more contribution to imagination development. Regarding the teaching method, teachers illustrated that they put more emphasis on reading, writing and structure and they taught students based on the predetermined education goals and whatsoever they learned during in-service training. It was explained that imagination has been ignored one the one hand because of the one-sided concentration on acquiring predetermined skills of reading, writing and structure and on the other hand, due to teachers’ lack of familiarity with educational strategies and teaching methods, effective on the development of imagination.