Secondary School Students' Views on the Use of Historical Letters in Turkish Republic History of Revolution and Kemalism Course: Ankara, ODTÜ Geliştirme Vakfı Middle School Example

In today's changing and evolving educational system, the role of teacher is just as an "orchestra conductor". The teacher who planned the learning-teaching process should be able to recite the history of the revolution by using different teaching methods and materials while planning this process, and be able to recover from the single-level narrative and provide the environments where the acquired skills and behaviors can be achieved. In this process, one of the things that will motivate students' learning process and so will be able to save the History of Revolution course from its bad situation is these letters. The purpose of this research is to reveal the opinions of middle school students about the use of letters in the 8th Grade Turkish Republic History of Revolution and Kemalism. The study group using the mixed methodology is composed of 75 students who are studying in the METU Geliştirme Vakfı Middle School 8th Grade in the province of Ankara in the academic year of 2015-2016. A questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions and a standardized open-ended interview were used as data collection tools in the study. Quantitative data collected in the study were analyzed by descriptive statistics and qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. As a result of the research, it was found out that the use of "letters" in the 8th grade Turkish Republic History of Revolution and Kemalism course positively affected the attitude towards the class and made the lesson more enjoyable and fun.