Abstract

This study investigated students' perception of the two prescribed African prose literature texts, So the Path Does Not Die by Pede Hollist and Redemption Road by Elma Shaw in public secondary schools in Ibadan North East Local Government Area, Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted. The participants were 500 SSII students from 10 randomly selected public senior secondary schools. The instruments used was Students' Perception of the Prescribed African Prose Literature Texts Questionnaire (r=0.77). Findings showed that students perceived the themes of the prescribed texts as relevant, meaningful, and applicable to their understanding of social realities, recording a weighted mean score of 3.39 against a criterion mean of 2.50. Respondents also held a positive opinion of the overall quality of the texts, with a weighted mean score of 3.26. In terms of cultural representation, a weighted mean score of 3.25 indicated that respondents agreed the texts reflected important aspects of African cultural identity and heritage. Similarly, a weighted mean score of 3.16 showed that respondents generally perceived the texts as relevant and applicable to their personal experiences and contemporary social realities. The study concluded that students generally held a positive perception of the prescribed African prose literature texts across the four dimensions examined. It is recommended that teachers adopt learner-centred and interactive teaching strategies, relate literature lessons to students' lived experiences, emphasise the cultural value of African prose texts, ensure the availability of prescribed texts in schools, and participate in regular workshops and professional development programmes to enhance the effective teaching and learning of Literature in English.