The teaching of literature

1
The teaching of literature

• Irene Pieper
• Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg
• Symposion Deutschdidaktik
• Strasbourg, 17/10/06

2
Aspects

• Literary education and the notion of
  literarische Bildung
• Curriculum developments and central purposes of
  literary education
• Primary and secondary education From learning
  with literature to learning about literature?
• Canon and criteria of text selection
• Reading literature, reading literacy and
  competences
• Reading literature, assessment and literarische
  Bildung

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Literarische Bildung
CULTURE culture Canon diverse cultural forms
Participation in cultural life Personal
development and enrichment within society
Notion of elite
Domain of social subjectivity
cultural techniques reading content form literary
history media
Teaching literature
?!
meaningfulness
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Curriculum developments since the late 1970s

• Conception of language pragmatics communication
• Diversification in literary studies
• Conception of text literary texts, pragmatic
  texts other media
• Focus on learning / the learner
• Shift encourage students to read / reading for
  personal enrichment in context

5
Primary and secondary education From learning
with literature to learning about literature?

• Primary school learning to read, arts, ethics
• Secondary education traces of literary studies
• Adequate reception of literary texts?

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Canon and criteria of text selection

• Critique of the notion of canon
• Exemplary texts
• Criteria students interests introduction to
  different genres / to literary history themes
  pluralism pragmatic reasons..

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Reading literature, reading literacy and
competences

• Reading literacy literary competences?
• Progression in interpreting literary texts?
• Scaling?
• Concepts of competences theoretical framework /
  branch of literary studies

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Reading literature, assessment and literarische
Bildung

• Problems of assessment
• Exemplary texts
• Context knowledge
• Tension between general aims of education and
  operationalisation of competences, evaluation

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Outlook

• Double route reading literacy culture of
  reading
• LE and foreign languages in dialogue
• Cross-cultural perspectives

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Key Questions

• How can the specific educational benefit of
  dealing with literature be laid down in a
  European framework?
• How can literature be addressed within an
  LE-framework so as to acknowledge different
  national traditions?
• How can literature be addressed within an
  LE-framework so that both cultural memory and the
  present cultural diversity are reflected?