“What Indifferent Eyes Can Not Sight”: From Written Works to the Understanding of Literature in the 9th Grade

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to discover the tendencies in the perception by schoolchildren of the curriculum works of Pushkin and Lermontov and to outline the possible ways of their thoughtful comprehension in practical school teaching. The author presents multilevel learning assignments for three themes of the school literature course in the ninth grade: “Anchar” by A. Pushkin, a comparison of two masterpieces of his love lyrics, a fragment of a lesson dedicated to “The Hero of Our Time” by M. Yu. Lermontov and analyzes extracts from written works and essays. The three different themes are united by the form of work with a piece of fiction – slow reading. Questions addressed to students bring them back to the word of the writer, prompting reflection and re-reading. The author of the article turns to the approaches to teaching literature and the methods of teaching school composition writing presented in the works of L. S. Aizerman: a composition in literature is not considered as a test of the student’s knowledge, which needs to be reported, but as a collective search for truth, which requires careful reading into the text. Arguing or agreeing with the students, the teacher, together with them, takes steps in exploring the works of Russian classics. The results of written assignments allow the teacher to take a fresh look at familiar literary works and to see what interests a modern student in a literature lesson. The suggested assignments can be in demand by language teachers in planning both literature lessons for the ninth grade and optional classes and preparation for the exam.

Keywords

• poetry lesson
• slow reading
• teaching composition writing
• pushkin, lermontov.