The Pleasure of Conversation: Ethics in the Communication Classes of Literature

Abstract

The article deals with the following questions: Which are the essential changes offered by the so called communication classes of literature? What is the role of teachers in this system? Which is the best way for a teacher to consider the principles of dialogic reading? How to adapt his/her reading to the imaginative faculties, expectations and literary interests of a young reader? And, finally, which are the phases of a teacher’s preparation for the classes of literature?

The author proceeds from the hypothesis that with communication classes, ethical principles are incorporated into teacher’s simultaneous consideration of a young reader and his imaginative world, as well as into the necessity of the deepening of his literary and aesthetical experience. The latter results from a reader’s role in the creation of textual world. His role is substantiated in the difference between the primary and the secondary existence of a text, which gives ground to the basic definition of communication classes – relevance of texts for readers. Therefore, the starting-points of teacher’s preparation for the literature classes are:
- teacher’s reading and pupils’ reading are the setting up of a secondary existence of a literary text – neither the first nor the second can be attributed absolute validity or superiority;
- teacher proceeds from his/her pupils’ subjective responses, finding ways in them to deepen the experience – so his/her own as children’s – as well as to acquire experience for the work with future generations (the supposition of hypothetical children’s reception);
- the sense of teacher’s work is substantiated in the relation between a text, young readers and the knowledge of literary science, which is a component of the faculty of reading.

These starting-points enable teachers to form steps in their preparations for literature classes. These are: 1. adult person’s reading and his/her own understanding of a given text, 2. anticipation of hypothetical children’s reception, 3. technical preparation with text analyses, 4. goal definition and 5. the choice of appropriate cognitive and teaching methods. With each of the steps, ways are given for its most adequate realization, as well as possibilities for the trivialization of literature classes.

Ethical principles are therefore also encoded in the teaching of literature, not only in its creation and expert interpretation.