The post-structuralist theory of literature brings a new concept of reading. A reader is not only a receiver who should decipher a linguistic code, but s/he becomes the subject of plural operations of reading: understanding, associations, evaluation, feelings and emotions. And the most important thing: reading can transform a reader’s mind and his/her sensibilities. This broad concept of reading gives the teacher of literature fantastic possibilities. The territory of literature is the esthetic and moral space, where a pupil can compare his/her experience with other better or worse subject. In the first chapter I try to show that the compulsion of reading books at school is arbitrary and makes the system of the policy of education invisible. I claim that a teacher (not the reading list) is the model of value of literature. S/He has no choice - texts in the classroom have my face and my voice and I have to personally confirm their advantage to life. In the next chapters (“Situations of Readings”, “Awakenings”, “Jealousy and Reading”, “Inducing to Infidelity”) I show how the teacher can produce “the event of reading”, using emotions of intimate reading. Every strategy that I describe - strategy of situational teaching - has the same question: whether a given narrative will work for good or ill in the life of other readers, after the last page has been turned. Will this fiction help form a character who is hypersensitive, properly sensitive, or insensitive; intellectually pretentious, thoughtful, or shallow; rash, bold, or timid; bigoted or tolerant? The answering to the questions means to win the battle of myself.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.