How to Teach Literature in High School? Notes toward a methodology in progress

Abstract

This article proposes to establish criteria to build a methodology for teaching literature in secondary education. For this purpose, the article analyses the arguments reluctant to propose a methodology to teach literature and also the positions which consider the school as an exclusive place to teach literature systematically, as a place to develop actions related to the promotion of reading or as an autonomous place threatened by occasional intrusions. From a polysystemic perspective about practises of reading in high school, the article proposes a methodology on the basis of a system made up by a classroom of systematic study, an “invention classroom and a transfer classroom”. Relative to the first one, curricular and methodological agreements are examined and a model of teacher training based on writing of instructions for activities is proposed. Relative to the second, a model of reading based on artistic production is designed. Regarding to the third, it suggest considering classroom as a “heteronomous place”.