Does modern man need literature? Why do we need Russian literature.
Have you ever wondered why such a subject as literature was introduced into the school curriculum?
In fact, in a mathematics lesson, we learn to count, and if we're lucky, we develop logical thinking, in the lessons of the Russian language, we learn to write correctly, in the lessons foreign language, of course, we are learning this very foreign language, but what are we doing in literature? Usually, if you are unlucky with the teacher, then this subject is perceived by the average student as a window between physical education (running, stretching) and physics (you have to work there).
And what about literature? Is it beautiful to talk about some Tatyana and some kind of mu-mu? Trying to guess why this student was angry to death at the old woman? And in lower grades for some reason, it is necessary to admire first Abraham, who almost did not sacrifice his son, and then Taras Bulba, who nevertheless completed Abraham's evil deed - by what he gave birth to a son, he killed him. Well, isn't it crazy? So why is it needed, this item? IN Soviet times the lessons of literature were ideologically sustained - Oleg Koshevoy, the upturned virgin lands, a word about Igor's regiment in the light of the last congress of the CPSU, etc. Then everything was clear - fiction illustrates the moral code of the builder of communism and denounces everything that contradicts this code. Times have changed, and in literature lessons only the authors studied have changed - Solzhenitsyn instead of Sholokhov, Pasternak instead of Serafimovich. And everything else - methodology, lack of purpose, boredom in the eyes of students - all this practically does not change.
Who read the textbook-reader on literature for high school? Well, for example, for the 5th grade. Well, how does it feel? Even putting emotions aside, the textbook can be accused of being unsystematic and stupid. Firstly, the task of this textbook is not at all clear - to teach what? Develop what? Actually, this conclusion follows from an optional set of texts and indistinct tasks after these texts. The textbook, by the way, is not much different from its Soviet predecessor. He is very tendentious. Only there was "my dear country is wide", collective farms and the struggle of the proletariat in prose and poetry, and now - "I need to talk about Russia." Secondly, I don't understand who this textbook is written for. One gets the impression that the hero of the book "Pedagogy Textbook for Pedagogical Universities" edited by Y. Babanov was chosen as the object. A certain ideal child in the Platonic sense, subjected to Timur's ideological, physical and sexual education. Now he is in the 5th grade, collects a herbarium, reads books about pioneer (scout) heroes, glues a glider model, goes to pioneer (scout) gatherings, takes old women across the road, dreams of escaping to Iraq to fight for the freedom of the Kurds. It is precisely such an object that, in his free time from old women, he will be happy to read Prishvin (a description of nature at the age of 11! Did you read it yourself? Longing for death), recite Prokofiev and answer in a clear voice the question of what unites poems about nature and about the Motherland.
Not only the book for grade 5 sins with the above shortcomings, since the problem lies not in the textbook, but in the literature program itself. It is she, the program, aimless. She is tendentious. It is not clear for whom it was written.
Today our children absorb an incredible amount of information. There is so much of this information that they do not have time to process it, highlight the main thing, discard the secondary, and even more so, draw conclusions. Therefore, to force them to read another gray, or even cleaner than that - mediocre text, to put it mildly, is immoral. And this is exactly what the current curriculum requires. On the other hand, I wonder who is this objective and sinless person who will select and sort works of art - this is brilliant, but this is mediocre? I can imagine how many copies will be broken in disputes because of the same Prishvin. But you can do it differently - you can teach children to process information, for example, to understand literature, to give them in their hands the tool that will help distinguish a masterpiece from graphomania, i.e. to teach text analysis, its interpretation, as well as independent creation text. Method, method must be taught, not patriotism. But this can be done on any work - good or bad (on a good one it is more aesthetic). Because someone will read the brilliant poems of Pushkin or Pasternak and will not get anything out of them except what they said in rhyme, and he - in prose. And someone will read the graphomaniac story of the prose writer Tyutkin about bunnies and take out much more from there than he (Tyutkin) is generally able to invest. Everything depends not on the text, but on the ability to analyze it.
At the heart of the author's program O.B. Springina has the idea that the teacher's task is to teach the student to analyze the text and teach how to create his own text. It is from this and from the peculiarities of psychology given age she proceeded when she set specific tasks for each class.
Tasks of the 5th grade
1. Formation of ideas about fiction, its differences from non-fiction, from mythology and folklore.
2. Formation of ideas about the artistic image.
3. Learning to highlight in work of art plot and composition. Formation of an idea of how the plot and composition create a literary text.
4. Formation of the skill to create a small artistic text (myth, fairy tale, etc.)
Tasks of the 6th grade
1. Continuation of work with the plot and composition in the creation artistic text.
2. Understand the functions of tropes and descriptions in the formation artistic image.
3. The difference between an organized text and an unorganized one. The laws of versification.
4. Creation of poems.
Tasks of the 7th grade
1. Working with genders and genres. Their main differences and characteristics. Special attention- lyrics and drama.
2. Introduction to lyrical hero. Analysis of the poem.
3. General view O artistic means. Speech characteristics.
4. Writing plays.
Tasks of the 8th grade
1. Continued work with genders and genres. Special attention - the epic.
2. Character system. Author image.
3. Methods of criticism. Ideological methods. The concept of topics, ideas, problems.
4. Psychological methods.
5. Learning to write reviews and reviews.
Grade 9
1. Continuation of acquaintance with critical methods. Comparative method
2. Formal method
3. Structural method (the easiest way - in verse)
4. Cultural method.
5. Learning to write critical article.
10-11 grades
1. The concept of the historical and literary process.
2. Consolidation of knowledge on the theory of literature.
3. Ability to analyze text with various critical methods.
4. Ability to write an essay.
5. Basic skills of writing a scientific text.
It is advisable to write on paper, after taking a pen in your hand :) Writing about what to read - the right occupation to develop memory, attention, learn useful things, have fun. But most importantly, literature at school should not be reading and stupidly retelling the text for an assessment, that is, barter. The child must learn to understand what he read, learn to think critically - to build his point of view and justify it, destroying stereotypes of thinking and the usual interpretation. And, of course, teachers should show children that writers and other luminaries of literature are not icons, not pedestals, not monuments. First of all, they are people - drug addicts, paranoids, schizophrenics, that they also have an addiction to alcohol, women, etc.
First of all, literature at school is needed in order to teach little man not just to read books, but to understand the beautiful, to analyze, to learn to see what the writer wanted to convey to the reader with his work. Find out what the author laughs at, what he admires and what he is proud of. You can learn to understand literature on your own, but it takes a lot of time, which is now completely lacking. IN last years people began to read less, because with the development information technologies much large quantity more simple and unpretentious entertainment. Therefore, literature lessons are also needed at school in order to teach the student to see a friend and adviser in a book, in which one can find answers to many questions that arise in a young and not very person. Of course, for this, literature lessons should be based on the interest of the student, and not on sanctions and coercion. Because you won’t be forced to be nice and you won’t become a friend. Therefore, you can learn to love literature only if you love its heroes, if you love reading.
Each of us needs literature in school in order to develop. Reading broadens one's horizons, and at the same time teaches the correct presentation of thoughts, the correct spelling of words. Then we can talk about innate literacy as a positive impact of literature on a person.
Books often describe situations that arise in life and help solve emerging problems.
But reading should be the decision of the person himself, and not imposed by parents or teachers.
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In our society, the question of whether literature is necessary modern man. Opinions were divided. Some believe that no, today it is quite possible to do without it. Others still fight for literature to play important role in the life of society.
I believe that literature is, of course, needed. Without it, it is impossible to learn to understand the world, it is impossible to feel all the richness of life, to understand human relations. It is literature that teaches us this.
At the same time, it is impossible not to notice that the majority of modern young people, instead of reading books, prefer to watch TV, take a walk, dance in a club, “surf” on the Internet. Very often you hear from adults that they, being schoolchildren and students, read much more. It's a shame, isn't it?
Many young people believe that only those who want to read should read, and no one should be forced to. But no one forces anyone to immediately pick up a book and read without ceasing. However, by reading books, a person gives food to his soul. Keeping yourself spiritually healthy is just as important as maintaining physical health.
Now many people prefer the possibilities social networks, thereby simplifying their lives, as they believe. Instead of taking a book and finding the answer there, people “type” a question on the Internet and, without making any effort, get a million answers and, almost without hesitation, take the first one that comes across..
Unlike literature, the Internet does not teach anyone anything, it simply easily and quickly gives out ready-made answers. Literature teaches us about life, that is, what is not in any textbook, teaches us to understand, observe, seek and think. But most importantly, it seems to me, literature teaches us not to repeat the mistakes of others.
I also noticed this pattern: those who do not read very often make a lot of spelling mistakes. The reader develops visual memory into words, and he does not need to remember the rules when writing. Refusal to read is the path to difficulties with written speech, and then with oral speech.
One day, a literature teacher asked me to take a test on the topic "Pushkin's Life" from my classmates. In order for me to know what period of the poet's life this or that student took, she gave me to read their works. Reading them, I was very funny, but terribly unpleasant. Sometimes my peers wrote complete nonsense. For example: "Pushkin was sent to Mikhailovskoye for materials on the progress of work on the extermination of locusts."
Everyone knows the phrase: "The book - best gift". And I agree with her. When a book is given to me, I am really glad, I can't wait to look into it and read it.
Literature is a part of our life, history and culture, without it people would not be people.
Yulia DUBROVINA
THE BATTLE OF TRIPOL AND THE VICTORY OVER LITERATURE
Recently, I decided for no reason to show off my erudition and show off in front of the Italians, which has not happened to me for twenty years. But, apparently, in the spring she fell into childhood. Silly, I confess, but the result is interesting.
We started talking about Libya. “Do you know, gentlemen,” I say, “after all, exactly a hundred years ago there was a battle at Tripoli, described by Marinetti in poem of the same name". Zero reaction. There were two Italians. The younger one did not know Marinetti (a futurist, a classic, an approximate analogue of Mayakovsky), the older one did not know who fought with whom. Both - middle class, entrepreneurs, finished something, our suppliers household appliances. Such, you know, elegant, well-groomed, white-toothed, fragrant with perfume, with thoughtful ties. They saw that Marinetti in the coffin, is there anything more interesting in the world?
INTERPRETATION OF THE TEXT OR LITERATURE?
In Italy, literature as a separate subject is not studied - there is a single subject l'italiano - there is both language and literature together. At the same time, they study for one year Latin language. They study some excerpts from literary works.
The text is considered from the point of view of the structure of the text: what are the metaphors, comparisons, hyperbole, this, that, that ... And as we once taught: what historical events reflected, the characters of the heroes - this is not. Of course Italian literature- not the first row, but still it is there. But somehow not interesting. Literature in Italian school- this is only a pretext and material for the fact that in our primary school it is customary to denote the expression "development of speech": conversations about this and that, an increase vocabulary, synonymy. For example, such an exercise: Manzoni knew 15 (or 25 - I can’t vouch for the number) definitions of the word “sky”, but how many do you know? Or painted leaves different colors and shades, and it is necessary to name them. I personally would not have coped with this in Russian: I don’t know the names for so many shades.
In the Romance countries, there has long been a certain bias in the teaching of literature towards what we call “text analysis” in our language, and in French explication du texte – “text interpretation”. We are tilting in the other direction: our interpretations are more historical, sociological, psychological. Actually, the analysis of the text is carried out by the department " artistic features” and rather lubricated, patter. At least that was the case when I was in school.
Moreover, this situation has always been - and before the revolution, too. Famous philologist academician L.V. Shcherba even considered this a serious flaw in our school and he himself gave examples of the interpretation of classical Russian texts. The ability to interpret texts, Shcherba believed, we need to learn from the French.
READER - WRITER
But it was a long time ago. Today, we seem to have nothing to learn from Europeans in teaching literature. What is the result of the "textual" study of literature in Europe? The result is not very impressive: a general indifference to literature.
Especially for art. A normal average European does not read any fiction. No classics to speak of. I specifically asked the Spaniards how they were in Don Quixote. They wave their hands: such a nudga, well, her. Again: this is the middle class, educated.
Many people don't read books at all. One well-known English business guru encourages businessmen to read books, complaining that the average Englishman does not read any books after school textbooks.
As a result, in all countries, fiction is dying out, degenerating either into commercial chewing gum or into muddy absurdity. This is understandable: literary process- bilateral, it equally needs both the writer and the reader. If the school does not graduate a more or less prepared reader, then literature gradually disappears from use. How did poetry disappear? She disappeared when the school stopped asking to teach classical poems by heart (it is curious that this happened in all countries).
Old people fondly recall how people listened to poetry on Mayakovsky Square in the late 1950s. But who was listening? Who had in mind some samples of what poetry is in general. Who taught Lomonosov-Derzhavin-Zhukovsky-Pushkin at school - further on all counts. Whoever did not teach this will neither read nor listen to poetry. He does not need them, they are not interesting, they are not available, finally. This is not his way of interacting with the world.
INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF WILDLIFE
While we are discussing whether it is necessary to teach literature and, if necessary, then how, it has already ceased without prior notice. My employee, a woman in years, went with a young colleague to the cinema to watch some weird movie- foreign "Eugene Onegin" in prose. They watched the movie, they go back. An elderly employee says something about the film, quoting the original of the real, poetic, "Eugene Onegin." “So, it turns out you read this?” - the young employee is amazed. “Of course I read it.” “So why did you go to the cinema?”
This girl did well in school and excellent in college, moreover, in Moscow, and not in blizzard halt. Good worker and even the head of the department. And she studied long before the introduction of the educational standard, the Unified State Examination and other innovations-modernizations (she is already over thirty).
It seems to me that it is not necessary to hang all dogs on the educational standard and the exam. Cultural savagery did not begin yesterday, it is going on in all countries. And the school only institutionalizes this savagery. Well, it is impossible, impossible, unbearable to overcome " Divine Comedy”, “Don Quixote” or “War and Peace”. Well, let them at least excerpts, at least a short summary, so that at least they know what they are talking about - this is the position of the school. It is clear that, having taken such a position, the school consolidates savagery and moves it forward. The day may not be far off when comic book captions will be studied. No wonder picture books are a huge success these days. Not for kindergarteners - for adults.
Why does the school not oppose savagery and even condone it? It's also understandable. Today is the slogan of the day: do not complicate or burden anyone. “Hegel in 90 minutes”, “Learn by playing”, “Enjoy English”, “Happy English” are all phenomena of the same series. The main thing is that it should be positive, cool and no soviet nonsense. Modern man wants - and not just wants - must, must! - enjoy everything. And reading "War and Peace" for a 14-year-old teenager is work, and what a job! I remember that at school, before starting to study "War and Peace", we passed the teacher a test on the content, i.e. by knowledge of the text. Today, this is unimaginable. Much better is Dontsova or Derevianko. Well, God be with him, with Tolstoy, - the school argues, - who needs him? The school surrendered under the onslaught of cultural savagery. I'm not just talking about our school - it didn't start here, but in the West. And we, as always, joyfully settle down at the tail of the West, marching to nowhere. How, suddenly, Dunka will not be allowed into Europe, will not be accepted into the Bologna process, will not be allowed into the WTO? How to live after this?
SO WHY DO YOU NEED LITERATURE?
Can our school resist running wild and is it necessary? Do we need literature in school? Why is she needed?
She needs two things.
Do you need such skill? Of course, it is necessary. The ability to read, understand, understand that the same word can mean different things depending on the context - these are very valuable skills. In essence, philology once arose for the purpose of interpreting sacred, ancient, not directly understandable texts. This is very ancient science that arose long before the advent of experimental sciences.
Why and who needs this skill? Any person whose occupation is even a little higher than the level of digging ditches by hand. Since there is only one way in the world to store and transmit information, life experience humanity - in the form of a text. Not in the form of music, not in the form of smells or anything like that - only in the form of text. The more complex the thought, the more complex the text. A person who is not able to perceive complex texts is not able to perceive complex thoughts. He will always remain in the realm of the elementary. This is a potential (and not even too potential) object for any manipulation.
A collection of very elementary thoughts is LiveJournal, especially “kaments”. Of course, LiveJournal is an immense and heterogeneous sea of information, but The general trend traceable. The elementary is loved, appreciated and readable. Any small deviation from the elementary causes rapid mental fatigue and, as a result, cursing.
Now average person can read only by skimming the lines with his eyes. Only the most elementary texts are understood. For my employees (all with higher education) an impossible task - to read two short popular science texts and compose one on their basis. It's kind of beyond difficult task.
And once we rented a hall for an event in one of the capital's institutes (sorry, universities). There I drew attention to a kiosk that sells thin brochures-notebooks, each of which is devoted to some subject. I bought it, read it on the subway, loaded it into my head - I'm ready to take the exam. Everything you need and nothing more. So the high school reacted to the inability of schoolchildren to read long and difficult.
In order to learn how to read difficult texts, one must read and interpret them under the guidance of a mentor, there is no other way. But this can only be done by force, no need to harbor illusions. To imagine that children will read "Fathers and Sons" and "Demobilization Against the Cops" with equal enthusiasm is the highest naivety; I don't think anyone suffers from such naivety. Is the school ready for such coercion? Hardly. The school does not have such resources and, most importantly, such conviction in the value of its work in order to organize the necessary pressure. Convince? Interest? Of course, the interest important factor but auxiliary. Just like that, out of curiosity en masse schoolchildren will not read and study the classics. How will a first grader not eat soup and solve examples when you can watch cartoons and eat ice cream. You can only force him to solve examples and eat soup.
NO WORDS - NO THOUGHTS
The second goal of studying literature is to learn how to write.
Works.
In my youth (70s), when entering any university, they wrote an essay. Then they replaced it with a presentation, and when the son entered (2002), they wrote a dictation: it was required to write above the “deuce”. I remember writing in the tenth grade on final exam an essay based on Pushkin's lyrics "Following Radishchev, I glorified freedom." Six hours were allotted for this task, and we wrote almost a whole notebook for two kopecks. Just think: I compared the odes “Liberty” by Radishchev and Pushkin, I talked about the evolution of Pushkin’s views on freedom - I myself am now surprised.
Yet again, school essay is not an end, but a means. A means to be able to express more or less complex thoughts. And the ability to express thoughts is, in turn, a means of having these thoughts. The presence of thoughts and the presentation of thoughts is a two-way and interdependent process. Because there are no thoughts separate from the way of expression. Thought does not exist except in a verbal shell. A thought that is not formulated verbally is not yet a thought, but only a premonition of a thought. The real thought will follow this presentiment - it is not known. “Understood, but cannot say” is about our pets, not about us. In a person, thought exists only in a verbal shell, the word is the matter of thought. Therefore, when a politician or boss instructs a PR man, speech writer or some other hired clerk to write for himself, this means that he delegates the thinking process to the side. And since in our country (and not only in our country) this is a ubiquitous matter and knows no exceptions, it means that our state thought is entrusted to some incomprehensible assistants, referents and other irresponsible riff-raff. Hence the poor quality. public work, all these "projects", "concepts", etc. Busy is no excuse. Main employment statesman is to think and write. All without exception large statesmen, who left a mark on history, thought and wrote themselves. Stalin, Lenin, Catherine II, Ivan the Terrible - they all wrote themselves, pen on paper.
A common objection: you can learn to write and think not on the material of War and Peace, but on something else. Can. European nations have taken this path. In Germany, children instead literary plots write essays on a sacramental theme: "Where is it better to live - in a city or in a village." They also write instructions - for example, how to glue the box. And that is to say, a useful thing - to be able to draw up a practical instruction, it can come in handy in life. The result of such exercises is what one young Russian teacher told me, who trained in Germany. Saying something super popular, like "The theory is dry, my friend, but the tree of life is green" - he was not understood. Not Turks - Germans.
But the totality of significant for given people texts is a people-forming factor. Like a language. Moreover, the language, as the founder of modern linguistics F. de Saussure taught, exists in three guises: language, speech and speech activity. Here speech activity (translation of the term, admittedly, unsuccessful) - this is the totality of significant texts in this language. This is roughly what L.V. Shcherba called " current literature"- those texts that are understood, read by all the people and from where the patterns of word usage are drawn," winged words”, running images, etc.
We are Russians, among other things, because we know (everyone knows!) that “the sciences nourish young men”, “the donkey will remain an ass, even if you hang it with stars”, “we all learned a little something and somehow”, “I look sadly at our generation”, “to serve once - it’s sickening to serve”, “you can’t see a face face to face” and much more.
You can read and assimilate the basic texts of your people only at school - in childhood and in adolescence. Those who have not read and learned them at school will never read them. And the people will become more and more spiritually impoverished and turn into social dust, into dust. I have not read the scandalous book by the German Saracen about the fall of Germany, and I do not know if he wrote about the cultural impoverishment of the Germans, but that it exists is an indisputable fact. And this creeping defeat is more terrible for them than Stalingrad. If only because it, like radiation, is imperceptible to the eye. Recently, on a completely extraneous occasion, I read: German youths who were poisoned on the fronts of the First World War began to put in their hiking backpacks, along with the Bible and Faust, also a volume of Nietzsche. Imagine: Faust is not enough for them - they began to read Nietzsche. And the German arbeiters of the same time - voluntarily and thoughtfully studied Lassalle - it's hard to imagine! This, incidentally, to the question of what is progress. And does he even exist?
OUR EVERYTHING READY TO DISAPPEAR
We Russians have an additional consideration in favor of studying literature. The study is attentive, detailed and thoughtful. Literature is “our everything”; in the words of Belinsky, who are fond of quoting at school, "literature is the consciousness of the people, the flower and fruit of its spiritual life." Our literature is one of the few phenomena that we have undeniably first-class. This is recognized by all, respected and disputed by no one. Moreover, we have completely original phenomena that are not found in any country in the world: children's literature and the Soviet school of literary translation. However, both are largely abandoned, but our classics remain. You need to have a fair amount of national masochism (and we have it!) in order to take it like that and, in a paroxysm of self-deprecation, throw it all down the drain for the sake of the Bologna or who knows what other process. If our classics are not read, they will be forgotten, they will die, they will cease to exist in the minds of the people, although, of course, the texts will remain.
Continuing the topic of education, I must say that now we have it in a continuous crisis of identity, to which there is no end in sight. Here is a message recently received: "President Russian Academy Education, Deputy Chairman of the Society of Russian Literature Lyudmila Verbitskaya expressed the opinion that Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", as well as some works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, could be excluded from the school curriculum.
“For example, I am absolutely convinced that L. Tolstoy’s War and Peace, as well as some of F. Dostoevsky’s novels, should be removed from the school curriculum. These are deep philosophical works, with serious considerations on different topics. A child cannot understand all their depth," she said in an interview with AGN Moskva.
By the way, what works of Dostoevsky now appear in school curriculum? We only went through Crime and Punishment, and my daughter says that they didn’t study anything beyond that. However, I will not cling to trifles. There are things more important.
I have a strong suspicion that no one understands why they study literature in school. Where did I get it from? But where. If they understood, they would not procrastinate the evergreen problem every year, which works to study, which not to study, who is more classic and which of his contemporaries to include in the program. Because there is no such problem. For those who understand why school literature is needed.
And it is needed for a single and very important goal - to teach how to read more or less complex texts that need to be interpreted. Actually, philology once arose as the art of interpreting ancient, religious texts that are inaccessible to direct perception.
What is understandable in itself, children themselves can read. By the way, "War and Peace" is a fairly understandable novel. Tolstoy's historiosophical reasoning is also quite comprehensible. But, of course, the teacher's comments are needed. There are probably well-commented publications for schoolchildren. I once read The Divine Comedy in an edition for Italian schoolchildren. And I, a foreigner, understood everything perfectly. All allusions, symbols were interpreted there, and everything became clear. It is precisely to disassemble, to delve into the text, to extract ideas and knowledge from it - for this you need lessons in literature. They have no other use.
And if so, I will say a terrible thing. It is rather indifferent which works to study. It is important that they are of literary quality and that the teacher himself understands them. If a set of these works lives for a long time, then the practice of interpretation is developed.
There is absolutely no need to study contemporary works. You can even stop at the nineteenth century. The rest is for you to read. The main thing is not to be afraid to read something that is difficult and not immediately understood. If there is this skill, if there is a habit for such - non-obvious - texts - they will read whatever they want. "How so, you want to deprive children of the creations of Tsvetaeva, Mayakovsky, as well as our wonderful contemporaries!" Those who say so tacitly imply that, upon leaving school, a person will only read the novels of the author with speaking surname Derevyanko, and what is more intricate will be put aside: nudga. Yes, this happens often. This means that literature was poorly studied at school.
In the Romance countries, especially in France, all literature has traditionally been reduced to the interpretation of the text. Now all over the world everything is being simplified, people stop reading their classics. They just don't understand. The Spaniards, for example, do not understand Cervantes.
Our tradition is somewhat different. It is being conducted, apparently, from sociological criticism, going back to Belinsky and Dobrolyubov. These are, rather, historical-philosophical-sociological mental constructions about the text. This is a good and useful thing, but the main thing, after all, is the text.
Knowledge of the basic texts of one's culture forms united people. Russians are all those who know who Eugene Onegin, Pierre Bezukhov and famous society. In the 90s, much of this was thrown from the ship of modernity. I remember that in those years my son and I watched at the theater "Woe from Wit", which he "passed" at school. We left the theater, I say something and pronounce famous monologue"I don't understand, it's my fault." "Do you remember it by heart, or something?" the son is surprised. His astonishment knew no bounds when he learned that every Russian knew this text before the era of pluralism and human rights. Such texts are call signs by which "friend or foe" is identified. If this is not the case, the people will crumble culturally. From this, by the way, follows simple thought. It is necessary to select texts that are patriotic and, if possible, uplifting, inspiring respect and love for their country.
So the set of texts to be school learning, must be stable and long-lived. It is easier for everyone: for both students and teachers. Having discussed once, it is necessary to accept final decision and end the discussion. Something, probably, can be replaced: for example, from Ostrovsky I would take not "Thunderstorm", but "Mad Money", and from Turgenev - not "Fathers and Sons", but "Smoke"; However, this is all just my personal opinion.
