Work with aphorisms at school (a system of analytic, creative and project tasks)

Abstract

The paper describes the best practices for multi-aspect work with aphoristic statements in Russian lessons. Studying aphorisms at school stems on the one hand from the need to enhance learners’ abilities to understand and decode writing of a variety of genres. On the other hand, it is determined by the immaturity of secondary school students’ skills required to create original statements of ethical, civic, or philosophical nature. Such a lack of essential skills becomes a key problem area during end-of-course assessment. The eight stages of instruction proposed in this paper are based on the axiological and system-activity approaches. They include a logical sequence of exercises teaching learners to manipulate aphoristic statements and boost different types of their verbal and cogitative activity. In the process of fathoming the paradoxical nature of aphorisms special attention is paid to those methods which develop flexible thinking and cognitive activity. This is only possible with dependence on learners’ emotional intellect (surprise, doubt, guesswork). Employing these practices not only improves the subject proficiency quality, but also facilitates the achievement of meta-subject and personal results. Cognitive competences are formed while interpreting and classifying aphorisms. Universal regulatory acts are honed in the process of judging aphorism ‘competitions’, self-testing, and mutual testing. Communicative acts are assessed during group project work. Personal learning outcomes are the strengthening of learners’ axiological attitudes and the development of their aesthetic consciousness.