Literary Fun in Primary School. Careful Reading. Careful Writing

Abstract

An article is based on the reflections and observations induced by the works hop “Literary Fun. Careful Reading. Careful Writing” (“Zabawy literackie. Piękne czytanie. Piękne pisanie”) which was conducted in several primary schools Cuiavia-Pomerania region. The main goal of this project, funded by Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, was to improve different skills among pupils from 12 to 15 aged. First of all, a close Reading of the paragraphs of the novels, short stories, and reportages by former and contemporary Polish or foreign writers, for example: M. Rej, H. Sienkiewicz, M. Wańkowicz, J. R. R. Tolkien, S. Mrożek, S. Lem , O. Tokarczuk and R. Kosik. The workshops consisted from the three parts, the first was built on the association activities, the next relates to the oral interpretation, and the last focuses on a creative writing process. The association activities enable to encourage mental activity of the young people. After that the pupils tried to orally interpret the pieces of the literary texts in order to grasp certain melody, rhythm, and meaning. During the last part in a creative writing process young people wrote their own stories which begun from a short cite (one or three sentences) of the literary texts. Unfortunately, the results of this project demonstrate a lack of practical skills among students. First of all, they were not able to read carefully different literary genres, they had troubles with the oral interpretation of the texts and a large majority of the participants of the “Literary Fun” wrote unsophisticated texts and they were secondary to the original and testified the poor vocabulary use of their authors.