After years of research, the author finds that the current poetry teaching is poor in literary theory to varying degrees. Specific performance in the following two aspects:
First, the monotony of poetry criticism methods is worrying. Mr. Sun Shaozhen once pointed out: "The level of literary theory lags behind the achievements of contemporary literary theory for about 20 years." Judging from the lectures and published records of poetry teaching, we can hardly see all kinds of modern western poetry criticism methods, and even the traditional impressionist criticism and critical criticism in China's ancient poetry theory are rarely used, and we can only see the monotonous sociological interpretation method based on hermeneutic criticism.
Of course, as Professor Fan Xing of Wuhan University said, "There is a cultural barrier between western theory and China literature." However, it is obviously untenable to hold a completely exclusive attitude towards western literary theory.
In fact, different arts should learn from each other. "Poetry" says: "Stones from other mountains can attack jade." Different interpretations of the same poem often make the work glow with new artistic light and shadow. Teacher Sydney used the theory of "prototype criticism" to teach "Gentleman in Service", which was quite fruitful and refreshing. This is a very rare successful attempt to make bold innovations in critical methods.
Inspired by this, the author tried to use Ingarden's "text structure" theory in the phenomenological literary theory reformed by Mr. Zhu Liyuan to study the rich connotation of Su Shi's bold and unconstrained style when offering China classical poetry appreciation elective course to senior two students, which was widely welcomed by students.
Second, there is a lack of necessary introduction of poetry appreciation knowledge and relevant authoritative comments. In poetry teaching, of course, we should try our best to use less or no noun terms; But it cannot be completely avoided. It is necessary to organically introduce some essential, easy-to-understand and practical poetry theories, such as artistic conception, image, style, penetration, interest in reason, touch dyeing, verve theory, scene blending and separation. Only in this way can appreciation be scientific and disciplined, and it can also lay the necessary foundation for students to read and learn to write appreciation articles.
In the usual teaching, the author takes Zhou's Examples of Poetry, A Course of China's Literary Theory Criticism History, Twenty Lectures on Poetry Appreciation Methods edited and published by the Editorial Department of Knowledge of Literature and History, and Wu's Random Talk on Literary Appreciation as reference materials to teach students three kinds of knowledge necessary for appreciating poetry:
1. Stylistic knowledge, that is, the knowledge of poetry (including lyrics) itself, such as the requirements of antithesis, the difference between quatrains and metrical poems, the requirements of lyrics and so on. 2. Test site knowledge refers to the basic knowledge necessary for "appreciating the image, language and expression skills of literary works" stipulated in the college entrance examination outline. If we talk about "language", we can't help but talk about "style", which includes different types such as "implicit", "straightforward", "natural", "magnificent", "dull" and "beautiful". Students should fully grasp its connotation. 3. Appreciation knowledge refers to the knowledge that may be used in the process of doing poetry appreciation questions. Such as situational relations, prototype images, etc. Especially the procedural knowledge of answering skills. While imparting knowledge, we should also introduce some comments of Mr. Shi Diancun, the most authoritative scholar in China, because this is a common and effective method to broaden students' horizons and cultivate their appreciation ability. For example, in view of the diversification of the theme of Peacock Flying Southeast, based on the research results of Professor Pan Xiaolong of Anhui Normal University, the author briefly introduces the acceptance history of the theme of the poem to students in teaching: the original theme: "People hurt it when it happens"-Wei and Jin Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties: praising love and downplaying the criticism of feudal ethics-anti-feudalism, anti-ethics and advocating freedom of marriage in the May 4th period-contemporary: criticism.
Secondly, the scientific construction of the basic knowledge of poetry appreciation has been diluted.
For a long time, poetry teaching in middle schools lacks authoritative and relatively unified definitions of some basic terms, which brings a lot of confusion to poetry teaching. Every teacher seems to have a set of knowledge system, and there have been great differences. Limited to space, here is just an example of "expression skills". Generally speaking, the expression of poetry is a general concept, which includes four concepts: expression, rhetoric, writing and lyricism.
Regrettably, many people confuse "expression skills" with "writing skills", "artistic techniques", "expression methods", "artistic characteristics" and "artistic skills", which is seriously lacking in standardization! Moreover, there are different views on the classification of "expression skills", such as "three directions" (that is, "expression", "rhetoric" and "writing") and "five directions" (so-called "structural mode", such as "narration before discussion" and so on. Obviously, this kind of poetry should be classified into two categories: "expression" and "multi-division" (for example, "Appreciation Methods and Training of Ancient Poetry in the College Entrance Examination" compiled by a teacher in Beijing, actually divided into seventeen categories).
After years of observation, the author found that it is a necessary and basic premise to improve students' poetry appreciation ability and let students acquire scientific, useful and systematic relevant knowledge.
Thirdly, it ignores the necessary guidance to the general steps of poetry appreciation.
The ultimate goal of poetry teaching is to let students learn to appreciate poetry independently, so the necessary guidance for the general steps of appreciating poetry must not be weakened in the usual teaching. Mr. Wang Jiren believes that the psychological process of literary appreciation includes three stages:
The first stage: the psychological "approaching" stage of non-persuasion. (pointing to the level of sound and meaning of the text)
The second stage: the dynamic psychological "construction" stage. (Point to the image level of the text)
The third stage: the psychological "comprehension" stage of integration. (pointing to the schema level of the text and the deep meaning of the work)
In this regard, Mr. Ye Shengtao spoke in a popular way: "read carefully" (corresponding to the first stage), "drive away our imagination", "train our sense of language" (corresponding to the second stage) and "listen to what others say" (corresponding to the third stage).
However, in guiding students to appreciate poetry, many open classes are blind or random. Please look at the following two typical lessons published in recent years:
Example 1: A teacher taught Zheng Chouyu's mistakes and asked questions around the goal of "expanding the picture and excavating the artistic conception". There are 49 classical poems about "traction", so it is difficult to see "traction" in learning methods.
Example 2: Meng Haoran was taught "Passing through the Old Village" and asked three questions to discuss with the students: "What do you see through poetry? Hear what? What do you smell? " After the discussion, the teacher himself summed up: "The students came into life from poetry, tasted the sound and tasted the fun." It is not difficult to see that the "appreciation" that teachers lead students to do in this class only stays in the "first stage" and "second stage" that Teacher Wang Jiren said at best, which can be described as a superficial taste!
Causes and countermeasures
What are the root causes of the above three disadvantages? The author believes that there are three corresponding reasons: First, for a long time, there are problems between poetry teaching and academic research in literature and art in middle schools, which leads to the teaching practice not being correctly guided by the latest literary theory, but only showing a state of "standing still" or "building a car behind closed doors". Second, the existing old and new textbooks generally have the thorny problem of diluting the subject knowledge at will and arranging the content at will. Thirdly, for most teachers, it is an unaccustomed and painful thing to consciously use new ideas to guide teaching. Moreover, the college entrance examination model in most parts of the country has remained basically unchanged. Therefore, many colleagues still go their own way in practice.
Therefore, it is the key to solve the problem to improve the theoretical literacy and teaching level of front-line teachers in a large area; However, it takes a long time. At present, the best way to realize the benefits of "short, flat and fast" is to compile a set of practical teaching materials, so that teachers can have a reliable grasp to improve their comprehensive quality. The countermeasures put forward by the author are:
First, let poetry teaching have enough literary theory to guide.
In my opinion, it is effective to match each old textbook with several knowledge essays written by famous teachers, and it should not be given up. Practice has proved that appreciation of poetry lacks three kinds of knowledge, namely, stylistic knowledge, examination site knowledge and appreciation knowledge. Yu Yingchao explained three common concepts of "image", "artistic conception" and "implication" with examples in a short class when teaching "I would like to be a torrent", so that students can master these three contents and learn to appreciate poetry, which is regarded as a model of poetry teaching by experts.
Of course, the popularization of literary theory needs a gradual process. Many senior three students have difficulty in improving their poetry appreciation ability quickly because of insufficient training. Therefore, the author should carry out some intensive training on poetry appreciation for every senior three students in a selective, orderly and planned manner in the months before the college entrance examination. Specifically, in terms of quantity, there are generally not less than dozens of poems: in terms of types, farewell poems, landscape poems, poems about things, frontier poems, poems about history, poems about nostalgia, etc. Should be trained one by one; From the method point of view, the appreciation steps of each poem should be scientific and the answers should be standardized.
Second, let literary theory interpret the text. The new round of textbooks should seek a breakthrough in content arrangement, especially in "what to teach". In the current new textbooks such as People's Education Edition, the selected points of poems are few and narrow, which are basically in the category of "fixed articles" mentioned by Mr. Wang Rongsheng, and the arrangement order is completely in accordance with the history of literature. There are two prominent problems here: first, there is only a "fixed article" category, and there is no "sample" category, so it is difficult for students to effectively transfer their learning ability; Secondly, if the works are arranged in chronological order, the similarities and differences of the texts may not be taken into account, thus setting a natural obstacle to the application of literary theory and bringing fuzziness and randomness to "what to teach". Therefore, the author suggests that certain "sample" works should be added to the selection of each unit poem, and the artistic attributes of the works should be mainly considered when arranging.
Third, let teachers master literary theory and practical experience quickly. .
In this regard, the best way is to rely on continuing education. At present, continuing education in some places is only a mere formality, which is arbitrary and blind in content, time, methods and assessment to varying degrees. In this regard, the education authorities should increase the intensity of continuing education, invite experts to compile training materials, popularize the teaching experience of famous teachers, and strengthen the scientific and institutionalized training from the actual effect.