Biographical Approach to Aesthetic Education of Primary School Children

Abstract

The relevance of the research is determined by the increased interest in the use of biographical materials (biographical References, memoirs, fragments from popular science non-fic- tion books, various forms of visual aids – reproductions of portraiture, photographs, videos) in literary reading lessons as well as by the fact that the methods of how to teach writers’ biographies in primary school are not fully developed. The purpose of the article is to examine characteristic features of the biographical approach to aesthetic education of primary school children and to determine the role of writers’ biographies in the system of aesthetic education. The analysis of the scientific and educational sources has shown that currently many educational systems (for example, “School of Dialogue”, “Perspective”) use fragments of biographies that are on the pag- es of textbooks on literary reading. However, teacher’s books usually include a brief indication: “A story about a writer” – and rarely contain ready-made biographical entries. To help the teacher and the student, various demonstration materials and reference manuals are published providing information mainly about writers’ appearance, chronology of their life and work, however, they fail to show them as “living people”. Such materials have education value, but they are not able to evoke an emotional response in a young reader. They do not take into account the age characteristics of primary school children and the specifics of literary reading lessons. Extensive media content contains useful, aesthetically significant as well as negative information. This research has developed criteria to select and organize biographical material for a literary reading lesson; additionally, it has defined pedagogical conditions necessary for the aesthetic impact of biographies on a younger student.