The Concept of Intertextuality in the Discourse of “Crocodile” by K. I. Chukovsky

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show the potential of conceptual analysis in the formation and development of reader literacy in connection with the new requirements for improving the competitiveness of education. Mission concept – level integrated synthesis of the objects, phenomena as components of the meta-culture and the basics of forming reader’s literacy. The article deals with working with the concept of “intertextuality” in the framework of project laboratories (lessons-studies). As a result of passing the stages of conceptual analysis, students understand not only the literary significance of intertextual inclusions in K. I. Chukovsky’s tale “Crocodile”, but also the role of the reading process as a technology. A model for constructing the concept of “intertextuality” is presented in the lesson-study, developed based on a number of hypotheses. Within the framework of the study at the first stage of conceptual analysis (study 1 “World of associations”) together with the students the first hypothesis is put forward: “Crocodile”, like any fairy tale, has two discourses – “children’s”, which fully corresponds to children’s psychology and poetics of children’s creativity, and pretending to be “children’s”, which is an Aesopian allegory, which is the beginning of the strategy of working with the text of Chukovsky. Study 2 “in the beginning there was a Word” – this is the vocabulary stage of building a concept. At this stage, the “keywords” (A. Vezhbitskaya) are identified as personal meanings in definitions; their interpretation implies a linear and nonlinear “deployment” of the concept based on reference to literary sources. At the stage of the dialogue of cultures (study 3 “Dialogue of cultures”) the significance of the concept as a universal value and knowledge about it in culture is considered. Analysis of cultural texts (value-semantic reading) develops competence in solving moral problems based on personal choice; the formation of moral feelings and moral behavior, a conscious and responsible attitude to their own actions, i.e. the stage forms a “moral mind” in the terminology of advanced training. At this stage, a number of hypotheses are put forward for understanding the category of intertextuality in a fairy tale. The stage of forming values and meanings (study 4 “Values and meanings”) is a stage of meaning-making. It forms the value-semantic relations of students to the concept as a personally significant object. Students comprehend their process of understanding (according to F. Schleiermacher) the concept of “intertextuality” in the tale of Chukovsky, creates a model for the formation of reading literacy, which for absolute majority of students duplicates the PISA model. Thus, an important knowledge for students: reading in the modern world is not getting smaller; it remains a major intellectual technology that helps to find decisions, to think originally, not in patterns. The hypothesis lesson, built based on implicit immersion in the discourse of Chukovsky’s fairy tale, allows students to make a number of discoveries, gives them the opportunity to act as literary critics and evaluate the effects of formed reader’s literacy.