The author puts forward arguments for the need of developing interpretation skills as a basis for a proper understanding of the world. These skills should be cultivated by teachers who are well prepared for this function in terms of substance and methodology. The article presents research on the interpretative skills of first years’ students of Polish Studies, compared with didactics of literature classes exam results. It thus reveals the increase in interpretative skills, but also the need of change in the teacher education system.

The author examines “dialogues with tradition” occurring in school. She sees them not only as a method of familiarizing with the past and pointing to references and continuations, but also as a way of “taming” the present. Confronting mentalities of people of various eras and ensuing perspective on the interpreter’s own point in history can help students in a better comprehension of the world around them. The direct inspiration for reflecting on the subject came from an interpretation of a contemporary poem (Dusza [Soul] by Julia Hartwig) included in one of textbooks for the first grade of high school, in the chapter on medieval literature. This poem inspires to recall traditional notions on human duality, contemporary dilemmas, doubts, as well as questions on life and death, for which “there is no answer”.

Referring to the requirements of analysis and interpretation of cultural texts included in the new core curriculum, the article describes the issues of shaping a commercial image of texts of culture in advertisements. The article intends to inspire teachers fulfilling the goals of both Polish language and cultural education to undertake educational activities. The analytical material included in the article gives the teacher a free hand in choosing examples for analysis and interpretation, allowing to find crucial information. Teachers should consider the article’s introduction as a theoretical prelude to described communication-linguistic occurrences, and thus — find it helpful in subsequent activities (selecting examples and discussing them). Examples of advertisements included in the article were analysed and interpreted, referencing pragmalinguistic and cognitivist research notions.

The article presents creative activities of small children, young primary school pupils, and teenagers. The author points out the need of developing pupils’ creativity, so that these early years do not become the only creative period in their lives. The presented creative activities include the teacher trainee’s pursuits, since only a creative teacher can appreciate, plan, and guide the creative endeavours of their pupils. Literary texts written by persons of various ages during classes manifest the need of developing human creativity, which will become the natural way of fulfilling the stipulations of the subjectivity of teaching.

The author of the article claims that gaining the ability to read texts of culture by a student can be compared to the symbolic passing from Zuhanden to Vorhanden — from that which is “given” to that which “induces action”. Thus, a school reading book should lead to reader maturity, originating in an interpretation of texts that do not require “care” and prepare a pupil for challenges related to not so much preparation as the ability of reflective thought and an elastic view. This notion, taken from Martin Heidegger’s philosophy, has been illustrated by a series of works by Diego Velázquez, Toral, Thomas Struth, and Mirosław Bałka.

A collection of memoirs by Ludwik Hurski published in the spring of 2014 is certainly worth using in didactic work. Thematic diversity of the issues addressed by the author makes the notes penned by a Silesian miner, who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, useful both to Polish studies teachers as well as to historians. Juxtaposing Hurski’s Memoirs with the Memoirs by Jan Chryzostom Pasek might bring interesting results. Students in Silesian high schools are therefore given the opportunity do perfect their skills at comparative analyses as well as at using the sources. Moreover, the book makes students familiar with the linguistic variants that have already fallen into oblivion (e.g. winged words, sayings or legends concerning the region). However, the book can be read from yet another perspective — on the one hand, the text is a mixed language code, thus it is not freed from language errors, on the other — it testifies the author’s individual process of acquiring Polish national language by a Silesian whose childhood fell on the period of the Kulturkampf.

The article deals with one of the most serious perils of the Polish language of early 21st century — the vulgarization of language in all communication spaces. The author pays particular attention to the problem of vulgarization of language in the young generation. She examines school definitions of vulgarism in language and notations of vulgarisms in school dictionaries. The article emphasizes the role of the Polish language teacher in counteracting the vulgarization of language of children and youth. The teacher is to be an example of linguistic behaviours, linguistic authority, and an expert evaluating the language of publications intended for school use.

The author points to difficulties of the analysis of personal recollections after analysing the linguistic image of school in stories of graduates. In order to do that, she seeks out colloquial meanings of the word memory and reviews its definitions, included in dictionaries of the Polish language, as well as elaborations from the fields of genve studies, psychology, and sociology. The author also points out the definition problems, resulting from a subjective understanding of the concept, various functions of memories, the influence of language, and reliance on the hitherto unanalysed recollection process.

The article is an attempt to delineate stylistic tendencies in books and magazines addressed to young audience. The main feature of popular science texts is the abundance of codes — on the one hand, the presence of illustrations, photos, drawings, and charts (the phenomena of iconization and graphization of writing), on the other — the style of expression referring the audience’s experience (e.g. common inflection vocabulary, colloquial stylization, abiding by formal and semantic principles of coherence, non-invasive introduction of scientific terms). A multicoded popular science book requires the ability of global, simultaneous reception.

The article raises the issue of a title — a headline — the first part of a complete text of a student short story. In the course of a diagnostic research, 132 essays of sixth grade pupils were analysed. Only half of those texts included a headline. The formal structure of titles and their function are pointed out. It has been assessed that most often the titles accentuated the protagonist, the time and place of events, as well as the dominating incident of the story. Few titles intrigued and encouraged further reading, which means that the students are not yet aware they can attract a potential audience with a title. In the final part of the article, the authors call for improving the students’ ability to headline texts and instructing them in various functions a title can serve as a part of a text.

Referring to the contents of the core curriculum presently in force, the author provides an overview of a few current language education textbooks on junior high school level and above (authored by Irena Bajerowa, Mieczysław Pęcherski and Janusz Strutyński) with regard to contents on conjunctions. The analysis of the textbooks results in conclusions on their substantive contents, methods of introducing information about conjunctions, and typical exercises developing skills regarding this part of speech.

The subject of the article is a comparative analysis of language in selected music and visual arts textbooks for primary school grades 4 to 6. Randomly selected representative samples of four textbooks were submitted for analysis. The author calculated percentage share of particular parts of speech in textbooks, as well as text nominality indicator. The results of the statistical research broaden the knowledge on linguistic structure and textbook style; they can also contribute towards the advancement of the authors’ writing skills.

Katarzyna Maria Pławecka: Przygotowanie polonistyczne uczniów wiejskich gimnazjów w perspektywie dalszego kształcenia (na przykładzie gminy Laskowa). Kraków 2013 [recenzja]

Odmiany polszczyzny w szkole. Red. Helena Synowiec przy współudziale Marty Kubarek. Katowice 2013 [recenzja]

Style współczesnej polszczyzny. Przewodnik po stylistyce polskiej Red. Ewa Malinowska, Jolanta Nocoń, Urszula Żydek‑Bednarczuk. Kraków 2013 [recenzja]

Uczeń w roli mówcy. Inspiracje i wskazówki metodyczne. Red. Agnieszka Kania, Łucja Staniczek. Katowice 2013 [recenzja]

Praca z uczniem o specjalnych potrzebach edukacyjnych. T. 1. Red. Anna Guzy, Danuta Krzyżyk. Kielce 2012; T. 2. Red. Anna Guzy, Bernadeta Niesporek‑Szamburska. Kielce 2013 [recenzja]

Iwona Gralewicz‑Wolny, Beata Mytych‑Forajter: Uwolnić Pippi! Twórczość dla dzieci wobec przemian kultury. Katowice 2013 [recenzja]

Karolina Kusek: Pomiędzy tęczą a błotnym kamieniem. Warszawa 2012; Karolina Kusek: Gdy oniemieli wieszcze… Wiersze wybrane i nowe. Red. Dariusz T. Lebioda. Warszawa 2013 [recenzje]

Krystyna Zabawa: Rozpoczęta opowieść. Polska literatura dziecięca po 1989 roku wobec kultury współczesnej. Kraków 2013 [recenzja]