Using the Moral and Aesthetic Resource of Miniature in the Speech Development of High School Students

Abstract

Reading and writing of miniatures by students are the kinds of philological activities, which are able to strengthen the emphasis of moral and aesthetic development within the philological analysis of prosaic miniatures. The work with miniatures aims at developing in students a special relation to a word as to the whole imaginative world. In a miniature (due to the unique "tightness" of its verbal line, repetitions, etc.), the word is zoomed in, it is enriched with associability, allowing a student to recognize the difference between the lexical meaning of the word, the concept that the word expresses, and its image. Using miniatures at the lessons of Russian language and Literature, generally will lead to the success on the way to form the students' image thinking. Miniatures due to their small size allow not only seeing and comprehending the depth and versatility of a word-image, but also subject to the reasonably organized work system in the classroom and during after-school hours they encourage and motivate a student to the written and oral speech reflection, developing the aesthetic sense and sense of style, which are extremely necessary as in the everyday life, since they create the identity, as in the conditions of the final certification.

Keywords: Miniature, inner form, "deepening of sense", semantics, moral and aesthetic education, composition

1. Introduction

The study on theoretical underpinning of prosaic miniatures of the first third of the XX

century as a special genre form preceded to the insight of this topic. The attention of the writers who

turned to the creation of miniatures (I.A. Bunin, A.I. Kuprin, M.M. Prishvin, V.V. Rozanov, V.P.

Astafiev, Yu. Bondarev, F.A. Abramov, A.I. Solzhenitsyn, V. Pikul, Z. Prilepin, etc.), was attracted not

only by an art detail, but also a word by itself, within the extent of a miniature; it is characterized by an

enlarged meaning. Striving to the utmost "elegance" of the exterior form allows the writers to "deepen"

the semansiological plane of a character in a miniature; this is precisely why the reading of such a work is accompanied by attentive "viewing" of details, compositions, observation of the "extension" of the inner form of a single word in the composition, repeating the details, name semantics.

2.Problem statement

The problem of the study is related to the issues pertaining to the following aspects 1) to

define a clear pedagogical attitude which is relevant to the material, it will provide an effective work in

the classroom and create the atmosphere of artistic co-creation, 2) to identify the main approaches to

the study of prosaic miniatures at the lessons of Literature, Russian language and Speech culture. The

purpose of thisstudy is to determine the functional, aesthetic, moral and literary repertoire when

studying Literature.

3.Research methods

Analysis of the scientific literature on the aesthetic, moral education of high school students

(V.A. Sukhomlinsky, K.D. Ushinsky, A.A. Melik-Pashayev, I.G. Mineralova), as well as the literary

works studying the miniatures; systematization and scientific substantiation of the main analysis

techniques of miniatures; the key technique in the analysis of miniature is a semantic one.

The arguments of V.A. Sukhomlinsky are important for us; he believed that the richness and

expressiveness of both written and oral speech are directly dependent on the ability to feel the depth of

life in the surrounding objects and phenomena. It is interesting to note that V.A. Sukhomlinsky turned

to writing his own miniatures intended for children «of all ages — from preschoolers to

teenagers» (O.V. Sukhomlinskaya). Moreover, the names of the thematic groups of these miniatures

illustrate their moral and aesthetic orientation: "Beauty is the joy of life", "Man is the power of the

spirit", "Respect and veneration of elderly", "Harmony of labor, happiness and duty", "Cultivate your

delicacy ", etc.

The comprehension of the infinite beauty of life, on the one hand, and the development of

speech of students, on the other hand, can be linked in certain way by the discovery of the living word

beauty. The observations of A.A. Melik-Pashayev prove to be consonant: «Artistically endowed person

perceives the sensual image of the World not just like an external form of things, but as a transparent

form through which the soul of things and phenomena shine, some inner life, akin to his own one. First

of all people with the rich artistic experience comprehend and speak about this attitude. But intuitively

many other people find it in themselves».

Addressing the problems associated with a decrease in the quality of the students’ oral

activities will inevitably lead us to a dialogue about changing thinking skills of a modern student — the

scientists in a variety of knowledge areas are actively engaged in dealing with this subject. Reading is

both a cause and a consequence of changes in the type of thinking.

The phenomenon of a «miniature» enters into a kind of polemics with the modern pace of life.

Z. Prilepin writes: «We know more and more about fewer and fewer things, said a wise man about that

time which for some reasons the stupid people call "the age of information".

We hurry more and more, but are able to manage less and less, I will continue.

We're not moving to the rhythm of time, to the rhythm of our own heart, we break the time

like old rags with a crunch».

Reading and writing miniatures help to think about the content of a moment. Nowadays the

most essential tasks are not to lose yourself, but to learn to see the great things in the small ones,

cherish a moment, see the life of nature, and the miniatures have the necessary moral and aesthetic

resources to solve them.

The recession of the reading culture is caused by the fact that often a student does not master

the tools of reading, it becomes just one of the ways to get some information, besides according to the

opinion of many students this method is clearly not the easiest one. I.G. Mineralova writes about the

necessity to pay attention to the phenomenon of artistic reading: «Today’s negligence in the speech of

officials and TV spokespersons, men of art, or the blatant ignorance of those who post on the Internet

cannot be described as a lack of education, it is an evidence of missed opportunities of,

which every writer recons on, and of course, an evidence of the aesthetic, creative and intellectual

underdevelopment». The speed of our lives, the flow of information, plenty of gadgets preventing the

progressive development of memory, attention, etc., all these realities of our time lead to two mutually

conditioned problems, such as: lowering of the quality of speech and waste of emotional and spiritual

braces.

The use of a large number of clichés by students in the writings and oral speech, the inability

to build a logical chain of thoughts (often students do not have discourse upon the chosen topic), the

use of filler-words are not narrow-subject problems any longer, all of the aforesaid forms the moral-

aesthetic image of a modern student.

The work with miniatures aims at developing in students a special relation to a word as to the

whole imaginative world. In a miniature (due to the unique "tightness" of its verbal series, repetitions,

etc.) the word is zoomed in, it is enriched with the associability, allowing a student to recognize the

difference between the lexical meaning of the word, the concept that the word expresses, and its image.

Using miniatures at the lessons of Russian language and Literature generally will lead to the success on

the way to form the students' image thinking.

Using the moral and aesthetic resources of miniatures at the lessons of Russian language and

Literature can be implemented in two forms:

- Analysis of a miniature written by one or another author,

- Creation of an own miniature.

Certainly before creating your own piece of work, you need to go through several stages of

work with an author's miniature:

- To learn to see the image of a word that can be enriched by means of the intra-text

associability and intra-language resources, and last but not least, by means of the "co-creative"

activities of a reader;

- To learn to describe the image of a piece of work and explain why the miniature has this or

another title (untitled work has its own content-richness);

- To learn to recognize paths, shapes in a piece of work, and be able to explain their role in

forming the of a miniature;

- Through the analysis of several miniatures of one author or while reviewing miniatures in

the context of a monographic study of the writer's works the concept of the can be formed.

Certainly dramatic reading should precede the analysis of miniatures, which is a very

important "participant" in the reconstruction of the work image. Further it should be continued by

commenting the word-image canvas of a miniature. Selected questions should be focused just on the

expansion of a student’s vision of a word:

• How does the "verbal environment" "enrich" the word content?

• What associations come from our own experience?

• What is a difference between the lexical meaning of a word and impression created when the

word is read in this work?

So, for example, the miniature of A.I. Kuprin "Moscow snow" starts like this:

"Today since the morning snow has been falling on Paris, and, never

ending snow with the flakes as big as a which immediately turn into a, than and

, once touching the ground. But all the roofs are shining with flat, even, sloping whiteness and

branches of sycamore trees, limes and chestnuts in Bois de Boulogne bent under the weight of hog-

backed snow piles".

The questions that will draw students’ attention to the are as follows.

• Which words associatively belong to the same associative thematic group?

• Which words describe not only the snow / landscape, but also the inner world of a narrator?

• Please, specify neologisms. Tell us what images are involved in their creation?

Generally the analysis of the title of a miniature will allow concentrating on the functionality

of a literary work title. The small size of a miniature will allow tracing more clearly the "threads" of

meaning leading to the title.

The most common questions and tasks can be as follows:

• Why did the author title a miniature this way?

• Create a title for the proposed story / picture / photo. For example, photos taken by

M.M. Prishvin can be interesting.

• Write a miniature for the given title.

The task to write a small-impression can be used as a special drill to develop the

attention and sensitivity. The approximate topics may include:

«Heavy drop», «The most joyful sound, «Tender ring», «Colors of the sunset sky», «Breath of

wind», «Dragonfly wing», «Oscillating air filament», «Thoughtful drop», «Titmouse on the willow»,

«Grandmother’s smile», «Tenderness of the first leaves», «Whispering field», «Crunchy ice».

Or more extensive ones:

«What can be seen in a drop?»

«What does the silence say?»

«Moment of eternity»

«World on the palm»

«Music of a thought when I am in Nesterov’s (or other artist’s) hall...»

«I am shooting the frost»

«Music of a falling leaf»

The simplicity of such statements is based on the fact that the material for ideas, inspiration is

"around" us, and they are valuable because they allow you to listen to yourself.

Not only is the concept or idea clothed in words, not only does the work as a whole (topic,

idea) have a meaning, content, but also the composition, syntactic structure, etc. which are often

perceived as "technical" things. By the example of the analysis of a miniature, the unity of these layers

can be seen more clearly.

It is important to give a child the understanding that the means of expression are not the lot of

the literary fiction. It is important to understand that they make it possible to compress the idea, to

express it more vividly... Working with literary miniatures through the main means of miniaturization

will make it possible to learn such concepts as: ellipsis, metonymy and synecdoche, metaphor and

personification, graduation, sound pattern...

Once students learn to find the necessary paths and shapes in the text, it will be possible to

offer them a task to create their own image using this or that means of expression:

The work on the development of "genre intuition" can be done through the comparison with

other genre forms: miniatures have both the general and fundamental differences from a novel, essay,

sketch, novella, free verse and others.

A miniature is a very special phenomenon, at the same time it is an "exercise" in the analysis

of literary works (by analogy with a musical etude) and completed independent work. On the one hand,

a miniature has a "convenient" volume, allowing illustrating many literary concepts, etc. based on the

short literary material; at the same time only a person who has the proper level of attention, sensitivity,

etc., can read a miniature appreciating its literary significance.

The peculiar "nature" of a miniature will allow raising the issue to distinguish the lyric and

epic content. Moral and aesthetic resources of a miniature in general are significantly linked with its

lyrical "nature", the author of miniatures is not limited to the description of the inner world of a lyrical

character, and he also activates the spiritual and emotional activities of a reader.

To implement into the educational process, the activities with miniatures is quite flexible

process, as it can be harmoniously integrated into different learning situations:

- As part of a monographic study of the works of an author (e.g., the analysis of I.A. Bunin’

miniatures in the context of his works),

- As part of the cultural characteristics of the era.

Addressing a miniature can have an integrative nature:

- Referring to the works of A. Galunov at the lessons of world culture, as well as at the speech

development lessons (make-a-picture-story).

- Referring to the works of Pikul, Prishvin, Rozanov in parallel with studying this or that

particular historical period.

The integration of a miniature in the educational process allows us to develop the students’

sense of style, can encourage unlocking their own creative potential and forming the student’s style.

4.Conclusions and recommendations.

The introduction of such an activity as the analysis of miniatures in the educational process is

focused on the development of attentiveness and sensitivity of students to each individual word, it

contributes to the development of adequate and well-grounded compositional speech organization,

allows expanding the representation of high school students about the richness and expressiveness of

the Russian language. The authors of miniatures comprehend the infinite beauty of nature, create an

image of a human soul, in a special way shape a "sense of time", the conversation about these and other

topics based on prosaic miniatures is intended to become a part of the moral and aesthetic development

of high school students.

5.Results

Miniatures due to their small size allow not only seeing and comprehending the depth and

versatility of a word-image, but is also subject to the reasonably organized work system in the

classroom and during after-school hours they encourage and motivate a student to the written and oral

speech reflection, developing the aesthetic sense and sense of style, which are extremely necessary in

the everyday life, since they create the identity, as in the conditions of the final certification.

References

• Melik-Pashaev, A.A. (30.05.2016). Razvitie hudozhestvennyh sposobnostej shkol'nikov.Iskusstvovshkole.

• Retrieved from http://art-inschool.ru/index.php/stati/114.

• Mineralova, I.G. (2015). Kniga kak yavlenie iskusstva i remesla i obshchenie s knigoj kak iskusstvo. Mirovaya

• slovesnost' dlya detej i o detyah, 3–6.

• Prilepin, Z. (30.05.2016). Polomalsya alfavit. Retrieved from http://www.zaharprilepin.ru/ru/columnistika/krupnyi-

• plan/polomalsya-alfavit.html..

• Suhomlinskij, V.A. (1990). Hrestomatiya po ehtike. M.:

• Pedagogika.