Enseñar literatura en tiempos revueltos. El deseo de leer y la educación literaria

Why (and for what purposes) should we teach literature in the classroom today? What should we do with literature at school? How do we educate students in the appreciation and enjoyment of literary reading and writing at the beginning of the 21st century and in the context of an education and a society subjected to the fascination for other kinds of fiction and other stories that flood television screens and to the deluge of information from the internet? In this essay, we will refer to issues such as the evolution of literature teaching over time, the theoretical debate on the identity of the literary text, the sense and relevance of literary education in the context of current networked societies, the rights of the reader, and the desire to read; furthermore, at the end of the essay we provide didactic orientations for literature education in the classroom.