As Inside Poetry: Outdoor Literary Education and Metacognition

Abstract

This contribution intends to assess the metacognitive potential of outdoor literature teaching. In order to establish whether an outdoor reading and writing experience can actually promote metacognitive reflection in the field of literature, it was deemed appropriate to adopt a mixed methodology, starting with the setting up of a teaching activity involving two first classes of a secondary school. In particular, two salient points emerged from the thematic analysis of the pupils’ interventions during a metacognitive focus group on the outdoor reading activity: the mediating role of literature in relation to reality and the perception of a deferred co-presence between the reader and the lyrical subject. In conclusion, the process of embodied simulation, intrinsic to the act of reading, appears reinforced by the concrete exposure to sensory perceptions replicating those experienced through literature, promoting the learners’ literary metacognition.