Like every year, the state exam is that day when every single citizen becomes an expert in teaching. An event that is mostly ritual (rarissimally is rejected) but which is punctually presented as the most important thing in the month of June in Italy. The traces of the first test, however, are often a good thermometer of the historical and cultural moment, as well as the line followed by the Ministry.

This year, from my point of view, we are more or less to the usual: some tracks are interesting, others are obvious and shamefully easy. As often happens, the one that has made the most of the text analysis; It will be because of literature we do not understand a tube but since we have done the superiors we believe we are critical navigated. The track of poetry showed an unpublished choice, given that Pasolini is usually carefully avoided. And it is an interesting choice, because it is a fundamental author of the twentieth century, although not particularly excellent as a poet as in other areas, and seeing him inserted in the high school exam gives us a little hope, even if almost certainly ephemeral.

The absurd controversy over Pasolini

Of course, it was not possible to avoid the controversy, supremely stupid, on the author: the boys almost never do it in fifth, why do you want to put them in difficulty? We are used to Ungaretti, Quasimodo and Montale! Woe to stimulate the student to do a new thing. Even certain sites for students present ridiculous doubts such as “But how can students ever analyze such an intimate text?” – Because rightly the sonnets of Petrarch or the songs of Leopardi has never analyzed them.

None of these grievances are sensible. Other times, twentieth -century poets have come out that at school are almost never made, like Sereni (in a supplementary test) and Caproni, very high poets that the students ignore (probably of these not even have heard the name, other than Pasolini) and who write decidedly denser texts of the poetry proposed this year. Or traces of poets are coming out whose name is known, like Quasimodo, but that it is not that you study in lead: usually two poems are made, and quite quickly (given that it is an almost irrelevant author, unlike Caproni, to say).

In addition to the fact that having studied an author may also not mean anything: we take Montale, who in theory everyone knows; He wrote five poetic collections (more to want to count the minor ones), each considerably different from the previous one. If you have studied the cuttlefish bones (usually the only one that is done, apart from some other famous text), you don’t have the tools in the least to understand a text by Xenia. In the case of Pasolini, if even the Italian teacher had faced him in the classroom, he would certainly not have made that collection of poems, youth and immature, but others more known and more important also in the panorama of the fifties-sexiant of the twentieth century.

What a text analysis really must evaluate

In fact, the point of analysis of the text is not to check the knowledge on a given author, but the ability to analyze a text: to understand what you read, correctly use the instruments of criticism in the metric, rhetorical, lexical and syntactic fields, and elaborate a reflection by putting the text in dialogue with others of the same era or the like for themes. The text, possibly, must not be known, and it is not necessary at all that the author has been studied. Indeed, the usual names always came out for too many years, so a change comes well: in the last 15 years Pascoli, Ungaretti, Montale and Quasimodo have always come out. And moreover, even texts have also been chosen from these authors who are usually not in class. In 2007 Dante even came out, an extract from singing XI of Paradise! Who knows what students would say today if such a thing happened.

But that’s not enough: the text of Pasolini chosen this year is simple, clear, prosastic, with an easily decoded symbolism, especially since the questions, now, practically soak the students. The same applies to the Leopard, much better known, although often does not make himself in depth: there is no need to know him to comment on that song, where the questions are practically only of understanding the text, there is little analysis. So far from an unsurpassed test.

The other traces, between the interesting and the banal

The B1 track is in my opinion praiseworthy because it proposes a historical-economic topic, of which once there was always a trace and was a great and useful challenge for students who are passionate about these subjects. It is a track that requires commitment and that allows you to enhance the student’s knowledge and ability. The second option, on the other hand, is definitely almost “for dummies”: the theme of respect is very easy and banal, and the song is quite petalous, given that it starts from the semi-delivering statements of Patota and della Valle, and therefore you can embroider itself easily. In short, that theme could write that anyone. The third is much better, taken from a book by Telmo Pievani: both because it allows you to discuss a theme so obvious, but always important, such as the environmental impact of consumerism, and above all on the basis of a serious text.

Coming to type C, everyone knows that it is the simplest and very often has truly ridiculous traces, from middle school themes. Borsellino’s song reconfirms him: it is appreciable to the extent that we know the character, its historical value, its moral caliber; But of his own is nothing more than, and the delivery makes you cry: what do you want the boys to write about the importance of knowing the mafia phenomenon? The C2 track is instead more interesting, because they are a theme of which many teenagers are not aware, suffering social dynamics, and on which it is good that they are induced to reflect: they spend most of the day on these platforms, often without realizing what mechanisms there are and therefore how they behave when they use them.

Like every year, therefore, the media circus that is unleashed has very little reason to be: really difficult texts that can put students in difficulty no longer come out, and at most it is what we should complain about.