Valutare le competenze linguistico-letterarie: prodromi didattici

On July 23, 1998, the Presidential Decree No. 323 reformed the state examination in secondary school and introduced, for the first time, the evaluation of competences in the Italian School System. Since then, an increasingly in-depth debate on the concept of competence has begun which has allowed to deepen the related aspects of teaching and evaluation. The contribution focuses on the evaluation of linguistic literary competence, from the epistemological perspective. In reference to the axiom by which how to evaluate the linguistic-literary student learnings is related to how to teach the linguistic-literary content, the contribution hopes for a teacher who can connect the content, skills, and competences and does not reduce the whole evaluation process to mere content assessment. From this perspective, the evaluation of competences would be considered not a ‘command scepter’ in the hands of the teacher but an effective practice to improve the teaching and learning processes, the linguistic-literary competence of the students, as well as the general quality of the school. Whether the school intends to keep up with the times and respond adequately to the epochal changes of our century - i.e. the daily experiences of young people and the cultural mediation of technologically advanced civility -, it should rethink the teaching of literary-linguistic student competences into a wider connection with other purposes of learning and general didactic.