Boccaccio
BOCCACCIO DEPARTMENT - ITALIAN LATIN GEOSTORY
Responsible teacher: Prof. Sabrina Alfonsi - contacts:
Prof. Sabrina Alfonsi graduated from the University of Trieste in Literary Studies with a thesis on the History of Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature. He obtained the qualification to teach literary subjects in upper secondary education institutes (competition class A050), participating in the ordinary competition for exams and qualifications announced by Ministerial Decree in 1984, and the qualification to teach literary subjects and Latin in high schools and teaching institutes (competition class A051), participating in the reserved session of exams announced by Decree Law in 1989. He is a permanent teacher in literature and Latin at the Galileo Galilei State Scientific High School in Trieste since 1991.
Mission of the Department
The Boccaccio Department is divided into: first two years, which coordinates the teaching activity of the Italian, geo-history and Latin disciplines (the latter present only in the sections of the Liceo Scientifico, not in the Applied Sciences option sections); second biennium and fifth year, which coordinate the activity of the Italian and Latin disciplines. There are 20 teachers, all belonging to the same competition class (A011); they work in part on mixed chairs, alternating both teaching in the first two years and that in the following classes, and teaching in sections of the Scientific High School with that in Applied Science sections, both within the staff of the reinforcement.
The educational-training objectives that the Department proposes respond to the need to place the concept of competence at the center of its attention in a personalist perspective, in the sense that it must be the centrality of the person, or rather of the learner, that constitutes the inspiring principle of the educational process, as declared by all the most recent national and European legislation. Disciplinary knowledge must thus constitute the condition for developing those skills that enrich the pupils' personality and make them aware of themselves and of others.
Without knowledge and skills - as stated - skills cannot manifest themselves; and here the Department also works in this perspective, for the creation of specific teaching modules, based on the founding nuclei expressed by the new National Guidelines, identifying some essential knowledge and skills, but at the same time leaving teachers the possibility of designing innovative scholastic paths, also through the use of new technologies or through different methodological approaches. An example of this, in the teaching of Latin, is the presence of both the translation grammar approach (also through the use of IT supports), and the innovative one of the Ørberg Method; methodologies all equally useful for favoring that encounter with classical texts which educates students to compare ancient and modern, to grasp elements of continuity and innovation within our cultural tradition, both national and European.
The first two-year period, which also marks the conclusion of compulsory schooling, is on the one hand a moment of connection with the lower secondary school, and on the other as a preparatory step for the second two-year period. The primary and transversal objective of the disciplines taught is the consolidation of linguistic skills (both in reception and in production) because, as stated in the DM n.139/2007, "mastery of the Italian language is an indispensable premise for the conscious and critical exercise of every form of communication and is common to every form of learning (...) it is indispensable for interacting in the community and for fully exercising citizenship". At the same time, however, attention is paid to the different typologies of literary text, to gradually guide the student towards the more specialized path faced in the second two-year period - fifth year. Insofar as literature, whether ancient or modern or contemporary, also takes on a formative value for developing the complex and profound sense of belonging to society.