Poland Liceum ogólnokształcące, klasa I Polish language and literature

1. Literature of the period

Antiquity · Middle Ages · Renaissance · Baroque

• Ancient Greece: City-States, Democracy and a Lasting Legacy – Ancient Greece grew up around the Aegean Sea, in a land of mountains, small valleys and many islands. Mountains kept communities apart, so Greeks lived in hundreds of independent city-states (poleis), each with its own laws, army and gods, while the sea linked them through trade. The two best known were Athens, a trading city that developed the first democracy around 508 BCE, and Sparta, a military state. The Greeks united to defeat Persian invasions in 490 and 480 BCE, then fought one another in the Peloponnesian War. Alexander of Macedon later led an army from Greece to Egypt and as far as the Indus, spreading Greek culture in the Hellenistic age. Greek ideas in politics, philosophy, history writing, science, mathematics, theatre, sport and architecture still shape the world.
• The Baroque: Art in Motion (c. 1600–1750) – Baroque is the European style of about 1600 to 1750 in painting, sculpture, architecture, music and literature. It grew in Rome after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church and kings used art to move and impress people. Its marks are motion, contrast and emotion: diagonals, dramatic light (chiaroscuro and tenebrism), curving walls and domes, gold and illusion ceilings, music with a basso continuo and many weaving voices, and writing full of contrasts, surprising metaphors and the theme of passing time. Key names: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Borromini, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Góngora, Donne. Classicism answered it with order, reason and calm.

2. Reading literary works

Periods and conventions · Devices and tones · Content, motifs and world of the work · Interpreting and comparing

Coming soon

3. Reading cultural texts

Non-literary texts and media · Philosophy, art and high/popular culture

• Media Literacy – Media literacy is the skill of reading, questioning and creating media: news, ads, videos, posts, films and games. Every media text is made by someone, for a purpose, for an audience, using forms, conventions and techniques that shape how we feel. A media-literate person checks the source, evidence, other coverage and the original before believing or sharing, notices bias and filter bubbles, and makes their own media responsibly.

4. Language education

Grammar in use · Varieties of language · Communication and language ethics · Spelling and punctuation

Coming soon

5. Creating texts

Rhetoric and argument · Speaking and writing

• Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Speech – Rhetoric is the art of using words to persuade an audience. Every speech has a speaker, an audience, a message and an occasion. Speakers persuade through three appeals: ethos (trust in the speaker), logos (reasons and evidence) and pathos (feelings). A speech is built in five steps — invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery — and figures of speech make it memorable. Rhetoric has power: it can teach and unite, but it can also seduce and manipulate, so a good listener checks the evidence.

6. Self-study

Research and sources

• Research Skills: From a Question to a Finished Project – Research is a careful way of finding an answer. You ask a clear, focused question, plan how to answer it, find information and check that each source can be trusted, collect and analyse your own data, draw a conclusion that the evidence supports, and share it while crediting every source you used.