Controlled writing and linguistic simplification. The authentic texts of the literary anthology for schools, «In and Out»

Reading literary texts is one of the fundamental activities characterising language learning in school. Such texts have to be accessible to learners; that is, they have to be able to read and understand them. Recent theoretical debate has vacillated between opting for authentic texts – which can be too complex – and simplified texts, which alter the original text, at times not even easing comprehension and readability. One alternative to these options is controlled writing, a tool that allows authors to write texts at a level difficulty adapted to the abilities of the readers and which therefore require no simplification before being read in a class of learners of Italian as a foreign language (or ‘L2’). The project of the Alta Scuola Pedagogica dei Grigioni (ASPGR) "in dentro e in fuori - Antologia letteraria per la scuola" is situated in this theoretical context and brings together eighteen texts by authors from the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland aimed at learners of Italian as a foreign language. Throughout the process of writing the texts, the authors were accompanied by an academic group and by the practical experience of two Italian teachers working in secondary schools, who pointed out further elements to be linguistically simplified in order to make the stories more accessible. This article introduces the project, situates it in the theoretical framework and analyses the linguistic development of texts at various stages of writing and simplification.