History of a teaching practice: spelling and ideological dictation in elementary school programs (1923-1934) [Storia di una pratica di insegnamento: Dettato ortografico e dettato ideologico nei programmi per la scuola elementare (1923-1934)]

Between the end of the XIX Century and the beginning of the XX Century dictation was one of the main tools to teach Italian to an almost illiterate people. With the advent of the fascist regime, dictation took on other purposes and was used daily by teachers as propaganda of the fascist regime. Although dictation is rarely mentioned in the Elementary School Programs of 1923 and 1934 its diffusion continued without any significant debate on its usefulness, as well as on the different ways of proposing it or how to correct mistakes. The reconstruction of this practice through the analysis of national curricula, school journals and, in some cases, school exercise books, opens a track to grasp the contradiction between what is declared and what is done inside the classrooms.