Gra w (nie)porozumienie

The paper describes a surprising way of analysing a verbal text. Initially, some parts were deleted from the original text. Then, students were asked to interpret the fabricated text and later complete the gaps in such a way as to create a coherent text. However, the students did not recognize the overall aim of the activity. They were unknowing competitors in 'playing with a text' but liked the convention very much (filling in the odd lines). The students were often extremely surprised at the climax of the meeting on hearing the final message. In the end, active teaching and learning made it possible to achieve the main goal, that of helping students understand the metatext function of the title.