The article discusses the problems associated with the improvement of teaching literature in vocational secondaryeducation institutions; there are some features of teaching literature than teaching in secondary schools. The article gives the characteristic of academic and methodological complex for literature for institutions of professional secondary education.

The article considers the actual problems that are put forwards Concept of the Russian language and literature teaching in the Russian Federation: first, “degradation of the motivation of learners to reading”; second, “incomplete provision of formation of communicative competency of learners”. The author presents the determining role of the communicative and reader competencies of teachers in perfection of the teaching process, and highlights the possible ways of the communicative competency development through the development of the unified speech environment of an educational establishment.

The paper considers methods of teaching school students how to write essays, given that it is the basic form of writing activities in the process of teaching the Russian language and literature at the middle school. Emphasized are the different kinds of essays in terms of types of speech, such as narration, description, discourse.

The paper considers the methods concerning how to analyze, edit and improve written text essays. Outlined are the stages of written text improving. Developed is the system of formative assignments, conducive to mastering the skills of proper text writing.

The article considers the technique of training essay writing on a literary subject in high school. The emphasis is puton stage-by-stage improvement of pupils’ skills of working on essay: from theme analysis to working through parts of the text.