The article deals with the subject of the application of poetics in everyday school life and it essentially focuses on its presence in upper secondary schools. On the basis of his experience, the author makes a general observation that poetics is only apparently in a good condition at school, whereas it is actually subject to the schematic structural method, which constrains, rather than facilitates, an in-depth reading of a text. In consequence, the author suggests that a Polish teacher should constantly make an effort to correct the present system, not yielding to the overimposed patterns of thinking or examinations standards.