香港由於經長期的殖民統治、特殊的政治經濟社會環境，形成與內地、臺灣截然不同的文化背景。所以，語文教學的傳統也和海峽兩岸有很大的分別，中學會考中國文學科（以下稱「本科」）獨立成科就是一例。過去三十多年，本科前後經歷三個不同的課程（三代課程），走過一段崎嶇的路，課程仍有很多需要改善的地方。但如果我們能在現有課程的基礎上，通過對本科課程發展從理論到實踐的研究，對本科文學教學的基本理念、課程目標、內容、實施和評估等進行研究，總結歷史和現實的經驗教訓，並借鑒中外文學理論和文學教學的經驗，可以對本科課程和未來高中中國文學的發展方向提出建議，並為在中學中國語文新課程中推行文學教學所遇到的理論和現實問題，找出解決的辦法。本文通過對本科三代課程的反思，而提出對未來第四代文學課程的展望。
Because of the long history of colonial rule, Hong Kong has a special political and socio-economic environment forming a cultural background which is very different from Taiwan and the Mainland. Therefore, the tradition of language teaching is also different from across the Taiwan Strait. The establishment of Chinese literature as an independent subject is a good example.
The syllabus of this subject has passed through three generations. Its development was full of obstacles, and the syllabus is still not ideal and needs improvement. However, if we base on the present syllabus and study the development from theory to practice, we are still able to make suggestions on the future development of the syllabus and Chinese literature education by investigating its basic idea, aim, subject content, implementation and assessment. This may also help to solve the problem of implementing literature education in the new Chinese language syllabus. This study involves rethinking of the third generation syllabus to suggest a future (fourth generation) syllabus.
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