The article is devoted to the problems of moral education of students through the ethical conversations at the seminars of the course "history of Tatar literature". On the example of several classical works, firstly, the educational potential of literature is shown, and secondly, the effectiveness of ethical conversations and the system of value-oriented situations is emphasized. Experimental work on the basis of ranking the life values of young people shows the degree of effectiveness of the combination of ethical conversations and value-oriented situations in the formation of moral personality.