Contar e explicar: competências de escrita de estudantes de 5.º ano numa escola multicultural portuguesa

Abstract

Writing competence is transversal to all areas of the curriculum. Writing is the most complex of language activities, and it becomes an even more demanding challenge when students are far from literate culture. Writing and teaching how to write should therefore be assiduous practices in the classroom. In this study, skills in compositional writing (narration and exposition) (PETERSON; McCABE,1991; SOUSA, 2015; MEYER, 1985) and spelling (RAVID; TOLCHINSKY, 2002; VALE; SOUSA, in press), are analyzed. Text quality, structure and microstructures and spelling are focused. The study was carried out in a TEIP cluster of schools (Educational Territories of Priority Intervention) in the Lisbon region in 2018-2019. The main objectives of this study were: i) to investigate the narrative competence, ii) to investigate the expository competence, and iii) to analyze the spelling skills of 5th graders. Narrative and expository texts were elicited, and textual quality was analyzed. The results reveal that students have more difficulties in expository texts writing than narrative texts. They also show that spelling errors and accentuation errors are areas that deserve special attention. The practical relevance of the results in both teaching and teacher training is discussed and conclusions are drawn.