Jornal escolar como atividade de ensino-aprendizagem das funções sociais da língua escrita

Abstract

This research was motivated by the need to understand the problem of artificiality suffered by written language when taken as the object of teaching and learning in the school context. It investigated how the production of a school newspaper can contribute to an adequate schooling of the social uses and functions of the written language, and subsequently minimize the problem in the context of elementary school. The central objectives of the research consisted in analyzing how the production of school newspapers can configure a language activity, as defined by the Activity Theory by Leontiev, and identifying which social uses and functions attributed to the written language have emerged in the context of this activity. The theoretical and methodological references that supported the research consisted of studies on social uses and functions of the written language, the school newspaper, and the Activity Theory. The data collected through the use of techniques such as direct observation, document analysis, semistructured interviews and explicitness showed that the production of the school newspaper involved reading and/or production of informative and opinionated articles, editorial articles, interviews, messages, advertisements, etc. In the context of the activity being analyzed, reading and/or production of such genres functioned to convince/raise awareness, communicate impressions and views, report facts and events, provide accountability, promote interpersonal communication, sell products and services, provide support to memory, guide the compliance of standards and regulations, guide/ systematize the completion of an action, formalize permanent records, prove facts and events, among others. The results demonstrated the importance of the production of school newspapers as a methodological alternative for the teaching of the social uses and functions of the written language in a meaningful and contextualized way, helping to minimize the artificiality of the practical teaching of the written language in the school context. Because the research focused on the production of newspapers whose stories were produced as an extra-class activity, it is suggested to widen and deepen the study through an intervention research in which the newspaper is produced as a pedagogical activity developed together by teachers and students as part of the curricular activities.