Ensino da produção de texto: o caso do livro didático “Ápis-letramento e alfabetização”

Abstract

The present work is an analysis of the approach developed for teaching textual production in a textbook from elementary school's 3rd grade. We aim to: Identify proposed writing activities in the textbook; Investigate whether these activities involve the writing of different textual genres; Observe whether these activities thoroughly describe all composing elements of the proposed textual production context and whether they promote deeper reflection on those elements from students; Analyse whether these activities go through all different steps for textual production: planning, storming ideas and text revision. In order to get a better grasp on our object and analyse the data, we based our studies on the work of Leal and Brandão (2007), Silva and Melo (2007a; 2007b), Leal and Melo (2007), Soares (2004), Dolz and Schneuwly (2004) and Antunes (2003), which largely discuss on textual production activities and how to teach writing. The present work developed what can be classified as a documental research, as suggested by André and Ludke (1996), and quanti-qualitative (that is, simultaneously, quantitative and qualitative) as suggested by Malhotra (2001). The analysed textbook was Ápis: Letramento e Alfabetização, which is used on the majority of schools in the city of São João-PE. We analysed all 11 activities specified on the section dedicated for textual production while verifying how work was developed for this branch of teaching. The data analysis showed that, despite the fact that students were asked to produce different genres and were exposed to examples of these, the situations proposed for production, in their vast majority, did not represent real writing practice, they only had didactic purposes. Also, the activities do not supply enough information and orientation on the characteristics of the genre for production, as well as on how to develop the theme, how to plan the writing itself and how to revise and edit the final text. We conclude that the analysed book does not hold textual production teaching practice as seen in the literature of the field, which ultimately incurs on poor motivation and support for writing. In this case, teacher's intervention becomes essential, as an alternative to modify and complement proposed activities available in the textbook.