Civic literacy in youth and adult education: working with discourse genres through literacy projects

Abstract

This study aims to reflect on the agentive character of writing and the role of discursive genres on the education of literacy agents seeking action and social change. Our discussion is based on Bakhtin´s conception of language (BAKHTIN, 2003); on literacy studies (KLEIMAN, 1995; BAYNHAM, 1995; BARTON; HAMILTON; IVANIC, 2000, LAZERE, 2005); on critical studies which support the idea that all texts are ideological tools that can empower individuals (MCLAREN, 1997; FREIRE, 1979, 1996, 2001; GIROUX, 1997) and on social genre approach inspired on New Rhetoric (BAZERMAN, 2006; 2007). Data was generated from literacy projects through an ethnographic perspective (KLEIMAN, 2000). The literacy projects were developed with Young Adults and Middle-Aged Education (EJA) students during the school year of 2006 in a regular and governmental school in Natal-RN. Based on results, we can firstly say that the work with discursive genre allows that students read and write in order to act discursively on social world, empowering themselves; Secondly, it can be said that the students participation in literacy projects goes beyond a didactic competence related to specificities and to the domain of content, what means that the teacher needs to know what, to whom, why and how to teach. Thus the teacher needs to assume a reflexive posture, acting as a learner. Thirdly, it´s possible to affirm that based on the literacy practices which were developed in the Project, students built a more conscious and critic vision regarding language and the social world in which they acted as politic citizens who may intervene in the world they live in.