Olhando-me no espelho: imagens da leitura em uma escola pública de ensino médio

Abstract

The main objective of this work was to discuss - with teachers and students of a public high school in Rio de Janeiro - some topics related to their conceptions and practices about reading, throughtout pictures which were taken during the research. The diferent ideas about reading, the link between literary reading and other kinds of reading with new tecnologies, the function of school, motivating - or not - the acess to diferent places of reading, were some of the topics discussed throughtout the studying of this research. Roger Chartier indicated a broader idea in wich reading could be understood as a cultural practice, and could be done in diferent places, submited to diferent "gestures, spaces and habits" and, as a consequence, submited to different uses and avaliations, rising its impossibility to be seen in an abstract way. At first, the main idea of the research was the creation of a video - by the students - about reading. As it was not possible (or did not work out well), the best option was the use of pictures. The members of the research - the teachers and the students - were invited to produce images wich were related to the topic of reading (in their comprehension). These images were the starting point for the interviews to happen. During the research, the production of the images brought important contributions for us to discuss the relations between the author and what s/he studies, the making of the research itself, and also the discussions about the topics related to reading. Etiene Samain, Miriam Moreira Leite, Boris Kossoy, José de Souza Matins, were some of the theoretical references wich made the discussions about the use of image on the research possible, giving the idea that is not just a copy of reality or an ilustration to a text. The discussion about the use of image has been included in an analysis about the theoretical and methodological topics related to the use of ethnographic estrategies of research organized with the contribution of some authors such as George Marcus, James Clifford e Joanne Passaro. As it is a research wich has been studied in the place where the researcher works, the discussion about the construction of its identity and also about the ethics dimension of the research has acquired some notability, especially because of Mikhail Bakhtin thoughts. Throughout the research it has been realized that the tradicional ideas that schools have about reading - conected to the extreme overrating of literary reading - has not been noticed in the school that has been studied, neither as an abstract indication nor as a concret practice. This fact - built based on the relationship with students and teachers - has been analised acording to Walter Beijamin´s thoughts about de decline of the conditions of production and recepction of the literary reading. His thoughts also served as a base for the analysis of some caracteristics of reading and writing on the contemporary world known for its dinamic changes. With the help from Lucia Santaella, the contemporary materials of reading, the different kinds of readers and also the different kinds of the use of reading by the objects of study have been studied. During this study it has been noticed that the multiplicity of the ways and practices of reading in school of the studied youngsters is not only because of their subjective and identitary characteristics. It is related either to the diversity of the ways and practices of teachers´ reading, or to the differences between the places of the school where reading happens. This discover indicates that the idea which says that there is a "reading crisis" in schools is not valid because - including other things - it does not take into consideration the many configurations that reading can take in schools.