O tempo histórico nas narrativas infantis: reflexões sobre ensinar e aprender História na alfabetização

Abstract

The present research established as a general objective to understand aspects of the construction of historical thought of children in the literacy process, through the analysis of the development of their narrative skills. Historical time in children's narratives emerged as an object of research, in so far as thinking historically presupposes operating the sense of time. We tried to answer the following question: how do children in the first year of elementary school relate past, present and future in their narratives? In order to answer the guiding inquiry, the research presented a qualitative approach. It was developed through an empirical case study investigation. The narratives of first graders from a class at Colégio Pedro II (São Cristóvão Campus) were analyzed. For data collection, yarning circles were used as a methodological tool, planned in semi-structured scripts, with historical time as the main theme comprehended as a basic epistemological knowledge of History. Based on the recording and transcription of the conversations, an analysis of children's narratives was outlined according to the theoretical assumptions elaborated mainly by Rüsen (2001, 2007, 2010, 2011b, 2011e, 2014, 2015) and Cooper (2002, 2006). It was found that children have diverse historical knowledge and can mobilize different ideas and hypotheses to narrate experiences (own and others’) in the flow of time; children use specific temporal words from the vocabulary legitimized by historical science to refer to the temporal dimensions: past, present and future; children spontaneously resort to natural time (external time) through expressions that denote time in a chronological and epochal sense, in an association with the intelligibility of the changes experienced in their lives (human or internal time); children also mobilize substantive knowledge of history in connection with the historical culture accessed, as they are also able to build associations based on the present-past relationship and the movement of comings and goings (present-past-present).