A interpretação de texto na escola: o sentido pode ser outro

Abstract

This research intends to help teachers in the work of interpretation, articulating academic thinking and school practice. It aims at understanding the meaning of interpretation, in addition to identifying which strategies can be taught to students in order to make them proficient in the interpretative task. The initial hypothesis is that there is no precise methodology for teaching interpretation. In order to test this hypothesis, an interpretation activity, based on the text Povo , by Luis Fernando Verissimo, taken from a school book, was applied to two groups of students in 4 public schools from Rio de Janeiro (Cap UERJ, Cap UFRJ, CMRJ e CP II). The first group included students from the eighth grade of Elementary School. The second group, on the other hand, was compounded of students from the second grade of High School. It was analyzed how students had answered to the proposed questions. The present research intends to demonstrate, according to the theoretical assumptions from Orlandi (2002: 64), that to interpret is not to make sense, but instead to explain how the text produce meanings, including meanings that can be always different from the expected by the textbook or the teacher's feedback. It was considered that results would be similar; however, Elementary School students achieved 40% of correct answers, while High School students reached the rate of 60,7%. Despite different results, it was possible to apply the activity to the two grades, because the text selection was relevant for both. The research identifies inference, polysemy, metaphor and context as tools for building interpretation, for they appear in data analysis, showing it is possible to put them in practice. Therefore, despite the lack of a precise and level-based methodology for the development of interpretation, there are strategies that can be taught in order to improve student s ability to interpret. These strategies can be applied to all grades, varying the complexity of the texts chosen for each grade. It is necessary to build interpretation in the school context considering theoretical background, showing and operating strategies, offering subsidies to students. In this way, the present work puts in the spotlight a field which is complex, built through disagreements on thought and on categories. At the same time, it brings a useful contribution to improve the knowledge in a subject very relevant to school practice and to the life as whole