Self e literatura: considerações sobre o desenvolvimento na educação de crianças

Abstract

This study consisted of an investigation into the emerging processes in the intertwining of the experiences of the self of children from elementary education to children's literature. In this investigation we invested in reflections about the approach of the self related to language, the dialogical self, problematizing the way in which the literature is used in the classrooms of the elementary school, where the focus falls on the decoding and reproduction of meanings considered consensual in the text. Throughout this research, it was argued that the moments of intertwining literary texts with the children's self-experiences enhance the production of meaning about the literary work. It was also argued that the experience with the literature has a fundamental role in human psychological development. In this perspective we discussed methodologies for working with literature in the classroom that privilege the dynamics and the functioning of the dialogical self. A longitudinal intervention research was carried out in a school environment with the objective of investigating emerging processes in the relationship between children's self-experiences and children's literature, in storytelling activities. As a data construction strategy, twelve literary workshops were carried out with 40 students from the first year of primary education in the process of literacy. Through the workshops three different types of literature mediation were developed: 1) Story telling in an exclusively oral mode 2) Story tellingfrom the reading of abook and 3) Story telling through puppet play. Four workshops were held for each modality. The questions that we sought to answer in our analyzes were, for example: what strategies did thechildren use to relate their personal experiences to thecontent described in children's literature? How is this relationship organized? The workshops were recorded on video. The dataset, which includes videography records, artistic productions and children's narratives, was treated through microgenetic analysis, aiming to highlight the processes of children's self-positioning during interaction with the literature. Subsequently, the researcher carried out a narrative analysis, which consisted in the elaboration of arguments, based on theoretical assumptions, for possible connections between the data configurations that resulted from the microgenetic treatment. In the conclusion the hypothesis of the centrality of the interweaving of the experiences of self with the history told for the production of meaning about the literary textwas confirmed. In addition, the power of cultural experiences mediated by literature for human development was highlighted. From this information we have suggested strategies for the use of literature in the classroom considering the specificities of how the child relates hisor hers experiences with literary history to understand it, transforming the story and themselvesin this process. Finally, a continuing education course was offered to the school where the intervention was developed for elementary school teachers, where these results were appropriated by the schoolcommunity.