Inseparability between infants’ and children’s emotions and literacies in the classroom Abstract
This study aims to analyze, based on historical-cultural theory and ethnography in education, the relations between emotions and literacies constructed in two classrooms (one for babies and another for children) in two ethnographic and longitudinal studies in two different periods by members of the same research group. The first research was carried out from 2006 to 2008 and the other, from 2017 to March 2020. Descriptions and analyses contrasted the cultural patterns of the two classrooms during their story telling events. We found that literacy activities are human activities that involve subjects in all their dimensions and that the condition for building higher psychic functions in infants and children who are supported by the indivisibility of the dialectical unit [emotions-literacies] must consider children’s cultural and social experiences and actions and interactions with colleagues and teachers, i.e., the dialectic between the collective and the individual constitute the meanings of literacy events and subjectivities.
Keywords
Emotions-literacies; Infants; Children
Resumo
O artigo tem como objetivo analisar, do ponto de vista da Teoria Histórico-Cultural e da Etnografia em Educação, as relações entre emoções e letramentos construídas em duas salas de aula, uma de bebês e outra de crianças pertencentes a duas pesquisas etnográficas e longitudinais realizadas em dois períodos diferentes por integrantes do mesmo grupo de pesquisa. A primeira foi realizada entre 2006 e 2008 e a segunda entre 2017 e março de 2020. As descrições e análises permitiram-nos fazer contrastes entre os padrões culturais das duas salas quando os eventos da roda de história aconteciam em ambas. Percebemos que as atividades de letramentos são atividades humanas e envolvem os sujeitos em todas as suas dimensões, e concluímos que a condição para a formação das funções psíquicas superiores em bebês e crianças que têm suporte da indivisibilidade da unidade dialética [emoções-letramentos] precisa considerar as vivências culturais e sociais das crianças, bem como suas ações e interações com colegas e professoras, ou seja, é na dialética entre o coletivo e o individual que os sentidos dos eventos de letramentos, assim como, as subjetividades são constituídos.
Palavras-chave
Emoções-letramentos; Bebês; Crianças
Introduction
Reading and writing have become the object of interest in several fields of knowledge in recent decades. Such interest mainly stems from the emergence of new communication technologies that undo the naturalness of these processes and make their uses and functions even more complex in modern society (Dias; Gomes, 2015 ).
Thus, mastering literate social practices configures a necessary condition for citizenship and access to knowledge. Since the end of the 20th century, the modern world imposes new demands that contribute to diversifying semiotic mediators’ reading ways, objects, uses, and social practices. This context of great technological, sociocultural, political, and economic transformations expanded the definition of the act of reading and writing in different studies and approaches (Street, 1984 , 1995 , 2000 , 2003 ; Heath, 1983 ; Luria, 1988 ; Scribner; Cole, 1981 ; Kalman, 2003 ; Freire, 1981 , 1989 ; Soares, 2003 , 2020 ; Kleiman, 1995 ; Koch; Elias, 2008 ; Rojo, 2009 ).
In literacy studies, we are witnessing the return of an old debate on the methods of teaching reading and writing and on the main concepts and definitions of related terms. We face a worrying educational reality as we are far from achieving the goals set by the Brazilian National Education Plan for 2014-2024, including: obtaining literacy for all children by the end of the third elementary school year, raising the literacy rate of the population aged 15 years and over to 93.5%, eradicating absolute illiteracy, and reducing functional illiteracy rate by 50% (Brasil, 2019 ).
To raise literacy rates, the 2019 National Literacy Plan seeks to base public policies on cognitive sciences, especially the cognitive science of reading. According to Gomes, Dias, and Vargas ( 2017 ), the documents from the Brazilian Ministry of Education and Culture stem from Brazilian research, such as Capovilla and Capovilla ( 2000 , 2007 ), Cardoso-Martins ( 2006 ), Cardoso-Martins and Batista ( 2005 ), Cardoso-Martins and Corrêa ( 2008 ), and Oliveira and Silva ( 2009 ). These studies agree with the worldwide trend of adopting the phonic method to teach reading and writing as they consider this approach can more effectively develop literacy in children and adults.
From our point of view, rather than the method, the production of meanings by students and teachers turns our gaze to the process: to what, why, how, with whom, for what, under what conditions and results one learns. Meanings are constructed in the interspersing articulations of subjects’ multiple sensibilities, sensations, emotions, and feelings, which are constituted as such in the social relations, enabling us to think of psychological functions as symbolic and emotional productions that alter all human activity.
Thus, in subjects’ game of conditions, experiences, needs, interests, impulses, affection, emotions, and decisions, “a certain logic of production, collectively oriented, emerges from multiple meanings that have already been stabilized, but from others that are also becoming possible” (Smolka, 2004 , p. 12, free translation).
As Vygotski asserts:
[…] Understanding the words of others also requires understanding their thoughts. And even this is incomplete without understanding their motives or why they expressed their thoughts.
(Vygotski, 2001 , p. 481, free translation).
In addition to the discussion of methods, we base ourselves on the cultural-historical activity theory to argue that reading and writing are human activities that exceed the teaching of grammar and vocabulary. Thus, literacies configure ways of living, thinking, and feeling of a people, and, therefore, should be necessary to people’s lives (Vygotski, 1995 ). We chose to adopt the concept of literacies (in the plural) because we consider the term encompasses the multiple processes of reading and writing, i.e., the acquisition of the written code, graphemes, phoneme relations, and phonological awareness and the creation of new formations in students’ minds and bodies. From our point of view, maintaining the words alfabetização and letramento (two synonyms for literacy in Portuguese) seems to contribute to maintaining a dichotomous view of this unique process, whereas only using alfabetização risks stressing the individual acquisition of reading and writing skills.
Thus, analyzing literacy experiences seeks to outline some of the many discourses attributed to the act of reading and writing, which are historically and culturally situated and ideologically impregnated by different social voices.
This study aims to analyze the literacy experiences in two children’s classrooms and their relations with students’ and teachers’ emotions. We developed longitudinal and ethnographic research from 2006 to 2008 in two public school classrooms in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, one for children and another for young people and adults. This study aims to understand the inclusion processes of different students during the first cycle of literacy. Revisiting this empirical material during one of the authors’ postdoctoral research evinced the importance of analyzing the events in contrast to the empirical material of another, more recent longitudinal and ethnographic research that aimed to investigate the attribution of senses and meanings constructed by a group of three-year-old children to literacy events in a municipal school of early childhood education from 2017 to 2019. Both studies are based on the assumptions of cultural-historical activity theory and ethnography in education.
These two approaches have contrastingly similarities and differences that enable us to put them in dialogue since both adopt holistic, interpretive, dialectical perspectives to understand the collective and individual development of students in the classrooms. For both approaches, the concept of culture lies at the center of the descriptions and analyses as descriptions remain insufficient, necessitating explanations to what happens in the classrooms according to both approaches. The contrast between the two approaches mobilizes us to question them and propose advances in both.
On the one hand, ethnography in education stresses the construction of learning opportunities for members in the classroom. On the other hand, cultural-historical activity theory emphasizes the instruction-development unit that involves the teaching, development, and learning processes to produce something new in people’s minds. Vygotsky ( 1995 ) places culture at the center of the understanding of child development. The author stresses that “culture creates special forms of behavior, modifies the activity of mental functions and adds new levels to the developing system of human behavior” (Vygotski, 1995 , p. 34, free translation).
These new forms of behavior qualitatively differ from each other and constitute their own and differentiated development processes. To better understand them, Vigotski ( 2021 ) considers that it is necessary to turn attention to ontogenesis since children’s development shows the manifestations of the biological and cultural planes.
The author takes the development of spoken language as an example. To learn to communicate with others, children must be biologically fit, i.e., they must develop their speech system (which involves the functioning of several organs). At the same time, children must be inserted in a certain culture and engage with a language, as isolation from other human beings will prohibit learning how to speak. We understand that a similar process happens when we appropriate reading and writing. Biological conditions are necessary to develop these activities and to access opportunities to develop and participate in events and social practices related to written culture. Thus, we observe that the cultural and the biological form a unique and complex development process–causing a revolution in the development of children.
Despite emphasizing the importance of culture in the process of children’s development, Vygotski fails to greatly further the unfolding of this concept, leading us to ethnography in education. Agar ( 2002 ) states that culture becomes something conscious when people face difference and other ways of being via language. For him, language and culture form an indivisible totality, coining a neologism ( languaculture ) to grasp the cultures of a social group. We deem languaculture as discourse. Since “it [discourse] not only structures social action and gives it meaning, but also produces and reproduces – but also modifies – those contexts in which it arises, as well as social actors and their relationships” (Rojo, 2004 , p. 213).
This dialogue built a synthesis (creation of something new): the theoretical-methodological construct “affect-socially situated cognition-cultures-languages in use,” which helped us to understand the emotions-literacy relationships built by babies and children in two schools.
To understand the meanings of literacy events, we take the following questions as basis: how did the literacy experience happen? With whom? For what purpose? For whom? Why? How? When? Under what conditions and results? What are the senses and meanings participants attributed to these experiences? How can we analyze this process by affect-socially situated cognition-cultures-languages in use?
Emotions-literacies
Our research assumes that literacies constitute a dynamic process that occurs and makes sense in the actions and interactions between subjects, placing and interpreting the actions of participants in instructional and cultural contexts that attributed senses and meanings to reading and writing (Street; Castanheira, 2014 ).
Street ( 2003 ) argues that thinking of literacy as a social practice implies recognizing multiple literacies that vary according to time and space and are permeated by power relations. Thus, reading and writing are seen as social practices that are not only configured as individual and neutral skills, but are also immersed in socially constructed epistemological principles.
In this conception of reading and writing, language “acquires life and historically evolves precisely here, in concrete verbal communication, and not in the abstract linguistic system of language forms, nor in the individual psyche of speakers.” (Volochinov, 1992 , p. 124, free translation).
From this perspective, understanding the process of appropriation of literacies requires recognizing the reference to an exclusively human activity that individuals neither spontaneously invented nor directly relates to other animals. The difference between human activity and that which other animals can perform can be exemplified by Marx’s words:
A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement.
(Marx, 1996 , p. 298).
In other words, the idealization of action qualitatively distinguishes productive activity. In this process of transformation, people create tools, instruments, and signs that enable them to control and dominate nature and their own behavior. Humanity modifies itself, others, and social relations in this movement.
Understanding literacies as a human activity and studying its appropriation process implies adopting the method of the unit of analysis. It implies placing people and the environment at the center of our study, analyzing “a lived experience [as] a unit that is indivisibly represented, on the one hand by the environment, that is, what is being lived—a lived experience is always related to something external to the person—and, on the other hand, the way I live it” (Vigotski, 2018 , p. 78, free translation). Therefore, “conducting investigations through the method of unity implies looking at our object of study as a totality that presents contradictions is dialectically and historically constructed.” (Gomes; Dias; Vargas, 2017 , p. 114, free translation).
From this perspective, the chosen unit of analysis (emotions/literacies) must consider the difference between the whole and its elements and preserve the properties inherent to the whole since it constitutes a living and indivisible part of the totality (Vygotski, 1993 ).
This perspective can define cognition as the social processes constituted in contexts of speech and real interactions between people who seek to know themselves and the world in which they live. Thus, cognition configures a social procedure that lies in the experiences of literacies rather than an individual mental process. According to Vygotski (Vygotski, 1995 ), it should aim to culturally develop students rather than restricting itself to simple learning.
Constructing the meanings of literacies is fundamental for this. Vygotsky ( 1995 ) differentiates these concepts, articulating them in a unit of semiotic meaning in which the meanings of words are acquired in their context. Thus, these meanings vary across contexts. Although inconstant, meaning represents only a stone in the edifice of meaning rather varying according to the changes of senses in different contexts. The variation of meanings configures the main factor of semiotic analysis of the languages in use, i.e., in the contexts of the sentence, the paragraph, the book, the author, and research participants’ discourses.
Thus, behind each sentence we speak, how we speak, with whom, and with what goals and results there always lies an affective-volitional plot, a desire and motivation that underlie thought. Vygotsky claims that understanding the meanings of literacy experiences requires grasping the thoughts of children and teachers, i.e., their motivation (Vygotski, 1995 , p. 343).
These assumptions guide our understanding of the emotions-literacies unit based on affect-socially situated cognition-cultures-languages in use. This construct assumes that different languages constitute it, “languages that involve speech, written language, body language – gestures, mimics, facial expressions, the whole body, in short, languages in use” (Gomes, 2020 , p. 123, free translation) and that emotion bases this understanding as no production of cognition, culture, and languages occurs without emotion in people’s experiences (Toassa; Souza, 2010 ). From this perspective, the affect-socially situated cognition-cultures-languages in use “is made up of human activities that enable the development of concrete, particular, flesh-and-blood people” (Gomes, 2020 , p. 124, free translation) contributing to the understanding of the cultural development of babies and children that permeates the relationships they establish with the social situation of development: literacy events.
The discursive analyses of the literacy events used the following instruments: participant observations, field notebooks, photographs, interviews with students, conversation rounds, collection of artifacts such as notebooks and exercise sheets, and video and audio recording. To compose the procedures to analyze these discourses, we transcribed all classes into discursive sequences and event maps. Event maps can help to find the topics under discussion and how the positions, roles, and responsibilities assigned to each member in the group are constructed. The transcription of the discursive sequences shows in detail how, who, with whom, what, and with what objectives and results the experiences of the literacies were produced. They are shown in bars that indicate the smallest unit of message produced by the speakers, unlike transcription in turns as we usually read.
Classroom and activity contexts and participants
The nine-year elementary school was being implemented in 2006, extending the length of schooling for a portion of the population who had been deprived of free school education until then, enjoying no guarantee of vacancies in public educational institutions (Maciel; Baptista; Monteiro, 2009 ).
Thus, it was the first time the teaching staff of the school in which we conducted the 2006-2008 research received children aged five and a half and six years. The class chosen for our study had 24 students enrolled at the beginning of 2006 (13 girls and 11 boys). All students had attended a public or private early childhood education institution, and many could read and write. The self-classification criteria of the document provided by the school were maintained for ethnicity/race. Therefore, guardians reported their children’s ethnicity. Only one child was declared as Black by their family. The studies developed by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics used the following classification categories: White, Black, Brown (Mixed-race), Yellow, and Indigenous. However, as the school chose to work with an open-ended response instrument, “dark skinned” and “light skinned” also emerged. The use of these expressions shows, at the same time, structural racism and the belief in the myth of racial democracy, which are transmitted and assimilated since childhood (Ferreira, 2012 ). Most children were reported as White but adding the various denominations for belonging to the Black ethnicity (Brown, dark skinned, and light skinned) obtains a percentage equal to 42.11% of students.
To compose our analyses of the literacy events in this room, we chose Mariana as an expressive ethnographic case. She was six years of age and her family self-reported her Black.
As for the teacher, she was 42 year years of age, married, self-reported White. She graduated in pedagogy from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in the late 1990s, completing her Master’s Degree in education at that institution in 2003 and her PhD in education in 2015, and working at the school after passing a public exam in 2006. Thus, students and teacher began their careers at this school. However, Luciana had a lot of experience working in elementary school as she had worked as a teacher in a state public school system in Itabirito (her municipality of origin) for more than 10 years. For this class, the students had arts, physical education, reference, and projects teachers.
The second research (2017-2019) belongs to the “Childhood and Schooling” research program, under the coordination of professors Vanessa Ferraz Almeida Neves and Maria de Fátima Cardoso Gomes, having the participation of other researchers and students from the graduate program in education at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Its main objective is to understand the cultural development of babies and young children under a historical-cultural and ethnographic-longitudinal approach.
This research analyzed the literacy event in which Larissa is the protagonist. The footage shows that she is an observant and attentive child that takes interest in what happens around her. Since her first day in the nursery room, in 2017, the girl has explored artifacts, especially books, with special interest as she liked to pick up, shake, bite, and crawl on the books her teachers and assistants offered her. Larissa interacted with the professors and researchers and played with all her classmates, especially with Maria, Simone, Lúcia, and Danilo. She belonged to a class of 12 infants in 2017, 2018, and 2019, of which 50% were self-reported White and 50%, Brown. No baby was self-reported Black. The class had five boys and seven girls. Larissa was self-reported White by her family members and was aged seven months when she was enrolled at the municipal school for childhood education Tupi in 2017.
In 2017, seven full-time teachers and two assistants cared for the infants. These professionals took turns to care for the infant during the 10-hour shift in which they remained at the municipal school for childhood education Tupi.
In 2018, the school had five teachers in the morning shift and one assistant in the afternoon. Silvia worked in the class as a support during 2018 and a few days in 2019. Silvia was cheerful and playful and always interacted with the class with affection.
Analyzing the subevents: “I want my mother” and “NOW/my turn/of/ being/teacher”
In the class on April 11, 2006, we analyzed a subevent that occurred during the oral reading of a literary book carried out by the teacher during the story telling event. Luciana read stories to the class in the classroom at least once a week. At these times, the children were organized in a circle at the back of the room or remained seated at their desks. Most of the time, the teacher chose books from the institution’s collection (school and classroom libraries) or her private collection. At times, children also took books from home to be read by the teacher. Before reading to the class, Luciana would read the work beforehand, always paying attention to the content and aesthetic quality of the text, which, according to Zilberman ( 2007 ), comes from narrativity and the imaginary.
On that day, most students entered the room as soon as the bell rang at 1 pm. Then, Luciana put her material on the table and asked her students to sit down. After organizing her students, Luciana started the activity of writing the day’s routine by calling the students to participate. Realizing that Mariana paid no attention to her, Luciana reported to the student: “Mariana,/is/ this the eleventh?/ What day of the week/ is it?” Mariana remained silent and her colleagues replied: “Tuesday.”
Mariana approached the teacher while she was writing on the board. Luciana interrupted the writing of the routine and bent down to better understand what Mariana was saying, physically turning to the student to attend to her and listen to her. The girl complained of a sore throat, putting her hands on her neck. Luciana looked at her blouse and realized it was completely wet. At that moment, Luciana questioned Mariana’s attitude, worrying for her and firmly but affectionately correcting the girl.
Soon after, Mariana returned to her place and the teacher continued to write the day’s routine with the handwriting as some students were yet to be used to the use of cursive, especially those who were unable to read and write fluently.
After writing the routine, the students recited the poems from the poetic archive. The students always followed the same order: title of the poem, name of the author, and content of the text. When the students took a break from the activity, João Lucas went to talk to the teacher and she immediately interrupted the declamation activity: “Ah::, guys,/ I’m going to have/ to interrupt/ the poetic archive/ for something/ very important.” Some children knew what that was about and announced: “News from Peter!” João Lucas shared with the class news about the health condition of Peter, who had been diagnosed with leukemia and was away from school to undergo treatment for the disease.
When the student began to speak, the teacher encouraged him by holding hands with him. When reporting that Peter had left the hospital, the boy kept a low tone of voice (showing he was emotional). When talking about Peter’s illness and health condition, the children and their teacher addressed a delicate topic that affected everyone, especially João Lucas, who was closest to Peter. Luciana was aware of the need for the children to talk about their classmate’s illness. This subject could be censored and considered inappropriate for the age group of students, especially by those people who still maintain a view of children as naïve and pure beings and childhood as a playful and happy period. Childhood can and should indeed configure a playful and happy period, but it is often not the case. Children also experience moments of anguish, sadness, conflicts, and unfulfilled desires.
These experiences, which involve contradictory feelings and situations, belong to the essence of the human activity of adults and children. This indicates the inseparability between affect-socially situated cognition-cultures-languages in use, which gives sustainability to the culture of that classroom. After reciting the poems, all students followed the teacher for story telling at the back of the room. However, only Mariana remained seated at her desk, which implied a relevant point of analysis for the researchers.
The beginning of the reading is marked by the teacher’s question, 36 minutes into the recording: “Can I start?” This question involves the students in the activity, and everyone then answers: “You can.” This was the second class in which they had contact with the book O menino maluquinho by Ziraldo (Pinto, 2000 ).
At 36 min and 41 s, Luciana retrieves the memory of a previous reading that took place on 04/07/06: “Last week/ on Friday/ we started reading/ O menino maluquinho ./ Who is the author of this book?/ Have I told you?” As the children answer “Noo::,” Luciana says: “Well, it’s / a gentleman called Ziraldo.” The reading of the works by the teacher always began with the contextualization of the text, information about the authors and their objectives when writing the books, the year of publication of the works, publishers, and illustrations.
Students also showed their previous knowledge about written language and asked several questions about the process of producing the books. Then, Luciana drew the children’s attention to the illustration of the book, and everyone talked about Menino Maluquinho ’s characteristics, such as: “he was smaller/more intelligent/crazier,” according to Henri. For George, he was “a great friend” and for Ricardo, he was “crazy.”
The enunciative chain was constructed by what counted as the reading of the text, by the teacher and the children, i.e., the teacher paid attention to the importance of dialogue and interaction with the children to build the understanding of the meanings of that book.
While this enunciative chain was taking place, Mariana was away from the group for approximately five minutes, remaining seated at her desk. Initially she kept her arms crossed and her head down, but she started to pay attention to the story. The following image shows the contrast between the girl and the group:
This scene caught our attention (researchers). Therefore, instead of focusing on the story telling, we started filming Mariana. Even with this attitude of the researchers, the teacher failed to immediately realize the girl was outside the group as she sat with her back to the desks. The teacher only noticed Mariana’s absence when she looked back to get Ivo’s attention. Next, we offer the excerpt from a discursive sequence that evinces the moment in which the teacher noticed Mariana’s absence in the group and found out why she had isolated herself.
Chart 1 - Discursive sequence – “I want my mother”
|
DISCURSIVE SEQUENCE – Class on 04/11/06
41min11s to 42min28s |
||
|---|---|---|
| Line | Message Units | Context |
| The teacher looks back and sees Mariana at her desk. | ||
| 49 | Prof.: Hey Mariana/ come here | |
| 50 |
Marcelo: Teach,/ I can’t see/ because of/ Lucas (he’s in front of me) |
|
| 51 | Prof.: Uh? | |
| 52 | Mariana: I want/ my mother | |
| 53 | Prof.: Come here/ next to me | |
| 54 | So, come here/ stay close to me | |
| 55 | I also want/ my mother a lot/ today | |
| 56 | Felícia: What/did she say? | |
| 57 | Prof.: She said/ she wants her mother | |
| 58 | Samara: I also want my mother | |
| 59 | Prof.: Ah::/ Me too/ I miss/ my mother | |
| 60 | Stay here/ close to me/ then | Mariana stands next to the teacher. |
| 61 | Do you want to sit down? | |
| 62 | So as to not get tired? | |
| 63 | Ok? | |
| 64 | Yes | |
| 65 | Right now/ the longing passes/ and right now/ it’s time to go see mom/ okay? | |
| 66 | Raul: No/ it will take a long time | |
| 67 | Students: It will take a long time |
In this discursive sequence, we see that Luciana welcomed Mariana and Samara, who also wanted her mother, by words and the proximity of bodies. This posture by the teacher took place repeatedly, as shown during the subevent in which João Lucas shares news of his colleague Peter with the group, guaranteeing the construction of an affective relationship that marked the interactions and the production of knowledge with the students in this classroom. This shows a relevant point to be analyzed between the teacher and some students when she says to Mariana, in line 65: “Right now/ the longing passes/ and right now/ it’s time to go see mom/okay?”, and Raul and other students disagree on lines 66 and 67: “No/ It will take/ a long time”. On the one hand, we see the teacher trying to calm Mariana’s and Samara’s suffering due to longing, putting herself in the children’s shoes, and her classmates offering data from their realities by saying that the end of the class still lied far away.
The children’s time references are based on personal and social parameters, they suffer when missing their mothers due to the long time of separation since they remain at school for four hours. These six-year-old children’s lack of a proper notion of time worsens their separation anguish from their mothers. As mentioned, this class took place in April 2006, when the students were still appropriating the school culture, which differs from the cultures of their families and the early childhood education institutions they attended.
What was invisible becomes visible in the discursive sequence: Mariana failed to engage in the activity for missing her mother. This prevented her interest and concentration in reading Menino Maluquinho . González Rey ( 2009 ) states that thought configures a function of objective sense. Thus, it is impossible to think when the type of emotion that arose in our activity impairs the attention that is required. From this point of view, the relations that are established between the subjects and the objects of knowledge have an affective nature, being determined, to a large extent, by the quality of the process of semiotic mediation, by the indivisibility of the dialectical unity emotions-literacies .
The event we will describe next took place on 05/20/2019, i.e., 11 years have passed since one research and another. The day began with the arrival of the children as they were affectionately received by teacher Rita 5 . Soon after, all went to the cafeteria for breakfast. Back in the activity room, the children played with the toys Rita had distributed. Around 8:30 am, teacher Silvia arrived and Rita left for planning time. The children ran, laughed, danced, and jumped. Silvia asked everyone to lie down on a mat to rest a little before the story telling round. When everyone calmed down, stretched out their arms, and seemed more relaxed, Silvia started a conversation in the round.
Several literacy events took place on that day. The story telling circle was one of the moments that seemed to be the most anticipated by the children. The reference teacher usually led the class. However, on that day, it was guided by the assistant teacher, Silvia. Each teacher had her own way of conducting the activity.
The cultural pattern of the round involved many actions carried out by the teacher and children. Right at the beginning, Rita or Silvia invited everyone to sit on the mat, forming a semicircle. The teacher and children sing songs such as “ O Sapo Não Lava o Pé ,” “Borboletinha ,” and “ Bom Dia Coleguinha .” Then, Rita or Silvia always asked about the weather conditions of the day: “is it/sunny?,” “is it/raining?,” this moment ended with the song “ Janelinha .” At the time of the story, the teachers described the book to be read, sometimes highlighting the names of the authors and illustrators. They also had to ask the children to remain seated and attentive to what was being talked about in the round, which ended with the moment of retelling and exploring the books. At that time, one or more children could go to the teachers’ place and retell the story or make any comment. Usually, this moment was quite hectic as everyone wanted their turn to “be the teacher.” Thus, sometimes, Rita or Silvia had to mediate the anxiety, desire, and rivalry between the children to decide who would retell the story.
The featured subevent illustrates one of these moments: Larissa insists on “being the teacher” and retells the story of the “Three Little Pigs” right after her colleague Valéria tells this story to everyone in the round. Brito ( 2005 ) states that, in this context, the round takes a specific pedagogical function that provides for the participation of children in the planning of the day’s activities. Let us look at the discursive sequences in Chart 2 .
Looking at the discursive sequences from lines 5 to 10 shows that, for Larissa, more than telling a story, this moment takes on the meaning of being a teacher. Asking her colleagues Isaura and Valéria to sit down to listen to her story indicates actions that are expected from the listeners of the story telling event when the teacher stands before their class. The connection between affection and intellect in the relation between thought and speech is fundamental to attribute meaning to the literacy events constructed by Larissa, her colleagues, and the teacher. In the experience of this subevent, what counts as being a teacher is expressed in Larissa’s discourse and gestures on line 05: when she stood before the class, she pointed her finger at Valéria and asked her to sit down because it was her turn to “be/a teacher.”
The approval and acceptance in the voice of teacher Silvia, in the affectionate expression with which Silvia addresses “Larissinha,” evinces that the teacher takes great interest in what the children have to say in the event.
Larissa’s case shows how the report is a collective production that counts on the collaboration of teacher Silvia and other colleagues. We can see this joint construction when, in lines 7 and 8, teacher Silvia encourages Larissa to start the story by saying “Once upon a time.” Silvia accepted Larissa’s narrative with an affirmative nod of the head indicating for the girl to continue. Another moment that evinces the collaboration occurs in line 17 when Larissa waved both arms in circular movements in front of her body while explaining what the little pigs did, saying: “ RAN/RAN/RAN. ” Her colleague Valéria, who was carefully watching Larissa’s movements, listening to the story on Silvia’s lap, repeated the movements also waving her arms. Valéria, as teacher Silvia, seemed to be fully engaged in Larissa’s narration. Larissa used her whole body to tell her story. The movement of her arms, the nod of her head, the gentle impulses she gave back and forth at moments when the report was filled with tension seemed to be shared by teacher Silvia and her colleagues Ivan and Bruno, who used the expression “Oh no:::” indicating that the situation has become complicated for the Three little pigs .
Lines 19 to 20 show how the story was lived with tension, interest, and pleasure by the listeners. Silvia continued to encourage Larissa’s narration by asking: “ And the house/fell? ” Larissa put her arms together in front of her body and replied negatively with a nod: “ The Wolf/.../the Wolf:::/FOUND:::another(inaudible)/another.../ ” The answer to Silvia’s questioning came from Bruno, who carefully observed and followed the story: “The house/of stone.. /”
The highly marked outline of intonation in Larissa’s voice and body expressions may indicate how this moment was a unique event with a trace of shared discourse that does not seem to occur in another oral activity in the room (Brito, 2005 ). We also see that emotions and feelings are not separated from cognition in classrooms, which is social and situated in that context of the cultural pattern of the story round, which makes use of spoken and written languages, gestures, expressions, and intonations to constitute it.
Final considerations
Both studies built interesting contrasts that indicate similarities and differences in literacy practices across the 11 years between them. Both studies describe and analyze story telling events with very similar cultural patterns—teachers read children’s books that circulate in society, explored the process of producing books (especially authors and illustrations), and enabled a broad debate with babies’ and children’s participation. Both organized children in circles on the classroom floor, facing them, with the difference of using tatami for babies, an important care in the culture of early childhood education. The early childhood education story round evinced a difference: infants (including Larissa) could retell the stories, and the elementary school story event highlighted the inclusion of a child (Mariana) who suffered from the separation from her mother at the beginning of her schooling at that school.
We found that literacy activities are human activities that involve the subjects in all their dimensions. Reading requires motivation, intention, desire, and a goal, i.e., reading to learn, reading to play and have fun, reading to teach or take the role of teachers, reading to be moved, and reading to heal the longing for the mother. We found that the condition for building higher psychic functions in babies and children who are supported by the indivisibility of the dialectical unit [emotions-literacies] must consider children’s cultural and social experiences and actions and interactions with colleagues and teachers, i.e., the dialectic between the collective and the individual constitute the meanings of literacy events and subjectivities.
References
- AGAR, Michael. Language shock: understanding the culture of conversation. New York: Perennial, 2002.
- BRASIL. Lei nº 13.005, de 25 de junho de 2014. Aprova o Plano Nacional de Educação (PNE) e dá outras providências. Diário Oficial [da] República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília, DF, 26 jun. 2014.
- BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Secretaria de Alfabetização. PNA Política Nacional de Alfabetização. Brasília, DF: MEC; SEALF, 2019.
-
BRITO, Ângela. Coelho de. As rodinhas na creche: uma perspectiva de investigação do movimento discursivo das crianças de 4 e 5 anos. In: REUNIÃO ANUAL DA ANPED, 28., 2005, Caxambu, MG. Anais. GT – Educação de crianças de 0 a 6 anos, 07. Caxambu: ANPEd, 2005. Disponível em: http://28reuniao.anped.org.br/?_ga=2.205187984.1449264577.1590670316-2004570570.1584972648 . Acesso em: 28 abr. 2020.
» http://28reuniao.anped.org.br/?_ga=2.205187984.1449264577.1590670316-2004570570.1584972648 - CAPOVILLA, Alessandra Gotuzzo Seabra; CAPOVILLA, Fernando César. Alfabetização: método fônico. 4. ed. São Paulo: Memnon, 2007.
- CAPOVILLA, Alessandra Gotuzzo Seabra; CAPOVILLA, Fernando César. Efeitos do treino de consciência fonológica em crianças com baixo nível sócio-econômico. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, Porto Alegre, v. 13, n. 1, p. 7-24, 2000.
- CARDOSO-MARTINS, Cláudia. Beginning reading acquisition in Brazilian Portuguese. In: JOSHI, R. Malatesha; AARON, P. G. (org.). Handbook of orthography and literacy. London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006. p. 171-187.
- CARDOSO-MARTINS, Cláudia; BATISTA, Anna Cláudia Eutrópio. O conhecimento do nome das letras e o desenvolvimento da escrita: evidência de crianças falantes do português. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, Porto Alegre, v. 18, n. 3, p. 330-336, 2005.
- CARDOSO-MARTINS, Cláudia; CORRÊA, Marcela Fulanete. O desenvolvimento da escrita nos anos pré-escolares: questões acerca do estágio silábico. Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa, Porto Alegre, v. 24, n. 3, p. 279-286, 2008.
- DIAS, Maíra Tomayno de Melo; GOMES, Maria Fátima Cardoso. Práticas sociais de leitura em uma sala de jovens e adultos: contrastes em foco. Educação em Revista, Belo Horizonte, v. 31, n. 2, p. 183-210.
- FERREIRA, Antônio Honório. Classificação racial no Brasil, por aparência ou por origem? In: ENCONTRO ANUAL ASSOCIAÇÃO NACIONAL DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO E PESQUISA EM CIÊNCIAS SOCIAIS (ANPOCS), 36., 2012, Águas de Lindóia, SP. Anais [...]. Águas de Lindoia: ANPOCS, 2012, p. 01-25.
- FREIRE, Paulo. A importância do ato de ler: em três artigos que se completam. 23. ed. São Paulo: Cortez, 1989.
- FREIRE, Paulo. A pedagogia do oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1981.
- GOMES, Maria de Fátima Cardoso. Memorial: trajetórias de uma pesquisadora e suas apropriações da teoria histórico-cultural e da etnografia em educação. Curitiba: Brazil Publishing, 2020.
- GOMES, Maria de Fátima Cardoso; DIAS, Maíra Tomayno de Melo; VARGAS, Patrícia Guimarães. Entre textos e pretextos: a produção escrita de crianças e adultos na perspectiva histórico-cultural. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2017.
- GONZÁLEZ REY, Fernando Luis. La significación de Vygotski para la consideración de lo afectivo en la educación: las bases para la cuestión de la subjetividad. Actualidades Investigativas en Educación, Costa Rica, v. 9, n. 4. p. 1-24, 2009.
- HEATH, Shirley Brice. Ways with words: language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
- KALMAN, Judith. El acceso a la cultura escrita: la participación social y la apropiación de conocimientos en eventos cotidianos de lectura y escritura. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa, México, DC, v. 8, n. 17, p. 37-66, 2003.
- KLEIMAN, Angela. B. (org.). Os significados do letramento: uma nova perspectiva sobre a prática social da escrita. Campinas: Mercado das Letras, 1995.
- KOCH, Ingedore Villaça; ELIAS, Vanda Maria. Ler e compreender os sentidos do texto. 2. ed. São Paulo: Contexto, 2008.
- LURIA, Alexander Romanovich. O desenvolvimento da escrita na criança. In: VYGOTSKY, Lev Semionovitch; LURIA, Alexander; LEONTIEV, Alexei. Linguagem, desenvolvimento e aprendizagem. São Paulo: Ícone, 1988. p. 143-189.
- MACIEL, Francisca Izabel Pereira; BAPTISTA, Mônica Correia; MONTEIRO, Sara Mourão (org.). A criança de 6 anos, a linguagem escrita e o ensino fundamental de nove anos: orientações para o trabalho com a linguagem escrita em turmas de crianças de seis anos de idade. Belo Horizonte: UFMG: FaE: CEALE, 2009.
- MARX, Karl. O capital: crítica da economia política. 2. ed. São Paulo: Nova Cultural, 1996.
-
OLIVEIRA, João Batista Araújo; SILVA, Luiz Carlos Faria da. Métodos de alfabetização: o estado da arte. [S. l.: s. n.], 2009. Relatório do Grupo de Trabalho sobre educação infantil da Academia Brasileira de Ciências, 2009. Disponível em: https://www.alfaebeto.org.br/metodos-de-alfabetizacao-o-estado-da-arte/ . Acesso em: 18 ago. 2023.
» https://www.alfaebeto.org.br/metodos-de-alfabetizacao-o-estado-da-arte/ - PINTO, Ziraldo Alves. O menino maluquinho. São Paulo: Melhoramentos, 2000.
- ROJO, Roxane Helena Rodrigues. Letramento e capacidades de leitura para a cidadania. São Paulo: Rede do Saber: CENP-SEE-SP, 2004.
- ROJO, Roxane Helena Rodrigues. Letramentos múltiplos, escola e inclusão social. São Paulo: Parábola, 2009.
- SCRIBNER, Sylvia; COLE, Michael. The psychology of literacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
- SMOLKA, Ana Luiza Bustamante. Sobre significação e sentido: uma contribuição à proposta de rede de significações. In: ROSSETTI-FERREIRA, Maria Clotilde et al. (org.). Rede de significações e o estudo do desenvolvimento humano. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2004. p. 24-41.
- SOARES, Magda Becker. Alfabetização e letramento. São Paulo: Contexto, 2003.
- SOARES, Magda Becker. Alfaletrar: toda criança pode aprender a ler e escrever. São Paulo: Contexto, 2020.
- STREET, Brian V. Literacy events and literacy practices. In: MARTIN-JONES Marilyn; JONES, Kathryn (ed.). Multilingual literacies: comparative perspectives on research and practice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000. p. 17-29.
- STREET, Brian V. Literacy in theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
- STREET, Brian V. Social literacies: critical approaches to literacy in development ethnography and education. London: Longman, 1995.
- STREET, Brian V. What’s “new” in new literacy studies? Critical approaches to literacy in theory and practice. Current Issues in Comparative Education, London, v. 5, n. 2, p. 77-91, 2003.
- STREET Brian V.; CASTANHEIRA, Maria Lúcia. Eventos e práticas de letramento. In: CEALE. Centro de Alfabetização Leitura e Escrita. Glossário Ceale: termos de alfabetização, leitura e escrita para educadores. [S. l.]: Ceale, 2014.
-
STREET, Brian V.; CASTANHEIRA, Maria Lúcia. Glossário Ceale. In: Glossário Ceale: termos de alfabetização, leitura e escrita para educadores. Isabel Cristina Alves da Silva Frade, Maria da Graça Costa Val, Maria das Graças de Castro Bregunci (orgs). Belo Horizonte: UFMG/Faculdade de Educação. Disponível em: http://www.ceale.fae.ufmg.br/app/webroot/glossarioceale/verbetes/praticas-e-eventos-de-letramento Acesso em: 12 jul.2021.
» http://www.ceale.fae.ufmg.br/app/webroot/glossarioceale/verbetes/praticas-e-eventos-de-letramento -
TOASSA, Gizele; SOUZA, Marilene Proença Rebello de. As vivências: questões de tradução, sentidos e fontes epistemológicas no legado de Vigotski. Psicologia USP, São Paulo, v. 21, n. 4, p. 757-779, 2010. DOI: 10.1590/s0103- 65642010000400007. Acesso em: 29 nov. 2019.
» https://doi.org/10.1590/s0103-65642010000400007 - VIGOTSKI, Lev Semionovitch. O problema da instrução e do desenvolvimento mental na idade escolar. In: VIGOTSKI, Lev Semionovitch. Psicologia, educação e desenvolvimento: escritos de L. S. Vigotski. São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2021. p. 241-268.
- VIGOTSKI, Lev Semionovitch. 7 Aulas de L. S. Vigotski: sobre os fundamentos da Pedologia. Rio de Janeiro: E-Papers, 2018.
- VOLOCHINOV, Valentin. Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. 6. ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1992.
- VYGOTSKI, Lev Semionovitch. Conferencia 4: las emociones y su desarrollo en la edad infantil. In: VYGOTSKI, Lev Semionovitch. Obras Escogidas II. 2. ed. Madrid: Antonio Machado, 2001. p. 402-420.
- VYGOTSKI, Lev Semionovitch. Obras escogidas. Tomo II. Madrid: Visor, 1993.
- VYGOTSKI Lev Semionovitch. Obras escogidas. Tomo III. Madrid: Visor, 1995.
- ZILBERMAN, Regina. Literatura infantil e introdução à leitura. In: SCHOLZE, Lia; RÖSING, Tania M. K. (org.). Teorias e práticas de letramento. Brasília: Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira, 2007.
Edited by
-
Editor:Prof. Dr. Fernando L. Cássio
