ENDLESSLY READING¹: A BRIEF FORAY INTO READING STRATEGIES IN THE CLASSROOM

ABSTRACT:

In this article, we start from the report of three experiences lived in IFPE Campus Recife to think about the teaching of literature in the integrated secondary school system. Our objective with this work is to discuss how the teaching of literature can stimulate the construction of knowledge in a perspective that calls the student, as a historical subject, to the encounter with (and by) language, mainly based on the thought of Candido (1988), Freire (1989) e Manguel (1997). We can highlight some issues that were central to our experiences: the importance of making room for the voices that populate the classroom; the urgency of the dynamics between language and reality, in the confrontation and in the encounters of the work of art with the lived life; and the valorization of authorship and multiple reading strategies as possible responses to problems such as apathy, curricular obstacles and time.

Keywords:
Literature teaching; Experience report; Integrated secondary education system

RESUMO:

Neste artigo, partimos do relato de três experiências vividas no contexto do IFPE Campus Recife para pensar sobre o ensino de literatura no nível médio integrado. Nosso objetivo com esse trabalho é discutir como o ensino de literatura pode estimular a construção de conhecimentos numa perspectiva que convoque o estudante, como sujeito histórico, ao encontro com a (e pela) linguagem, principalmente com base no pensamento de Candido (1988), Freire (1989) e Manguel (1997). Podemos destacar algumas questões que se revelaram centrais nas nossas experiências: a importância de abrir espaço para as vozes que povoam a sala de aula; a urgência da dinâmica entre linguagem e realidade, no confronto e nos encontros da obra de arte com a vida vivida; e a valorização da autoria, da construção coletiva e das múltiplas estratégias de leitura como respostas possíveis a problemas como a apatia, os obstáculos do currículo e o tempo.

Palavras-chave:
Ensino de literatura; Relato de experiência; Ensino médio integrado

RESUMEN:

En este artículo, partimos del informe de tres experiencias vividas en IFPE Campus Recife para reflexionar sobre la enseñanza de la literatura en el nivel intermedio integrado. Nuestro objetivo es discutir cómo la enseñanza de la literatura puede estimular la construcción del conocimiento en una perspectiva que llama al estudiante, como sujeto histórico, al encuentro con (y por) el idioma, principalmente basada en Candido's (1988) Freire (1989) e Manguel (1997). Podemos destacar algunos temas que fueron fundamentales para nuestras experiencias: la importancia de hacer espacio para las voces que pueblan el aula; la urgencia de la dinámica entre lenguaje y realidad, en la confrontación y en los encuentros de la obra de arte con la vida vivida; y la valorización de la autoría, la construcción colectiva y las múltiples estrategias de lectura como posibles respuestas a problemas como la apatía, los obstáculos curriculares y el tiempo.

Palabras clave:
Enseñanza de la literatura; Relato de experiencias; Educación secundaria integrada

INTRODUCTION

As Portuguese Language teachers at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco (IFPE), we seek, continuously, to give new meaning to our classes in such a way as to get increasingly closer to the social function of the Institution: "to promote a quality, free and transforming public education" (IFPE, 2012, p. 36). This is a continuous process, dynamic and (re) build from each meeting with a new class, in all its uniqueness. In this article, we report three experiences lived in the context of IFPE Campus Recife, in its flaws and gains, seeking to answer the following question: how to stimulate literary reading in the classroom in the context of integrated high school? Based on this issue, our aim is to present some possibilities for the teaching of literature from a perspective that summons the student, as a historical subject, to an encounter with (and through) language.

However, this proposal brings with it a prior, implicit question from which we cannot escape: what is the role of the teaching of literature within a vocational technical course? This question refers to a historical and, therefore, political journey about what is intended in terms of teaching for high school in the integrated modality. The answers, in turn, not only present a proposal for the work with literature, but also encourage our thinking about the notions of teaching, of work and of the ways of constructing knowledge. Therefore, there is an ethical and epistemological question about the development of a complex scientific thought, which combines knowledge and ethics, overcoming the knowledge for the sake of knowledge, as Edgar Morin (2005) postulates. Based on this idea, we propose here a route that includes a brief discussion about the teaching project that has been built within the Federal Education Network, which allows us to situate the context in which these experiences are lived. Next, we seek to discuss the role of reading and literature in the formation of the individual, based mainly on the thought of Candido (1988), Freire (1989) and Manguel (1997), among others.

As already mentioned, we chose to analyse our own pedagogical practices through the experience report, from three activities proposed for the classes in the integrated high school, experienced at the IFPE Campus in Recife, which will be described and analysed later. This is, therefore, a case study, focused on listening, understanding and joint interpretation of the events experienced by the participants. We turn our gaze to the individual, going beyond the academic field. Following this perspective, the research method is qualitative, which, as Flick (2004) reminds us, is oriented to the analysis of concrete cases in their temporal and local particularities, from the expressions and activities of people in their local contexts.

Therefore, this is a reflection that arises from our pedagogical practice so that, as in a game of mirrors, we can look at ourselves, at the other, at what we are doing in our classes, and think: what spaces of knowledge construction are we opening inside the school, inside the literature class?

BEFORE THE LITERATURE: WHICH HIGH SCHOOL ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

A several documents circulates around the identity building of the integrated high school, and, more than normative documents, they are the materialization of the discourses that orient (or try) the governments' actions and the school community inserted in this teaching modality. We begin by observing the already mentioned Institutional Political Pedagogical Project (PPPI) of IFPE (2012), for being the closest to our daily lives and for having been prepared with the direct participation of the servants of the Institute; we continue where we left off, in the exposure of the social function of this institution:

The social function of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco is to promote a quality public education, for free and transformative, that meets the social demands and boosts the socio-economic development of the region, considering the training for the work from a sustainable relationship with the environment. To this end, it must provide equal conditions for the success of all citizens who constitute the IFPE community, aiming at the qualitative insertion in the socio-environmental and professional world, based on values that respect the training, ethics, diversity, human dignity and the culture of peace. (IFPE, 2012, p. 36)

The understanding of this excerpt from the PPPI refers to the foundations of the concept of integrated training. This is expressed in the notion of "transformative" education, designed to meet "social demands" and boost the "socioeconomic development of the region". In the social perspective of this text, we can read the contradiction of another discourse, the one that deals with the education of the student in view of market demands or individual protagonism. The choices that the school community made in this document are a signature around a commitment, which emerges and is recorded in the discourse, but also needs to slide into the classroom, becoming a responsible act (BAKHTIN, 1997) in the practice of teaching.

The "training for work" also appears here, and it assumes the idea of work as a sustainable transformation of the environment, in which there must be a qualitative insertion and with equal conditions for success. This process must be based on "values that respect the training, ethics, diversity, human dignity and the culture of peace". This perspective assumes the young student as a historical individual, overcoming a structural dualism that High School has always adopted in Brazil, of being either exclusively propaedeutic, and, historically, elitist; or essentially technicist, a space for the maintenance of a poorly literate working class (PILETTI, 2010).

To avoid extending ourselves too much, we considered the social function announced in the PPPI as a landmark of the perspective assumed by IFPE, although the document is much broader than this clipping. But, to be more closely related to the discussion about curriculum and teaching of literature, we still need to understand how work (as appears in the PPPI), science and technology (which give the name to the Institute) are articulated with culture.

Then, we resort to the National Curricular Guidelines for High School ( DCNEM), which explain the convergence of these pillars, as developed in Article 5 of Resolution CNE/CEB n. 02/2012, which addresses the bases for high school, in all its forms of supply and organization - and not only in the so-called vocational education. Item VIII emphasizes "integration between education and the dimensions of labor, science, technology and culture as the basis of the proposal and curriculum development", and explains (BRASIL, 2012, p. 2):

§ 1º The Labor is conceptualized in its ontological perspective of the transformation of nature, as an inherent achievement of the human being and as a mediation in the process of production of existence.

§ 2º The Science is conceptualized as a set of systematized knowledge, socially produced throughout the History, in the search of the comprehension and transformation of nature and society.

§ 3º The Technology is conceptualized as the transformation of Science into a productive force or mediation of scientific knowledge and production, which is marked, since its origin, by the social relationships that led to its production..

§ 4º The Culture is conceptualized as the process of production of material expressions, symbols, representations and meanings that corresponds to ethical, political and aesthetic values that guide the norms of conduct of a society.

Therefore, Labor, Science, Technology and Culture are dimensions of human life that should be integrated into the curriculum and understood in the historical process from which they derive and which they help to build, interconnected as part of an educative principle that includes the labor (and not only "prepares" for work) in the process of personal and collective building. None of these concepts has an isolated meaning, as an end in itself, but are comprehended in an organic way within the social process. For this it is necessary that education fosters critical-reflexive thinking, so that the individual perceives him/herself as being able of analysing problems and solutions in the context in which they are presented, and, above all, to present, contribute and commit him/herself.

At a time when the access to free and universal education is jeopardised in Brazil and the reformulation of high school is a step backwards in regard to integral formation, we reinforce the need and urgency to comprehend and assume that we want to build a high school, how to do it and with what consequences.

READING AND LITERATURE IN THE CLASSROOM

Reading and literature are duly intertwined: one would not exist without the other. In the classroom, when there is identification with a particular narrative and/or character, it is common to hear reports that reinforce the importance of reading literary texts in the lives of our young readers. As an example, we present the answer of a Middle School student (9th grade), when asked about the relevance of reading Dom Casmurro: A Novel, by Machado de Assis, in the comic book version:

A19: Because reading comics at school is like the teacher bringing fairytale books when we are kids and imagining things and starting to learn to read because we want to read what is written and when we learn it we are very happy. (OLIVEIRA, 2018, p. 108).²

Imagining things and being happy with what you read is sharing an experience. In this perspective, and contrary to what the owners of power preach, there is no "dichotomy between life and literature" (MANGUEL, 1997, p. 35). To cross another "land", making unthought journeys - including from oneself to oneself - is possible when entering both the "Once upon a time" world of fairy tales and the universe of Claricean writing:

How can I know everything that is about to happen and that I do not yet know, since I have never lived it? It is that in a street in Rio de Janeiro I had a glimpse of the feeling of woe on the face of a girl from the Northeast of Brazil. (LISPECTOR, 1999, p.12)

The "feeling of woe" mentioned by Rodrigo S. M., the narrator of The Hour of the Star (LISPECTOR, 1999), is not very different from what the reader feels when he or she comes across a book in the hands of a predecessor. For Manguel (1997, p. 29), and broadening the concept of paratext thought by Genette, we are touched by the reader who preceded us, we dialogue with him, we argue for "this or that position". In The Audacity of this Woman (MACHADO, 1999, p. 33), the protagonist analyzes the book / diary / recipe book, that came to her hands, whose reported experiences are in line with her posture as a woman free from stereotypes: Bia is her own person.

It has so much great stuff! I discovered that there were some women travellers who also wrote. And they made very interesting notes, in letters and diaries. Not just because they often had access to a domestic intimacy forbidden to other visitors, but also because they were a kind of vanguard of thought - or behaviour - in their own countries. Women who had decided to earn a living for themselves, with their jobs, and without depending on fathers or husbands. This certainly made them very attentive and sensitive to observe the culture of others. After all, at that time, a woman who crossed the Atlantic alone and came to work at her own risk in a country considered wild could only be someone very special.

In our analyses in the exercise of our profession and as readers ourselves, we are interested in the critical importance of the act of reading in a dynamic relationship between language and reality (FREIRE, 1989); in other words, between the text and its context. In this regard, reading the world precedes the reading (and writing, let us say) of the word. A similar process is experienced by a student of the 4th period of the Technical Course in Electrotechnics (ELE), of the Recife campus, after a class about the construction of an artistic object from the understanding of literary aesthetics, such as Realism, Naturalism, Parnasianism and Symbolism, and the dialogue with other artistic expressions:

In order to help us choose the theme, we had a class with the exibhition It was a documentary about Recife seen from Bandeira and Chico Science's point of view. After this class, I realized I wanted to talk about Recife. The theme of my work is "O Recife masked by the media" and in it I will relate the two different ways of seeing Recife: the romantic vision, idealised by the media that only aims at selling a beautiful city, capital of the Frevo music, equal, happy, of the Boa Viagem beach, of the bridges, of the Brazilian Venice. The Recife portrayed in Cícero Dias' memories, in Manoel Bandeira's childhood. The ideal Recife. And the natural form that shows the real Recife [...], it is also the Recife of the stilts, the Brazilian Venice of the rivers clogged with rubbish (G. M., 16 years old).

Despite her young age, G.M. is already demonstrating the critical comprehension of the act of reading that will constitute her as a reader (FREIRE, 1989). This understanding is in line with the experience of cigar rollers workers in the late 1920s and, although their "place" was as listeners, the mechanical activity they now performed was "adventures to follow, ideas to take into consideration, reflections to appropriate" (MANGUEL, 1997, p. 136).

It was not by chance that this activity, which arose at the end of the 19th century and was seen as "a giant step forward in the march of progress and the general advancement of the workers," most of whom were illiterate, was soon called " subversive" by those in power and was banned for distracting the workers with discussions extraneous to their work (MANGUEL, 1997, p. 133, 134). The supposed dichotomy between life and reading, or life and literature, is artificial and serves the ruling class, for whom "books are like superfluous luxuries; totalitarian regimes demand that we do not think" (MANGUEL, 1997, p. 35).

Denying this "luxury" is to go against Human Rights. Candido (1988, p. 174) states that literature, in its broadest sense, "is a manifestation of all people at all times and there is no nation or person who can live without it". Candido's assertion considers the fabulation as something indispensable to humans; it is an incompressible asset.

From the reading of the French sociologist (and Dominican priest) Louis-Foseph Lebret, who worked in Brazil between the 1940s and 1960s, Candido defines the incompressible assets as food, house, clothes, etc., and the compressible as superfluous objects, such as ornaments and argues that there is no human being who lives a single day without surrendering to the universe of fable (CANDIDO, 2011, p. 174). Literature teaches us "as much about the human condition as sociologists and psychologists", Todorov (2009, p. 77) reminds us literature is an incompressible asset, it is a human right.

Therefore, it seems obvious that the literature class needs to prioritize the reading of literary texts as a moment of encounter of the student with the literary work. We see in Voloshinov and Bakhtin (1976) that it is precisely in the interaction with the beholder that the work of art carries out its artistic and sociological potential.

The artistic is a special form of interrelation between creator and beholder fixed in a work of art. Artistic communication is derived from the basis common to it and other social forms, but at the same time it retains, like all the other forms, its own uniqueness; it is a special kind of communication, possessing its own peculiar form. (...) A work of art, seen from outside this communication and independently of it, is simply a physical artifact or a linguistic exercise. It becomes art only in the process of interaction between creator and beholder, as the essential factor in this interaction. (Emphasis added) (VOLÓCHINOV; BAKHTIN, 1976, p. 3)

When this interaction is disregarded, what remains is either a fetishization of the work, seen as a simple artifact, or a psychologization approach, either towards the author or the beholder, putting the work itself in second place. Hence, we reaffirm that literature assumes its creative potential when seen as an opening for the reader, in each singular relationship between reader and book. However, there are several challenges to make this happen: the difficulty for students to access books, the demands of the curriculum, a lack of interest in reading, personal preferences for reading, the time it takes, etc. The following stories attempt to address some of these issues and understand the dynamics of interaction and sense-making that reading provides.

As interaction, reading suggests alterity (BAKHTIN, 1997), that is, that the Subject, in the process of comprehending the other, goes to him and returns to his place, in a dynamic that is constitutive of the human being itself. This leads us to think that, in literature, probably the most productive reading is not the one in which the reader's look coincides with the author's gaze. The reading that destabilizes, that dialogues different ideas, is the one that deals with the possibility of a new vision and consciousness, a new perspective on the world that the book can bring about in the reader, precisely because it is in a different place than his or her own. The phrase by Merleau-Ponty (1995), that we are never "light for ourselves", may be another way of understanding this same process.

We will think the student/reader in this perspective, of the historical subject that is able to answer to the other; and the work of art in its sociological vocation, in other words, that is vivified in the interaction with the reader, in dialogue with the world surrounding him/her. These and other threads compose the three experiences that we relate below, in the voice of the three teacher-researchers who wove this paper.

READING WITH A CAMERA ³

“We all read ourselves and the world around us to get a glimpse of who we are and where we are.”

(MANGUEL, 1997, p. 20)

A few pages above, we highlight the statement given by G.M., a student of ELE IV, who deconstructed the romanticised vision of the city of Recife, offered by the City Hall in the current administration. Such justification is aligned with the trajectory of the young reader, whose personal choices reflects the identity of a critical and, adorably, biased reader.

At a time when freedom of expression is curtailed, the literary and thematic choices in the building of a new artistic object have revealed us curious and singular readers, and it is about one of these experiences lived in a 5th semester class of the Electronics course, of the IFPE campus Recife, that we will relate below.

When we assumed the subject of Portuguese V, in 2017.2, we were confronted with a challenge: to work an extensive content in a class with just over 40 students, mostly composed of the so-called "paying students". We explain: originally, only 20 percent of the students were in fact Electronics (ELN) students, the others were from Chemistry, Electrotechnical, Occupational Safety, Sanitation and Electrotechnical courses, something we only "discovered" in the second unit of that semester.

Such diversity can sometimes sound as a hindrance, since paying students attend the pending subject(s) at the counter-shift of their course - which can be very tiresome -, causing them to give up the subject (some of them repeat the subject for the third time already) or lack of interest in the classes. Apathy, in these cases, is an unwanted "student". Fortunately, we were lucky, very lucky.

During the first classes, we agreed on how we were going to work the content and the evaluation process. Regarding Literature classes - in this period the student learns from Pre-Modernism to the Second Generation of Modernism; the reader will agree that it is a lot of content for a short time - we suggested the creation of an artistic object that would also have the criticism/contribution of the other students in the class.

Initially, we worked on the dialogue between literary texts and artistic expressions, namely: cinema, painting, music, among others, regardless of the chronological order: it was necessary for them to fall in love with certain works, authors, literary aesthetics. The " flirt" lasted about 2/3 of the first Unit. Meanwhile, some "flirtations" were interrupted to make way for other encounters, new aesthetic and thematic discoveries.

The students chose their pairs, texts, aesthetics, themes; our job was to guide the creation of the artistic object that could go from the building of a poem to the production of an audiovisual text. The short film entitled " OVERDRIVE, DE MANUEL BANDEIRA A CHICO SCIENCE: A DICOTOMIA DA CIDADE QUE NÃO PARA"(in english, the title is: "OVERDRIVE, FROM MANUEL BANDEIRA TO CHICO SCIENCE: THE DICHOTOMY OF THE CITY THAT DOESN'T STOP") is the work to which the student G.M. referred.

The reading of the poem "Evocation of Recife", by Manuel Bandeira, was confirmed or confronted with the image that a group of students had of the capital of Pernambuco, an idea ratified by the poetry/songs of Chico Science. Added to this was their interest in the social issues discussed in Geography, History and Sociology classes. In the first conversation with the whole class, we observed that the reading that the group did was more sociological and less aesthetic.

Figure 1:
First version of the students' presentation of the poem "Evocation of Recife"⁴

We take advantage of such interest and suggest that they watch the show “"Homens e Caranguejos”(translated into English as "Men and Crabs" and available on YouTube), produced by the Group Arte em Movimento do IFPE and presented at the 5th Theatre and Dance Student Festival, at the Apolo Theatre, Recife/PE, under the direction of Higor Tenório.

We had seen the show a few months before and we were delighted not only with the power of the homonymous text by the geographer Josué de Castro - a reading that is dear to us - but also to see the performance of young people who were our students in previous semesters. This suggestion was a way of exemplifying the building of an artistic object. Although they did not have the opportunity to see the show in the theatre, the experience of watching it on a sharing platform gave the group the comprehension that, to create the artistic object from Bandeira and Science texts, it was necessary to "betray the works", subvert what they had read, creating something different.

The short film is the result of interviews with five inhabitants of the capital of Pernambuco and brings different perceptions about the city of Recife. The memories of the interviewees are sometimes close to the nostalgia of Bandeira's lyrical self, sometimes to the concerns with the urban chaos and social issues. Such an approach problematizes the social and interactive character of memory, since all memories are related to the material and moral life of societies (HALBWACHS, 1990).

Figure 2
Scenes from the short film "Overdrives", produced by students of the Portuguese V subject (2017.2)⁵

The experiences reported by the interviewees are in line with the thinking of Halbwachs (1990). In this sense, issues such as environmental degradation, cultural diversity, urban chaos and sexual freedom set the tone for the narratives imbued with a sense of belonging that help to foster the critical and creative thinking of students-authors-creators.

If, as stated by Manguel (apud CUNHA and OLIVEIRA, 2013, p. 107), “our books will testify against us or in our favor”, we have no doubt that the choice of our students “reflects who we are and who we were”, they reflect who was/is the Brazilian Venice. It was looking at Recife, from the eyes/lens of the interviewees, that they continued to learn to read what was not in sight. Caetano Veloso (2012) would say that it is “This is how a communist is born”. We hope that many of them are born.

THE GIRL WHO DANCED BOOKS ⁶

Language is the house of being (Heidegger, 2003, pg.38)

The account of the previous topic, "Reading with the camera", brings up reflections about the approach to the literary text in the classroom. I return to this subject to discuss some difficulties that surround this moment of reading and that made me seek alternatives, as well as the research partners of this paper: a) not all students have access to the book indicated, especially in public schools; b) the book indicated may be either too simple for mature readers or too complex for beginning readers, considering that classes are heterogeneous in their reading experiences; c) the reading of the same work is usually tied to the same evaluative instrument, which brings the challenge on how to make room for the plurality of readings and the uniqueness of readers.

The following experience was born from an attempt to circumvent these obstacles and has been applied systematically in my Portuguese Language classes in Integrated High School. In the first week of class I present the students with a list of books selected according to the period and the interests of the class; of different authors (and epochs, if the focus is not a temporal clipping), styles, etc. With this list in mind, which can receive indications and may also change from class to class, each student chooses the book they want to read, based on a summary of the work.

The proposal is simple and confronts the problems listed above in the following way: the access to the books is easier than if all the students had to get a copy of the same work; secondly, this proposal takes into account the heterogeneity of the classes: it would be not very strategic and, for some, frustrating to request an entire class to read Dostoevsky, for example. Perhaps this is one of the reasons (along with the difficulty of access to the complete work and the lack of interest in the proposed reading) for many students to resort to internet summaries, just to cope with the assessment. Finally, an advantage, which is, at the same time, another challenge: it opens space for the variety of readings, which culminate in different assessment instruments.

But how to assess so many books within the same group? In my experiences, I proposed three alternative ways of finishing the reading: they could present a written analysis of the work, carried out in class, based on general and specific questions that I put to the group. The second possibility was a seminar, and the third (which is similar to the proposals in the previous reports) was an alternative presentation, with a free format, that brought the group's reading to the class and made the class experience the book a little. It is this kind of work that I will talk about later.

Using three assessment instruments for the same activity may seem laborious in classes of 40 or so students, but it has its advantages: it leaves the student free to choose how to share their understanding and analysis. I vividly remember the case of D., then a student in the first period of the Security course, who in the first reading opted for a written analysis, because she was truly terrified of presenting herself in public. At the second reading, realising that assessment was nothing more than a moment of sharing and dialogue, she chose the seminar. Different assessment tools are different ways of observing what, in fact, is plural: the pathways of reading and the building of meaning.

For this article, I shall return to the works developed in the context of the 2nd and 3rd periods of High School. For the 2nd period class I chose to present to the students books that we would hardly read along the literature course, this way, books like:

Box 1
List of suggested books for reading in the subject Portuguese II

The list deliberately includes different styles: science fiction, comics, biography, fantastic realism, dystopias, etc. Among the works presented in the 2nd period classes, I highlight a reading of The Old Man and the Sea, by Hemingway. The student I., from the Construction course, chose this book and chose to present her reading as a dance. As a classic dancer, she developed a choreography that represented the narrative and presented it to her classmates in the classroom. Through dance, she interpreted the book in another language; at the end, we could talk about the music, the movements, the chosen costume (a torn khaki shirt over a ballet tights), the strength of old Santiago in the confrontation with the blue Marlin transmuted into another discourse in the dancer's body. This is how she explains her creative process:

(...) I created a dance (...) trying to get as close as possible to both the book and the song [Believer, by the rock band Imagine Dragons], by putting in the choreography low movements, focused on dancing on the floor, using somersaults and splits, and in the chorus, the part in which the aggrandizement of both the character of the song and the old man is presented, I gave the choreography more aerial steps, such as leaps and jumps, which expressed all the coming out of their pains and showed their flourishing.

Would a test about the book or a written analysis tell me more than their corporal expression? I.'s proposal seems to me to be very much in line with what I asked of the class: that they give me their readings of the works; her performance demonstrates the movement of going to the work, observing it, understanding it, returning to herself and giving her response. I, as the teacher, and the students, as the class, were able to enter into this dialogue between the reader and the book, referring us not only to the book as a source of information and as an artistic work in itself, but also to I. as the author of her response.

Several other memorable works were presented from this same list: M, K, J. and J.C. proposed a sensorial activity based on Saramago's Blindness; E. and V. proposed a debate on the Islamic universe in Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, and Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali; M.L., R., L.A. and L. recreated the ideological control environment of George Orwell's 1984, among other proposals.

To the 3rd period classes I have presented a list of national and international works of the 19th century. Thus, the proposed books were these:

Box 2
List of suggested books for reading in the Portuguese III subject

This selection includes some of the Brazilian novels commonly used for the study of Romanticism, such as those by Alencar, but also includes other styles, countries and even the end of the 19th century, in an attempt to diversify the options. I especially recall here The Hound of Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle, presented by G. and L. The students explain their own work:

The group sought in the story a force to motivate the public to become interested and seek to read it too. (...) [For this] it decided to use the curiosity of the spectators and (...) put them in the place of the very detective and protagonist of the novel. (...) To bring that classic investigative experience into the classroom, four things were needed: a location, a victim, a killer and the motive of the crime. It was decided to situate the crime in a classic 19th century mansion, a Baron with his sins and a host of characters, all with motives to commit a murder that night. From then on it was only necessary to execute the project, a body, blood, clues, a forged suicide note, a diary, small details.

The students' idea was, therefore, to create a plot, stage it and let the spectators be the detectives, like Sherlock Holmes. G. played the Baron, lying on the floor of the room, all the other scenographic elements were placed in the space (blood, gun, the victim's diary, his desk, etc), so that the group could move around the "crime scene". Divided into groups, the students were invited to unravel the murder by the deductive method of Holmes. The result of this experience was students in raptures with the activity and students from other classes wanting to enter the room to participate in the challenge. This was only possible because G. and L.'s reading experience was so significant that it made them understand the author's strategies and simulate a similar narrative, now for their own "readers”.

I can also mention the excellent work of R., T. and C., who asked the class to decipher codes based on the reading of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. J. made a shadow play based on Iracema, by Alencar - work that required more flexibility in terms of time and showed that the assessment process can be more individualized. R. did a comparative reading of Dumas's The lady of the Camellias and José de Alencar's Lucíola; H. used Bernardo de Guimarães' A escrava Isaura to discuss Brazil's structural racism, among other surprising results.

In each presentation it was seen that everyone, at their own pace, with their own tastes, carrying their world experiences, in short, with their uniqueness, was building their reading strategies and using language in an authentic way, as the house of being, in Heidegger's epigraph (2003). The moments of sharing were experiences that allowed me to understand a little more about this relationship of openness that can happen between the reader and the work when reading is really meaningful. And what is the point if it is not?

HOW TO READ A BOOK?⁷

“The only advice, indeed, on reading that one person can give to another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.” (WOOLF, 2017, p. 67).

In the previous report, we listed the uniqueness of readers. However, the respect for this singularity is something relatively rare in the school experience of most students. In teaching practice, it is common to come across questions similar to Wolf's (2017) "How to read a book? Many students, encouraged by the market practice of teaching, come eager for "reading tips" as if it were possible to create a "magic formula" to develop a perfect reading habit (as if it existed). From this question by Woolf (2017), may be born several others such as: How to read poetry? How to read the national and international classics? How to teach literature classes? How to stimulate the habit of reading in literature classes?

Despite this literature teacher's advice about not taking advice, we are tempted to put compulsory readings for our subjects that cater for external exams, but is it possible to overcome this temptation and give students the opportunity to "follow their instincts, use their reason, come to their own conclusions" (Woolf, 2017: p.67) regarding their readings? Can we succeed in fostering the development of autonomous readers; establish evaluative processes, without pruning the students' literary choices?

It is very likely that this can occur through the most varied didactic-pedagogical strategies, but, parodying Woolf (2017), the only advice about teaching literature that a teacher can give to another is not to accept advice, to follow his instincts, to use his reason, to reach his own conclusions. It is in this empirical bias that will be presented some more or less successful experiences that I lived, in the second semester of 2018 in a class of 4th period of Integrated High School of IFPE, Recife campus.

Among the biggest difficulties that are presented in the pedagogical practice of Integrated Teaching are the amount and diversity of content to be addressed in a short space of time. Several times, the teachers' concern is located in the delimitation of these themes and in the impossibility of addressing in depth the whole. In the experience in question, this concern was minimized based on the concept of integrated teaching of Ciavatta (2005), since the author understands the impossibility of appropriation of the whole, but defends the completeness and the understanding of the parts as a whole or of the social unit.

Through a literary clipping that approached four different styles, namely Realism, Naturalism, Parnassianism and Symbolism, a literary project of integrative basis was presented to the students. In the light of Pistrak's postulates (2009), the promotion of autonomy in this group took place on three fronts: collectivity, organization (self-organization) and creativity. Based on the expository lessons and the reading suggestions that were necessary, each group would choose a literary clipping (author, work, theme, etc.) and develop a presentation of free choice for the project culmination moment.

The evaluative criteria were presented and among them were the authorship, creativity and planning. It was not enough to contemplate the theory worked in the expository lessons, the production of each group should necessarily have the peculiarities inherent to the personality of the members, the creativity to present the subjectivities arising from the relations of the students with the chosen cut and meet the deadlines related to the presentation of pre-projects and the culmination.

The pre-project requested was only an outline of the presentation that would serve as a guide for my pedagogical planning and for the internal organization of the teams. Below is the proposal of students L., G. and A.

Box 3
Portuguese IV students' presentation proposal

In the presentation of the pre-projects, the large group participated by making criticisms and suggestions to their colleagues. Although they already knew superficially the proposals of each group, the students were surprised in the culmination with the peculiar form of presentation, since, in many situations, the surprise elements were only presented to me in secret conversations and, even so, only when the students were unsure about the viability of some element or needed specific infrastructure for their presentations.

In many situations, during the expository lessons, I also assumed the role of a provocateur, raising questions related to the pre-projects. The questions, almost always, were related to contemporary cultural and literary productions and to current socio-political situations. Understanding my commitment with social transformation, I acted in the sense of promoting the development of the capacity to act critically and consciously in these students. This approach dialogues with the concept of Active Pedagogy of Araujo (2015), for whom

Therefore, from the perspective of transforming reality and aiming to expand human capacities, activity is a component to be considered in the planning, development and assessment of educational practices that are intended to be integrative. (ARAUJO, 2015, p.73)

This critical and conscious attitude of the students already presented itself in the sketches and took shape in contact with the readings, not only of the classics, but of the various texts that circulated in our classes. In the example above, the students L., G. and A. used the realistic work "Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas", by Machado de Assis; the naturalist work "O Cortiço" (in English: The Slum), by Aluízio de Azevedo and the contemporary work "Sobrevivendo no Inferno" by Racionais Mc's. They associated Machado's materialism, pessimism and linguistic resources (flashbacks); the determinism and zoomorphism of the naturalist work with the song "Tô ouvindo alguém me chamar"; and made many social criticisms regarding how the less favoured social classes are still treated nowadays.

Almost as guided by Woolf (2017), the students followed their instincts and made their own literary choices and, intuitively, still met the demands of external exams. The last work, for example, became a book⁸ and entered the list of compulsory readings for the entrance exam of Unicamp⁹( The University Of Campinas) in 2018. I must admit that I was unaware of this fact and that, for not having affinity with this musical genre, I would never make the associations between these three works in the classroom. Through this experience, I grew a lot professionally, because I understand that my pedagogical clippings can curtail the creative freedom of the whole class and mine as well.

The students' personal tastes and experiences interfered again in a positive way, when the student G., member of the school Theatre group, proposed in her methodology to take the class to watch the theatrical show "Someone to run away with me" by Resta1 collective Theatre group. Based on her pre-project, I could verify the content of the work, the indicative age and articulate the bureaucratic procedures so that the class could have access to a play that I did not know. Under the subsequent look of the student herself, the class could reflect on how racial and gender issues still present themselves in society in a deterministic way. Several characters in the play were compared to characters in naturalist works, such as Bertoleza (O Cortiço); Raimundo (O mulato); Aleixo and Amaro (O bom-crioulo), among others.

Besides these issues, the anticlericalism in "The Crime of Father Amaro: Scenes from the Religious Life" by Eça de Queiroz and the homosexuality in "O bom-crioulo" by Adolfo Caminha were revisited by the students M., J. and F., through the artistic-musical performance of the songs "Take me to church", by the Irish musician Hozier, and "Believer" by the rock band Imagine Dragons. Determinism and the struggle against it were exposed to the class with a musical performance (transverse flute, violin and keyboard). The repressive power of the church was represented through the choice of costume (formal attire) and make-up (black bands painted on the wrists and lips).

The group being composed by musicians and having selected songs of artists and bands with which I have no affinity, once again, provided them with a unique moment of reflection and artistic appreciation that I could never provide to the class.

The same happened in the presentation of the student S., who, for being a scholarship holder of a scientific initiation project of the Institution that works with documentary, chose to produce this audiovisual format, bringing testimonies of female students belonging to the LGBTQIA+ group of the campus to talk about the stereotype built by cinematographic works in relation to homoaffective relationships among women. Before showing this short film to the class, S. did a comparative analysis between the characters of "The tenement" (Pombinha and Léonie); and the film "Carol" by Todd Haynes.

This account dialogues with Pistrak (2009), since it proposes a work that meets the curriculum requirements, without losing sight of the project of society that we assume according to our reading of the "current reality". It is not, therefore, a sterile didactic project, as the students' particular choices were indicative of a struggle "for changes in the dominant societal project" (FRIGOTTO, 2010, p. 10). In their clippings, the students reinforced the transgressive force of art. Complementing the postface of "Odes Modernas" (in English, "Modern Odes") by Antero de Quental, in which it is stated that "modern poetry is the voice of the revolution"; this integrative experience marks how the arts (poetry, music, cinema, theatre) and the pedagogical practice can also be revolutionary, when we have revolutionary artists, students and teachers

CONCLUSION

We began this work seeking a space to share experiences lived in literature classes within the context of integrated high school, but which echo even broader issues. In relation to the proposed objective of presenting some possibilities of work in the teaching of literature, we revisited activities in which we sought to prioritize the student's voice in the unique interactions they establish with literary works and other artistic genres. The ways in which these interactions take place are based on the exchange with the students and on the singularity of each group, and do not propose a script, but a provocation about where we want to go and what our role as teachers is in this path. For this, and in everything, it is a discussion about values, which takes "ethics, diversity, human dignity and culture of peace" as a guide, as announced in our Institutional Political Pedagogical Project (IFPE, 2012).

From the set of reports, we can highlight some issues that proved to be central in our experiences. Firstly, there is no way to promote the so-called critical-reflective thinking if there is no space for the voices that populate the classroom, and this applies to both the teacher and, especially, the student. For the teacher, finding their voice may mean leaving the routine of the already known classes, allowing themselves to experience and recognize the other as a responsive subject; for the student, being able to propose and be heard favors the commitment with their own training, the presentification.

A second aspect to be emphasized is that the act of reading assumes a critical importance when it is embodied in the dynamics between language and reality, in the confrontation and encounters with life lived. This implies that the work leaves its place as a sacralized object and opens itself up as a possibility for the subject, who dialogues with it from the unique place it occupies in the world, weaving networks of meaning with other works and artistic expressions, with raps and rocks. We also emphasize that the valorization of authorship, collective construction and multiple reading strategies are some possible answers to problems such as apathy, the obstacles of the curriculum and time.

In these paths full of mistakes and successes, we keep trying to make our classrooms a space for construction, openness and encounter, reaffirming our commitment to combine knowledge and ethics with a view to social transformation. This approach brings us closer to working with literature in the context of professional and technological education, which dialogues with the notions of work, science, technology and culture, overcoming knowledge for knowledge's sake.

REFERÊNCIAS

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• 1
  Free translation of the expression of Donaldo Schüler
• 2
  The interview is the result of the research of Quitéria Rosa Pereira Oliveira, developed in the Professional Master's Degree in Literature at the University of Pernambuco (UPE)
• 3
  Story narrated by the author 2
• 4
  Translation from the left to right/top to bottom: 1.Overdrive - the dicotomy of the city that does not stop; 2. SUMMARY: Building the idea of Chico; Building the idea of Manuel Bandeira; Building the Aesthetic; Building the Aesthetic Dialogue between Chico Science and Manuel Bandeira; Building the Short Film. 3. BUILDING THE AESTHETIC/CONTRASTS: Chico Science builds in the figure of the molambo a disillusioned subject, living daily experiences and being completely swallowed up by the city, by the mud, by day-to-day life; Manuel Bandeira evokes Recife through the memories of a child, through the memories of a city that is no longer the same. And it is in this concrete recollection of what Recife was like at the end of the 19th century that the city's contrast becomes clear. 4. BUILDING THE AESTHETIC DIALOGUE BETWEEN CHICO SCIENCE AND MANUEL BANDEIRA/DICOTOMY: When we start to observe Chico's aesthetics we see that mud is a central figure in his work. Mud constitutes a large part of the rivers, the land and the geography of Recife and mud leads to chaos, the city is chaotic, it is a city that does not stop growing, where individuals find themselves lost and powerless in the face of their own wills. The pure city of Manuel Bandeira's childhood becomes the chaotic city of Chico Science's childhood. It is true that those who dominate the language dominate those who do not know it. Chico Science describes the "molambo" as a figure without positioning, as the "molambo" dominated, by language, by low schooling, by the beautiful speeches of those who have a "doctorate" title. Who doesn't have a doctorate, how can he impose himself?
• 5
  Translation from up to bottom: 1. but the public squares are very neglected; 2. to be myself, you know; 3. because I look at the tree, and there is no more tree.
• 6
  Relato narrado pela autora 1
• 7
  Narrated by the author 3
• 8
  T/N: Racionais MCs' Sobrevivendo no Inferno (33 1/3 Brazil), by Marília Gessa and Derek Pardue.English Edition. Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic; 1st edition (12 August 2021)
• 9
  T/N:The University Of Campinas is the one of the three best universities in Latin America

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 Sept 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  31 Mar 2020
• Accepted
  07 Aug 2021