ABSTRACT
In the scope of vocational critical language teaching materials, designing lessons that meet professional requirements at public technical high schools committed with the agenda of critical education for citizenship is something that deserves attention. If, on the one hand, the Critical Literacy framework substantiates practices that engage us with social changes (LUKE; FREEBODY, 1997LUKE, A.; FREEBODY, P. (1997) Critical literacy and the question of normativity: an introduction. In: Muspratt, S.; Luke, A.; Freebody, P. (org.), Constructing critical literacies: teaching and learning textual practices. New Jersey: Hampton Press Inc., Cresskill, pp. 1-17.), promote opportunities for developing critical views over dominant ideologies, cultures, economies, institutions and political systems (TILIO, 2013TILIO, R.C. (2013). Repensando a abordagem comunicativa: multiletramentos em uma abordagem consciente e conscientizadora. In: Rocha, C.H. e Maciel, R.F. (org.), Língua estrangeira e formação cidadã: por entre discursos e práticas. São Paulo: Pontes Editores, pp. 51-67., 2017TILIO, R.C. (2017) Ensino crítico de língua: afinal, o que é ensinar criticamente? In: Jesus, D.M.; Zolin-Vesz, F.; Carbonieri, D. (org), Perspectivas críticas no ensino de línguas: novos sentidos para a escola. Campinas, SP: Pontes Editores, pp. 19-31.), and examine our loci of enunciation in order that we unlearn our privileges and learn from the subaltern (ANDREOTTI, 2007); on the other, the lesson materials available for technical high-school courses seem not to take these premises into account, especially the latter. In order to bridge this gap, I designed a lesson unit (Society Matters?), aimed at technical high-school 3rd graders, wherein Maria Lindalva’s autobiography, a subaltern ex-landless activist, creates opportunities for discussions over the ideals of work, effort and success that challenge hegemonic-common-sense ideology. Resorting to constructivist bricolage (DENZIN; LINCOLN, 2005) involving her video-autobiography, the language teaching unit, the memories of my pedagogic encounters with learners from 2015 to 2018, and two different lines of interpretation that were recurrently raised throughout, I examined to what extent the interpretations over Maria Lindalva’s narrative reflect and refract neoliberal capitalist ideologies, thus contributing to developing critical posture, as well as to the selection of texts for critical language teaching materials. The results showed the analysis that validates Maria Lindalva’s achievements may be confronted by the viewpoint of her relationship with scarcity (SANTOS, 2017SANTOS, M. (2017). Toward an other globalization: from the single thought to universal conscience. Switzerland: Springer.), which favored learners’ developing critical posture; and, finally, that it was possible to take her narrative a step further showing what Maria Lindalva teaches us about selecting texts for critical language teaching materials.
Keywords:
critical literacy; hegemonic-common-sense ideology; materials design