O papel dos temas na produção de artigos de opinião por alunos do 9º ano

Abstract

The theme is one of the main mechanisms that guide the production of an opinion article, which must be explored in a critical and reflective manner. This means that we not only present the subject, but also express our point of view on it, supporting our opinion with clear, consistent and well-organized arguments. Based on this aspect, our dissertation object of study was the production of opinion articles by basic education students, focusing on the relationship between the choice of proposed themes and the development of textual coherence between the thesis and the arguments presented. In this way, the objective of this dissertation is to investigate whether specific topics in opinion articles can help stimulate the interest of 9th-grade students in producing coherent texts of this genre, ensuring alignment between thesis and arguments. Regarding the specific objectives, the first was to intervene through a didactic sequence so that students could produce opinion articles with coherence between thesis and arguments. The second was to analyze the influence of the themes on the argumentative textual construction of the opinion article genre. The third was to perceive the progress of students regarding the argumentative textual construction of the opinion article genre. The theoretical framework of this research includes the concept of the classroom as a space for fostering critical thinking, as discussed by Antunes (2003); the concept of text, based on Koch (2003) and Marcuschi (2008); the notion of theme, following Rojo and Barbosa (2015); argumentation construction, according to Fiorin (2015); the discursive genre with an emphasis on opinion articles, based on Bakhtin (2003), Castellani and Barros (2018); and the didactic sequences (DS) as a tool for data generation and pedagogical intervention, as proposed by Dolz, Noverraz, and Schneuwly (2004). The corpus of this study consists of 20 initial and 15 final opinion article texts produced by 9th-grade students at Escola Estadual Manoel Luís de Maria from Lagoa Nova/RN, Brazil. Regarding the research methodology, this is a qualitative research study. This approach was employed to compare the interest in producing opinion articles between students who chose their topics and those who did not, examining whether a) they completed their written productions and b) these productions demonstrated high-quality argumentation. Our initial hypotheses were that: a) the proportion of students who produced the requested opinion articles would be higher among those who chose their topics compared to those who did not; and b) the written productions of students who selected their topics would exhibit greater coherence between thesis and arguments than those of students who did not. either in relation to the number of productions or the argumentative quality of the initial and final productions in the proposed SD. Therefore, the hypotheses initially formulated were not confirmed. Data analysis considered possible positive and negative interfering factors, such as: a) the didactic intervention proposal does not have an evaluative character; b) generally low engagement in school activities; c) the motivating attitude of the teacher-researcher; and d) the activity’s connection to a practical reality for the participating students (the selection process for admission into technical courses at IFRN – Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Norte). As an outcome of this research, we developed an instructional booklet containing didactic sequences to support the pedagogical practices of other teachers.