Práticas de leitura e escrita na formação em ciências e tecnologia

Abstract

The discussion about the need of improving the reading and the writing practices of professionals from the most different knowledge areas has caused, in Brazilian and foreign institutions of higher education, a movement of insertion of curricula components whose focus is the reading and the writing in academic formation. To contributing with the reflection about that discussion, this master s degree dissertation has as object of study the situated linguistic formation. Our general objective is to analyze a linguistic formation proposal to graduating students from the Bachelor s degree in Science and Technology (BCT) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). To constructing that analysis, we have established four specific objectives: a) verifying if the ten brazilian Institutions of Higher Education which offer the BCT have curricula components of reading and writing directed to that formation; b) describing how these Bachelor s degree reading and writing curricula components are presented; c) examining differences and similarities which, in general, exist among curricula components related to reading and writing in each one of the researched institutions; d) revealing which categories delineate the linguistic formation developed in the BCT of the UFRN. In order to reaching our goals, this work has been based on the dialogical conception of the language (BAKHTIN [1952-1953] 2010), on the literacy studies (KLEIMAN [1995] 2008; TINOCO, 2008) and on the critical pedagogy (FREIRE, 1980; 2007). Methodologically, this qualitative research of ethnographic direction (ANDRÉ, 1995) is grounded in Applied Linguistics (PEREIRA; ROCA, 2009; PASCHOAL; CELANI (Orgs.), 1992). This research has the contribution of professors, scholars and monitors of the field of Reading and Writing Practices (PLE) and also graduating students from the UFRN BCT which had already studied PLE-I and/or PLE-II. The tools used for data collection/generation were: curricula components programs related to reading and writing in the BCT in the researched higher education institutions (IES), questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and profiles. The generated data allowed us to establish the following analysis categories: situationality (real situation, thematic contemporaneity and thematic focalization) and literacy projects (learning community and protagonism). The results achieved show that most IES which offer BCT worry about improving the reading and writing competences of their graduating students; however, there is still a lot to be done (increase of the number of class hours, contents and methodological aspects review, theoretical referential sophistication) so that the curricula components can be configured as a situated and significant linguistic formation. Finally, we make some suggestions for improving the work which has been made in the BCT of the UFRN, making then the mother tongue teaching in courses of the area of exact and technological sciences stronger