Frontiers of writing: a case of changing positions

Abstract

Getting to 6th grade is not always an easy transition for some students and after the Covid-19 pandemic, entering this new stage of school became even more challenging. In this context, the strategy found to minimize the impacts of remote teaching was necessary to work more intensively with texts in the classroom. This is because teaching language through textual production, in addition to learning orthographic norms, implies a change in the studentss position. In other words, it implies a changing the student’s position from non-writer to writer of texts. Thus, based on Brazilian interactionism, we intend to reflect theoretically on the case of a 6th grade student from a public school in Pernambuco who, when he started elementary school, could barely transcribe texts from the blackboard or textbook into his notebook and, after being taught through textual production, started to produce clear and coherent texts. To this end, we’ll present three texts written by this student, one produced without help during the first month of classes, another produced with assistance during the second month and the third produced at the end of the first semester, without assistance from the teacher. The case analyzed allowed us to confirm that working with texts, which is crucial in the process of children’s writing acquisition, is also essential for older children’s learning and expansion of writing, enabling us to see the change in the student's position from one who “doesn’t know how to wirte” to one who “knows how to write.”