Nuances dos paradigmas do ensino da literatura em escolas federais brasileiras
Nuances: Estudos sobre Educação, Presidente Prudente, v. 35, n. 00, e024008, 2024. e-ISSN: 2236-0441
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32930/nuances.v35i00.10460 6
resources and a greater command of literary language, is often far more advanced than what
students are capable of achieving. Another issue is that, due to the limited time allocated to
literature in the curriculum, there is a preference for short texts, whose analysis is facilitated by
their length, such as lyric poems and short stories, further narrowing the scope of literature,
which the criterion of aesthetic labor has already reduced.
In response, the reader-oriented paradigm, among other factors, emerges as a reaction,
addressing literature as enjoyment. Predominant in early childhood and elementary education,
but overlapping with historicism in high school, this model has been widely disseminated in
Brazil since the 1980s. The concept of literature is quite broad, encompassing all poetic and
fictional genres, particularly mass and popular literature. Text selection is based on the criteria
of texts that initially please the reader and then those that challenge their reading habits or
school interests. The methodology of this model is centered on direct access to the work in
promoting reading through a varied set of approaches, including reading for the sake of reading
or pleasure reading, with the aim of developing the reading habit through the pleasure of
enjoyment. The teacher's role is that of a mediator of literary texts.
In more restrictive proposals, literary reading is associated with a specific goal, such as
expanding vocabulary and humanizing the reader, with a particular social awareness, including
the use of para-literary books that utilize poetic or fictional structures to teach some educational
content or transversal themes, such as sexuality, citizenship, bullying, etc. According to Cosson
(2018), with whom we agree, these issues should not be denied. However, there are assumptions
in this paradigm that need to be reconsidered, such as the belief that direct access to the text
and pleasure reading alone are sufficient to cultivate a taste for reading, disregarding the need
for literary education. Furthermore, this paradigm ultimately leads to the erasure of the teacher's
pedagogical role, as their function as a mediator of literary texts becomes more about being an
encourager or mere guide to readings. Another questionable point is that, in this model, a good
reader is defined as someone who reads many books, regardless of the quality of the works,
based on the view that quantity will lead to quality and that reading certain mass literature is a
stepping stone to canonical reading.
The social paradigm, also known as the identity or social-identity paradigm, is based on
multiculturalism, gender studies, postcolonial studies, deconstructionism, post-structuralism,
cultural studies, and Queer theory. This model conceives literature primarily as a social
representation or construction, with the goal of developing students' critical awareness or, at a
minimum, understanding of social and identity relations. The teacher's role is to initiate and