Reading circles in school: from mediation to the formation of the literary reader

Abstract

This article presents part of the data from an ongoing research that investigates the role of reading circles in the formation of the literary reader in school. Based on the studies by Rildo Cosson (2014b, 2023) on literary literacy and on the "Tell me" approach, proposed by Aidan Chambers (2023), the work aims to understand how mediated practices of collective reading can contribute to the development of reading skills and the aesthetic relationship with the literary text among adolescents in the 8th grade of Elementary School. With a qualitative and participatory approach, the research was carried out in a public school in Minas Gerais, through didactic sequences focused on the reading and discussion of tales of different types. Partial data indicate that reading circles favor listening, engagement, and the construction of more subjective and critical meanings by students, revealing the importance of teacher mediation in literary education. The results also indicate the need to review school evaluation practices that reduce reading to functional aspects, disregarding its aesthetic and symbolic dimension. It is concluded that reading circles constitute a significant pedagogical practice in the promotion of literary literacy and an aesthetic experience with language.