Práticas de leitura na sala de aula de matemática à luz de uma perspectiva de aprendizagem situada

Abstract

This research has analysed the potential to use periodical, mathematical and literary texts in a classroom for approaching Mathematics, in Elementary and Middle School, brought out into the open by the situated learning. This studys aims are, first of all, to understand how those texts enhance the interplay among the students, leading them to change the way they used to share the activities in the classroom, and second, to identify which kinds of those texts are the best to promote that interaction, based on principles of qualitative research, keeping a partnership observation as a tool for collecting the empirical material. Through a cooperative work with the teacher of a public school in Minas Gerais, Brazil, seven interventions were developed in a seventh grade classroom of an Elementary School, whose students were challenged to read and interpret some periodical, mathematical and literary texts during Math classes. The empirical material collected in the field work was examined in the light of the studies carried out by Lave and Wenger (1996), Wenger (1998), Winbourne and Watson (1998), Leffa (1999), Borasi and Siegel (2000), among others. Discussing the outcomes, this research intends to contribute to the debate about the role of reading in order to make a change in the students relationship with Mathematics throughout the course of the teaching and learning process.