A new ending for O Sofá Estampado (The Printed Sofa): formation of student-authors

Abstract

Forming student-authorsinelementary school is an ongoing challenge to teachers. We report anexperience of literary writing by students aged from 12 to 16 years old, who wereextremely resistant to writing at a public school inthe metropolitan area of Curitiba, Brazil. The Portuguese language teacher encouraged students by reading chapter one from Lygia Bojunga's book, O Sofá Estampado(The Printed Sofa). The last sentence was not revealed, creating a thrilling aura for its conclusion, stimulating students to continue the story. The written text of these student-authors was analyzed considering characters, figures of speech, verisimilitude, intertextuality, point of view, cohesion, coherence, plot and sequence. It is concludedthat the strategies adopted by theteacher induced the development of an autonomous student-author, capable of establishing relations between the text and the real world, constructing one’s own ideas, acquiring confidence and being creative. These students acquired an active role in written activities.