This study explores the variety of understandings of literacy, or conceptions of literacy, that exist among graduate instructors in the fields of English literature, rhetoric and composition, and creative writing in their first semester of teaching and what the implications are for having these conceptions, particularly with regard to their teaching. I collected two kinds of data from seven participants who were enrolled in a fall 2010 composition practicum at a large, public university in the Northeast. The data I elicited included interviews of participants in which they examine their own writing, an assignment ranking activity, observations of participants as they teach composition, and field notes I collected from the Practicum course meetings. I also collected artifacts from their work in the Practicum course and their teaching, including two drafts of a literacy autobiography that they wrote for the practicum and marked-up student paper drafts from the composition course they were teaching. Following the work of Michael W. Smith and Dorothy Strickland, I parsed the data by content units. Using Peter Goggin's categories for defining literacy from Professing Literacy in Composition Studies, I coded data using the qualitative data management system Atlas.ti according to seven conceptions: literacy for personal growth, literacy for personal growth, social/critical literacy, critical activist literacy, cultural literacy, functionalist literacy, and instrumental literacy. My analysis of the data reveals that graduate instructors came to their first semester of teaching with powerful preconceptions about why people read, write, and engage in other literacy activities and that these positions deeply affected their teaching. I also contend that although all of the graduate instructors had complex, multifaceted conceptions of literacy, each graduate instructor had one primary conception, which acted as a kind of lens through which every other conception was viewed and filtered. This primary conception functioned as the graduate instructors' terministic screen for viewing literacy, even when other conceptions were at play. Finally, given the fact that all of the graduate instructors received the same syllabus for the composition course they were teaching, the extent to which each one of them was able to inscribe their own ideas about teaching and literacy onto the course was surprising and points to the power of these literacy orientations, even in the face of competing conceptions communicated to them in their practicum. / English

[pt] A presente dissertação tem como objetivo compreender as concepções de alfabetização dos professores alfabetizadores da rede municipal de educação de Duque de Caxias, no estado do Rio de Janeiro, relacionando-as ao que consta nos documentos curriculares: aquele formulado em 2002 e que ainda está em vigência; o que está em construção e a Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC). Dentre os objetivos específicos, o estudo buscou compreender os motivos que levaram a SME/Duque de Caxias a reestruturar o currículo da rede de ensino e quais eram as concepções de alfabetização dos profissionais entrevistados e dos documentos curriculares. Para atingir esses objetivos, o estudo fez uso de uma abordagem metodológica qualitativa por meio de duas técnicas de coleta de dados: a análise dos documentos curriculares e das entrevistas. As entrevistas foram realizadas a partir de roteiros semiestruturados com alguns professores alfabetizadores e coordenadores pedagógicos da rede de ensino. Apesar das dificuldades provocadas pela pandemia no novo coronavírus, de um modo geral, pôde-se ter melhor compreensão das concepções de alfabetização dos profissionais da rede municipal de educação de Duque de Caxias/RJ. Além disso, o estudo também conseguiu identificar bases teóricas de alfabetização apresentadas nos documentos curriculares e as concepções presentes de alfabetização na BNCC. / [en] The objective of this dissertation is to understand the conceptions of literacy held by literacy teachers from the public school system of Duque de Caxias, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in conjunction with what is in the curriculum policy documents: the one formulated in 2002 and that is still effective until this day; the one under construction and the National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC). Among the specific objectives, the study aimed at perceiving the reasons that led the Municipal Department of Education of Duque de Caxias to restructure the curriculum of the school system, what the conceptions of literacy held by the teachers of the public school system and by the curriculum policy documents are. In order to achieve these objectives, the study used a qualitative methodological approach through two data collection techniques: the analysis of the curriculum documents and of the interviews. The interviews were conducted with the use of semi-structured scripts with literacy teachers and pedagogical coordinators of the public school system. Besides the difficulties caused by the new coronavirus pandemic, the study was successful in getting a better understanding of the conceptions of literacy held by professionals from the public school system of Duque de Caxias. Moreover, the study also managed to identify the main theoretical bases of literacy presented in the curriculum documents and in the National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC).

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This investigation looks for an approach of the literacy conceptions of two literacy teachers that act at rural schools in Palmeira das Missões - RS, through the teachers' autobiographical reports, Lene da Silva Santos and Rosemeri Soares, which take into account the formative processes of both starting from written narratives that are used of the memory and of the relived memories, rebuilt and contemplated by the process of turning student and teacher. The methodology used is based in an approach designated as qualitative investigation, according to Bogdan; Biklen (1994), Antunes (2001; 2010) and Deslandes (1994), because the researcher's interaction with the subject of the research is constituted in a significant element in that investigation type. The collection instruments of information are autobiographical reports, which Nóvoa (1992) believes that promote a formation process and provide the understanding of as it is configured certain conceptions, through the considered teachers' professional histories the collaborators of the investigation, being constituted, like this, in a form of to respect and to hear the collaborators' voice, that most of the time, is silenced and unknown. Besides, the interview is used, because for Bogdan; Biklen (1994), this is a technique that, when properly applied, presents high reliability and it has great importance for making possible to measure attitudes, opinions, behaviors and circumstances of the subject's life. For that, the collaborators' school memories are rescued through the reconstruction of the lived formative courses and relived by both. Political and conceptual subjects relative are brought to the teachers' formation in national extent and in the context of the rural school from Palmeira das Missões - RS. They are identified some literacy concepts constituted starting from a historical rescue and some fundamental considerations are introduced in the teaching of the language written in the perspective of the literacy in what refers to the rural school. It is verified that the reflection on the own history of educational life, as space of construction of knowledge for the road of the research, in the perspective of Nóvoa (1995), is to provoke the concern with an effective performance through the development of a theoretical and intentionally committed pedagogic work of larger consistence with a pedagogic project of professionals' more critical, reflexive and inventive formation, mediators of the transformations that the society always demands us. / Esta investigação busca uma aproximação das concepções de alfabetização e letramento de duas alfabetizadoras que atuam em escolas do campo no município de Palmeira das Missões - RS, através de relatos autobiográficos das professoras, Lene da Silva Santos e Rosemeri Soares, os quais levam em consideração os processos formativos de ambas a partir de narrativas escritas que se utilizam da memória e das lembranças revividas, reconstruídas e refletidas pelo processo de tornar-se aluno e professor. A metodologia utilizada está embasada numa abordagem designada como investigação qualitativa, segundo Bogdan; Biklen (1994), Antunes (2001; 2010) e Deslandes (1994), porque a interação do pesquisador com os sujeitos da pesquisa constitui-se num elemento significativo nesse tipo de investigação. Os instrumentos de coleta de informações são relatos autobiográficos, os quais Nóvoa (1992) acredita que promovam um processo de formação e proporcionem a compreensão de como se configura determinadas concepções, através das histórias profissionais das docentes consideradas as colaboradoras da investigação, constituindo-se, assim, em uma forma de respeitar e ouvir a voz das mesmas, que na maioria das vezes, encontra-se silenciada e ignorada. Além disso, é utilizada a entrevista, pois para Bogdan; Biklen (1994), esta é uma técnica que, quando aplicada criteriosamente, apresenta elevada confiabilidade e tem grande importância por possibilitar medir atitudes, opiniões, comportamentos e circunstâncias da vida do sujeito. Para isso, é oportunizada uma aproximação com as lembranças escolares das colaboradoras através da reconstrução dos percursos formativos vividos e revividos por ambas. São trazidas questões políticas e conceituais relativas à formação de professores em âmbito nacional e no contexto da escola do campo de Palmeira das Missões - RS. São identificados alguns conceitos de alfabetização e letramento e são introduzidas algumas considerações fundamentais no ensino da língua escrita na perspectiva da alfabetização e do letramento no que se refere à escola do campo. Constata-se que a reflexão sobre a própria história de vida educativa, como espaço de construção de conhecimentos pela via da pesquisa, na perspectiva de Nóvoa (1995), serve para provocar a preocupação com uma atuação através do desenvolvimento de um trabalho pedagógico de maior consistência teórica e intencionalmente comprometido com um projeto pedagógico de formação de profissionais mais críticos, reflexivos e inventivos, mediadores das transformações que a sociedade sempre nos exige.