A proposal for the critical analysis of the meme as a genre in Portuguese language classes

Abstract

The advent of the Digital Information and Communication Technologies have given rise to new reading and writing practices. These new practices have generated concerns about how the school, one of the main literacy agencies, can appropriate the necessary resources to guarantee significant teaching-learning processes that are consistent with the demands of contemporary society. In the field of Applied Linguistics, studies such as those by Ribeiro (2015) and Rojo and Moura (2012) suggest the need to create methodological strategies that allow the development of student literacies, in line with what is recommended in education guidelines in the country, such as the National Common Curricular Base (BRASIL, 2018). Thus, this article presents a pedagogical proposal for a critical approach of the meme as a genre in a Portuguese language classroom, aimed at students in the final years of elementary school. The objective of the work is to propose a reflexive study of the genre in order to awaken the critical awareness of the students, through the analysis of the meme according to the particle, wave and field metaphors. To this end, a theoretical contribution based on Rhetorical Genre Studies (BAZERMAN, 2006; MILLER, 2012) is adopted, together with methodological procedures based on a triple pedagogy (DEVITT, 2009) for the teaching and critical learning of genre. As a result of the implementation of the proposal, students are expected to perceive genre not only as an isolated entity, but also in its interrelationships with previous genres and situated in specific contexts.