Development of Logical and Coherent Literary Interpretations

Abstract

In this paper we present a case study in which High School freshmen in Brazil produce literary interpretations. The paper is based upon the theory of genres and registers by Eggins and Martin (1997) and on Bakhtin (1981) and Voloshinov (1973). We demonstrate by means of examples taken from students’ texts that activities such as a debate in which students perceived how different their points of view were and the practice of writing summaries and accounts may have originated texts in which students showed more self-assurance by the end of the semester.