Text production in higher education: rediscussing teaching-learning perspectives and procedures

Abstract

This study aims to present and discuss the results of an interpretive qualitative study of the teaching-learning procedures used in a discipline exclusively focused on reading and production of academic texts under the Programa de Formação Interdisciplinar Superior (Profis) of State University of Campinas (Unicamp), from 2013 to 2016. As its theoretical basis, this study uses Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective (2000, 2003) and, particularly, his concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), together with the concepts of Mastery Learning (BLOOM, 1971), recursive feedback (COPE; KALANTZIS, 2016) and Scaffolding (BRUNER; ROSS; WOOD, 1976). The results show that if text production is submitted to a formative evaluation process of prospective and constructive character, with continuous feedback to students, there may be new ways to build knowledge which, developed with the help of more experienced people or through their own peers, can transform their potential development level, the one related to the abilities and achievements to be obtained by the students, into an actual development level, which concerns the achievements they have already accomplished.