A leitura de poemas de Catulo sobre a homoafetividade e a formação de leitores críticos-reflexivos.

Abstract

This research reinforces the idea of teaching literature as a means for possible discussions, in the classroom, on taboo topics. Through three poems of Catullus (48, 81, and 99) as well as the culture of Ancient Rome, we discuss the theme homoaffectivity. After that, we take to the classroom these poems in order to debate about the referred topic, so we can make the students reflect and discuss about the relationship between people of the same sex, thus forming critical citizen – reaching the goal of teaching literature in accordance with both the Curriculum Guidelines for Secondary Education (OCEM, 2006) and the Curriculum Frameworks for Secondary Education in Paraíba (2006). Such documents regulate the teaching of literature in secondary education in Brazil. Therefore, this study aims at ( 1 ) Inserting into the daily lives of students Latin texts related to the theme homo-affectivity through three poems of Catullus; ( 2 ) Encouraging students to read, thus contributing to the formation of critical- reflective readers; ( 3 ) Suggesting ways of working in the classroom the theme homo-affectivitythrough texts of Latin literature. Our corpus consists of discussions in the classroom after reading the poems of Catullus, and of the writtenactivities implemented in the last meeting of our intervention. We are theoretically grounded on both André (2006) and some texts of Latin literature to discuss the homo-affectivity in Ancient Rome culture, and also on Compagnon (2003) and Jauss (1979) to study about the reception of literary texts.The regulatory curriculum documents before above helped us not only to reflect upon the teaching of literature in secondary education, but also to think of activities to work the literary text with the students. The result of this research showed that it is possible to work taboo topics in the classroom using Latin literature, and that the students had a good reception to Latin texts. When reading is shared in a dialogic way, it allows students to engage actively in the process of conveying meaning and makes themfeel free to express their opinion. Finally, we conclude that students are in daily contact with new situations and constant modifications in teaching. Therefore,teachers should bring to classroom students’ social reality, encouraging them to read from the Latin literature to the Brazilian one.