A criação de um clube de leitura em um programa de educação tutorial na Universidade Federal de Pelotas.

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing why and how a Reading Club was developed for fellows members of GAPE, a Portuguese Acronym for an Action and Research Group in Popular Education that is linked to a Federal Tutoring Program at Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil. The Club was proposed as a device whose goal is to improve participants' reading and interpreting skills, by encouraging literary reading in connections to PET GAPE's main research themes. This work presents discussions on the high rates of functional illiteracy in Brazil; the importance of reading; the transforming role that reading literature has on people; the benefits of individual reading; and the importance of collective and social exchanges in terms of undergraduate's mental health, as well as the welcoming, dialogic and collaborative approach in the Club's meetings, as a means for educating new readers into proficiency in higher education as well as into empathy, criticism and awareness towards the world and society.