STUDENT'S PROTAGONISM IN PROCESSES OF CONSTRUCTING ACADEMIC LITERACIES

This paper presents the result of a research that intended to motivate first year university students to develop literacy academic practices, under the conception of literacies as social practices. Relying on New Literacy Studies (STREET, 2014), especially the ones that deal with academic literacies (ZAVALA, 2009; LEA, STREET, 1998; FIAD, 2011, 2013; JUCHUM, 2016), we developed an action-research (TRIPP, 2005) in Applied Linguistics (MOITA LOPES, 2006) associated with virtual ethnography (HINE, 2000). We planned and implemented an online course aiming at constructing a collaborative community solidified on the valorization of students' identities (FIRPO, 2018). We thus analyze the evidence of the academic literacies constructed in texts written by the students and published in the online university journal produced by more experienced students. The results contribute to challenge the deficit discourse about students' reading and writing performances. In the texts analyzed, students wrote and published about their experiences after entering the university, they demonstrated protagonism as agents of academic literacies.