Introduction

The idea that reading can help to change reality has been studied for so long, however it is still necessary to understand what beliefs support the development of this knowledge at school, effective conditions that make children and teenagers readers and writers, as well as architecture, that is time and space in which these needs are awaken. Not only reading and writing needs, but also humanizing needs born from reading and language in a never ending world meaning and situation process, that is, school needs to reflect deeper in order to understand how dialogical relations between reader and text are considered concerning meaning.

According to ^{BAKHTIN, 2010},

World unity of aesthetic vision is not a meaning unity, nor a systematic unity, but a concrete architectural unity around a concrete value center which is thought, seen and loved. It is a human being, and everything in the world gets meaning, sense and value only when made into a human world (^{BAKHTIN, 2010}, p. 124).

Reading development assumes, before, language concept that presents it as central to consciousness composition, since every field of human activity are linked to its use (^{BAKHTIN, 2016}, p.11). Thus, language cannot be thought out of material, social and life reality as it is.

At school, language and reading are often dealt by teaching practices, in a positive, centralizing and homogenizing way (^{SOARES, 1999}; ^{SAVELI, 2003}; ^{SILVA, 2008}; ^{BITENCOURT, 2013}). When that happens, work with the object overlap the subject, the situation and meaning, and it does not allow discussing on the word and sign. (^{BAKHTIN, 2004}, p. 46). Thereby, a dialogical conception of language and reading teaching, from partial position of statement composition and ideological values that mobilize language and make it work, it is important in order to get reading mediation able to trigger off reading formation towards autonomy. Thus, it is necessary to rethink the point of view where these school teaching practices occur, in order to promote dialogical relations that enable students (no magical formulas) to become active participants on building meanings and agents in their social transformation.

The main objective of this paper is to briefly discuss the possible approaches among some concepts proposed by Bakhtinian circle and some guidelines for language and literature school teaching practice commonly developed from 6^th to 9^th grades of School. We chose these grades because they are transition time between listening to texts (common habit is the first school years) and autonomous reading, which should take place in this level and make the reader proficient, that is, the one who reads and makes sense for the several discourse genres found in our society, especially the literary ones, always more distance from most people. The guideline for teaching these practices at school, as a place for social and oral interaction, it`s convenient to reflect where interlocution takes place facing the ideal of raising relations between readers and discourse genres in school environment.

Language and dialogism

Bakhtinian circle studies started in Russia in the two first decades of twentieth century, around social and political reversal, technological advances and wars, as well as the fall of Russian empire and the rise of the communist revolution. At that troublesome time, some theorists took over the unease historical moment the lived in. The so called discussion Bakhtinian circle discussions, whose members were Mikhail Bakhtin, Valentin Nikolaievitch Voloshinov, Pavel Medvedev and others, try to think language from Marxism point of view. Here are some works that show that: Bakhtin`s work: Aesthetics of Verbal Art, Toward a Philosophy of the Act, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Rabelais and Folk Culture of the middle ages. Voloshinov`s Marxism and the Philosophy of Language and The Formal method in literary scholarsip by Medvedev.

In Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, Bakhtin (Voloshinov) proposes that a sign does not exist only as part of a reality, but it also reflects and refracts another one. It can distort that reality, be faithful to it or grasp it from a specific point of view (^{BAKHTIN, 2006}, p. 32). Social relations, such as school relations, take place through language and the complexity that involves that refracted reality.

We know that each word is presented as a miniature arena where social values and contradicting orientation are interwoven and fight. The word reveals as the product of social forces live interaction when it is expressed. (^{BAKHTIN, 2006}, p. 67).

Language and reading teaching practices in the classroom take place in the middle of these contradictory forces within the word. Reading and text genres interpretation dynamic and rich processes in time and space can make human being, his/her social individual conscience burst and materialize by statements or complex discourses, since “it is in and by language that man becomes a subject”. (BENVENISTE apud ^{AMORIN, 2004}, p. 102).

From their discussions a new science foundation arise, quite close to Language Philosophy in which knowledge does not take place out of the being and his/her definite and real existence, but in events. In Bakhtin`s work, language is presented as a dynamic activity in which discourse production is a responsive act. Bakhtin assumes a language dialogical principle because it is interactional utterance takes place, that is, author understands “language as a whole and alive and not as linguistic specific object” (^{BAKHTIN, 2008}, p. 207).

Utterance is, in this context, understood as a unity of verbal exchange socially used in a unique and singular situation preceding the sentence concept as the one language unity is and addresses to someone, the presence of other inside this utterance. Bakhtin presents utterance positions inside the text, as well as dialogical relations as meaningful relation between the utterances. Language historically lives and evolves in concrete speech, neither in abstract linguistic system of language forms nor in speakers` individual psyche. (^{BAKHTIN, 2006}, p. 128)

Combined to this concept, the author also presents the concept of genre as the construction of types somewhat stable of utterances that rule human otherness:

The use of language comes as) concrete and unique utterances (oral or written stated by the members of certain human activity field. These utterances reflect specific conditions and the goals of each field, not only its theme content and language style that is, the choice of language lexical, phrase and grammar resources, but above all, its language compositional construction. These three elements - theme content, style and compositional construction - are unbreakably linked in the utterance and are equally determined by specificity of a certain field of communication. Of course, each particular utterance is individual, but each field of language use makes its fairly stable utterances, the so called speech genres. (^{BAKHTIN, 2006}, p.261-262)

All of these aspects make some concepts of this circle study that have no goal to show answers or methodologies to be followed, but on other hand, they encourage reflection on word and the interlocutions around it.

Our objective here is to observe in the official documents guidelines how utterance in everyday school reading stands, that is the importance of language in reading practices, the possible interlocutions from listening to texts (literary or not) to autonomous reading, as there is a process readers to be have to conducted to “confront” the text and make it meaningful. In the process where text become speech, the reader moves from passive to author of speech, so this is dialogism concept proposed by Bakhtin who thinks about this relationship and bring life to it (KILANE, apud ^{AMORIN, 2004}, p.92).

Bakhtin`s dialogism is plural in terms of voices inside the text. Dialogism is explained by Bakhtin from Dostoevsky`s novels analysis, where the is no erasing of voices rather than the author`s authoritarian voice. As Bakhtin states:

Thus, in Dostoievsky`s work there is no definite discourse concluded, once and for all essential. (…) The hero word and the word about the hero are established by open dialogic attitude facing himself and the other. (…) In Dostoievsky`s world ther is no solid, dead, finished, unanswered, last word speech. (^{BAKHTIN, 2008}, pp. 291-292).

This concept contrasts monologism in which in speech there is no space for plurality, other voices are erased. However, it is important to highlight that the difference between monologization and monologism, as the former is a responsive act, temporary truth, the inner speech is organized as it is outspoken.

When the reader finds out his/her externality, different feature from the other, that his/her reading does not necessarily have to be the other, when the reader can see himself through the other that is when the interlocutor can effectively understand the meaning of a certain utterance. So, we can say that there is only real reading in dialogism, as there are multiple meanings and possible relations to be developed at school and in its complex routine.

However, the circle thought continually addresses to daily practices, appreciating them as spaces where the more elaborated basis for ideological creation and the sources for renovation are inserted. (^{FARACO, 2009}, p.62).

The same way as teaching Portuguese language grammar and its linguistic features in the classroom is often explaining out of context sentences or words, reading at school sometimes is also done by structural analysis of genres. The aim is to find explicit information in texts, answering questions, and no space to meaning is left. What really happens in reading mediation in the 6^th to 9^th grades of school? Who actually reads in classroom nowadays?

These questions are based on what we see on reading at school. The dichotomy between oral expression and writing, reflected or refracted (Bakhtinian use) in school reading practice the ideal of forming autonomous reader and has deeper roots. Teaching reading based on oral expression is remains of the first years of school, as for students or for their teachers who had the same education and by facing difficult and complex situations in the classroom tend to repeat it unconsciously. But if oral speech goes with listening, writing has its own laws. Meaning should be the only thing in common between spoken and writing expression, since comprehension is a great meaning game and not only a mere decoding of word meaning. Thus, we will try to reflect on reading at school based on dialogism, interlocution and their force relations.

Reading Practices in Bakhtin perspective

Reading practices at school are established by federal and state documents for education in Brazil. In this paper we verified Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN) - National Baseline Syllabus (1998) for teaching the Portuguese language and Currículo Oficial do Estado de São Paulo - São Paulo State Official Syllabus (2012) for guiding this subject. Although in these orientations, every subject and school activities should be responsible for reading and writing competences.

The National Baseline Syllabus was organized and published in 1997 as a result from discussions that were done about school in Brazil and its objective is to make a benchmark for those discussions and pedagogical proposals development and revision.

We have no claim to deeply analyze this syllabus, but only outline some main points that lead school reading teaching in the classroom, as well as how readers are educated and its complex process is formed. So PCN reflects the demand an educational time in history and today it is possible to look at it from school practice point of view and some results from it, for instance, São Paulo state Syllabus Proposal. It is based on PCN and used in São Paulo state schools, including course books that have been used since 2008 in order to have a unified education.

Although there are critics to PCN, it is important to say that it was an advance concerning language studies so far carried out. The intention was to make students to manage speech (spoken or written) in various communication situations by having linguistic and communicative situations perception that enable contextualized social practices to speakers, combined with interactional language in multiple uses and meanings. The document was conceived for text input and output, which assumes oral and written genres with its specific features and how they can be understood by students, in favor of those that are relevant to society.

According to PCN, schools should be organized as a whole in order to educate readers, pointing out the role of teachers as mediators between students and reading, helping readers to be by fomenting some values added to language such as: reading interest, oral and written text comprehension, exchange of reading environment as libraries and bookshops to continue with reading in life routine.

For 11 to 15 year old high school students who are looking for their autonomy and independence (from 11 to 15 years old), PCN tries to consider this age features, although the core is language uniqueness and its practice that male students think about language use and its social purpose. It assumes the right to word and the otherness speech. This is a decisive time for reader education, for it`s when many students give up on more complex reading. Literary reading, for instance, is defined as a process in which the “reader performs actively on text comprehension and interpretation”. (BRASIL, 1998, p.69), however that does not mean mere decoding, “but an activity that uses selection, anticipation, inference and verifying strategies and without them proficiency is not possible” (BRASIL, 1998 p.69), by using a methodological movement called Action, reflection, Action, based on didactic sequences that lead students to think about language use and its social purpose.

Concerning literary education, the syllabus, the syllabus proposes different reading practices activities in favor of real reader education, mainly related to this genre. This is a real change in classroom reading conception because there are other text genres, opening ways to a more dialogical relationship because of other stages associated to this process. It also thinks of the reader role of interpretation, as “text is not ready when it is written; the way of reading is also a way of producing meanings” (BRASIL, 1998 p.70). This issue can be understood as a change related to previous conceptions that focused text rather than the way they were received by the reader, in different types and ways that not always helped to form readers capable of recognizing “the literary constructions finesse, uniqueness, meanings, extension and depth” (BRASIL, 1998, p.27). Among literary genres crucial to listening and reading practices according to PCN: short stories, novel, romance, chronicle, poem and drama, are also contextualized by spiral didactic situations that suppose deeper development as school grades increase.

Reader education in Portuguese language classes points some practices that can help teacher`s didactic, such as: autonomous reading for texts students are already proficient, teacher`s collaborative reading with the class, programmed reading, personal choice reading and mainly reading aloud, which was not very common then and it was included as the document was produced.

Reading aloud by the teacher is described as:

Besides reading activities performed by students and coordinated by teachers, there are ones that can be basically performed by the teacher. That is shared reading of book chapters which enable students to access long texts (sometimes difficult) that can be delightful for its quality and beauty, but maybe they wouldn`t do it by themselves. Teachers reading aloud are not common at school. As grades progress, the less common it becomes, which should not be, for older students are the ones who really need good reader models (BRASIL, 1998, p.73).

Representations and conditioning are around these moments combined with corrections and warnings for silence. About this ^{Faraco (2009}) claims

in order to have dialogical relationships any dialogical material must be on speeches […] transformed into utterances, put a social subject, only then it is possible to answer […], that is, reply to what was sais, confront positions, enthusiastically receive the other`s word, confirming or rejecting it, look for a deep meaning, expanding it. (^{FARACO, 2009}, p.66)

So, how interlocution occurs on reading to other even short texts? According to ^{Chartier (2007}, p.155), teachers` pedagogical choices are not only based on technical and document matters, but also on principles, that is, by sticking to values, in other words, classroom reading practices also happen through conceptions and values built by their and other school personnel life experiences, as well as they contact students’ conceptions, expectations and cultural baggage since the early ages. Reading practices are therefore permeated by values that emerge difficulties to meaning, in school.

Group reading aloud seems to ratify or emphasize difficulties for students who are not autonomous readers yet. Successful aloud decoding is mistaken with fluent reader status. When reading aloud, which often is done without any previous reading, some texts are distorted and structurally modified. The person who interposes between text and reader, when reading aloud, is often the teacher, theoretically, a reading professional, but in group reading that is the role of other students, making it even more complex, making literacy process difficult for children who had no contact with books in early times.

The tension generated in this process by intonation or stress modifies the meaning of the text, often negatively. It make reading act difficult for it has many stops as many people read. Among the voices and the written text there should be comprehension, but a dialogical context, a proper environment for answers and statements are needed.

Programmed reading presented by National Baseline Syllabus is closer to reading practice and sharing we have at school nowadays. Also by teacher`s mediation as it is proposed by the syllabus, programmed reading would necessarily be for a literary work discussion, which is a little more difficult for students, and justify segmenting texts.

Programmed reading is a didactic situation proper to collectively discuss a difficult text for certain students, for it makes task less difficult by sharing responsibility. The teacher splits the text based on some criteria and proposes a sequenced reading for each one of them. Students read the given part in order to discuss it later in class with teacher`s mediation. During the discussion, besides comprehension and text analysis that can ease further parts, students can be motivated to anticipate potential narrative course by expecting following parts. Also, as discussing, the teacher can introduce information about the text, context in which it was produced, link with other data that can help reading comprehension not only in meaning level, but also in expressive and aesthetic levels. (BRASIL, 1998, p.73)

We define this practice as a sequence of interaction moments among teacher (reading conductor), students and not too long texts, such as short stories or chronicles, but also some other genres. Thus, according to ^{Solé (1998}, p.22) “the meaning of what is written to the reader is not a replication of the meaning the author intended, but the construction that involves text, previous reader knowledge and his/her objective.”

So, the teacher previously select some moments in text for strategic pauses that can help readers get closer to text, hence make them like and enjoy reading. Reading aloud starts with oral exploration and text discussion, using Before logic (exploring title, author`s biography, initial horizon expectations), During (pauses during reading that emphasize some aspect considered relevant by the teacher, initial expectation break and projections of others), and After (final text comprehension, by confirming or denying hypotheses and relating the text with other textual genres.

Educating autonomous reader also means educate reader capable of learn from texts. Thereby, whoever reads must be able to ask oneself about his/her own comprehension, associate what is read to his/her background knowledge, generalize to transfer what was learned to other different contexts […] (^{SOLÉ, 1998}, p. 72)

Shared Reading, as it is presented, works as alternative to some classroom reading constraints, as it is different from reading aloud, which is distance and predictable, and silence reading that can be conflicting. However, Chartier claims

[...] a reading method cannot claim to magically change failure into success. On the other hand, depending on didactic choices, confirm or reinforce the situation criticized by many. (^{CHARTIER, 2007}, p.156)

Although we cannot deny that this practice stimulates reading expectations on listener students, when the text is well used, proper intonation is imposed and questions are made in order to motivate their attention, we must bear in mind that there is no reading teaching methodology that solves, once and for all, the problem of lack of reading wish at school or out of it.

There are dialogic relations among students, textual genres and teacher`s voice, but they are just like brief replies in day by day dialogues (^{BAKHTIN, 2016}, p.12). Conversations among interlocutors during reading and spontaneous answers given to the teacher because of anxiety to know the story are comprehension level, as the listener understands he discourse linguistic meaning, he/she plays an active responsive role: agrees or disagrees (totally or partially) with it, completes it, applies it, and prepares himself/herself to use it (BAKHTIN, 2016, p.25). However, the meaning is much more attached to what was heard than read.

School reading practices are not only filtered and oriented by the official documents, but also by school and teaching definitions and the language in formation teachers have and were educated by. This generates tension between daily life and teaching, reading and institutionalized reading. For a dialogic language perspective where there is real interaction between readers and textual genres inside the sign:

Signs are intrinsically social, namely, they are created and understood inside complex and varied process that characterized social exchange. Signs emerge and mean inside social relations and are among socially organized beings […] in order to study them it is necessary to put them in global social processes that provide them meaning. (^{FARACO, 2009}, p.49)

Silent Reading, which is direct contact between reader and graphic object, cause reading inside the word and from this tension, utterances rise. Making silent reading practice close to a dialogic perspective in which interlocution can cause more and more living speech or utterance comprehension processes of actively responsive nature, where every comprehension is full of answers and in one way or another generates them, so the listener becomes speaker ( ^{BAKHTIN, 2006}, p.25). Making them closer also enables multiple voices to meet for polysemy is language itself. Other voices can also be heard in every uniqueness of speech genres.

^{Indursky (2005}, p.70) claims that dialogy is directed attached to other related ideas: another speech, different voices, (…), dialogic interrelation, dialogic resonance, multiple voices, polyphony, verbal interaction and so on. The presence or the speech of the other in utterance process that takes place in reading enables the construction of reader identity and the text ending, yet temporarily.

(...) the search for a personal word is the search for a non-personal word, the word that is bigger than itself, a wish to escape from its own words whose help cannot say anything substantial (BAKHTIN, apud ^{AMORIN, 2004}, p. 119)

The search for personal word is comprehension that is put aside in the classroom because of subject structure that leads those practices, of behavior or learning problems. So, the teacher thinks that the reader student does not understand what is been read or misunderstand it. However, Bakhtin claims that passive comprehension of heard speech is only an abstract moment of actively responsive and complete comprehension that is updated in the next real aloud reply(2006, p.25), namely, if it is possible to understand what is heard as the different textual genres, including writing. The so called reader misunderstand is only misrepresentation within the practice that tries to prevent monological speech.

There is comprehension in the reading act, and the reader creates it in several ways depending on the genre used. Press genres produce replies, requirement to pass information forward; humor genres are answered with laugh or scorn; lyric genres are many times replied with silence. According to Bakhtin:

Sooner or later, what was heard and actively understood is answered in the following speeches or in the listener`s behavior. Often, complex cultural communication genres were created for that delayed actively responsive comprehension. Everything that has been said here equally refers to changes and addendum to written and read discourse (^{BAKHTIN, 2006}, p. 25).

São Paulo state Official Syllabus, (2008), considered articulated about High School National Test (ENEM in Portuguese) principles, has in its master axis competences such as: school that also learns and the syllabus as culture, focusing on reading and writing. It is also centered on language building as part of people`s life and it is closely associated to citizenship exercise and to the development of world consciousness. It tries to provide subjects learning autonomy and continuous transformation, including interpersonal and social relationships. (SÃO PAULO, 2012, p.17)

In that document, text contact is developed by contacting different text production areas (artistic, literary, press, advertising, institutional, public, occupational, science ‘diffusion etc.). There are also several reading situations in which reading appears in everyday life, that is, in personal, working and formal education situations.

Concerning development by learning and not content, the document, as said before, uses learning competences that were formulated in ENEM theoretical background (ENEM, 1998), detailed as:

Mastering Portuguese language standard rules and using mathematics, artistic and scientific languages; constructing applying concepts from various knowledge areas in order to understand natural phenomena, historical/geographical processes, technological production and artistic manifestations; selecting, organizing, relating, interpreting data and information represented in several ways in order to make decisions and face problem situations; relating information and knowledge represented in different ways available in real situations in order to build consistent argument; reaching for knowledge developed at school in order to make supportive intervention proposals by respecting human values and considering social cultural diversity. (SÃO PAULO, 2012, p.21)

All of those competences are explained in the document and in classroom material (teacher`s guide) for specific skills for each subject. Concerning textual genres, classroom work must develop skills related to each genre read or produced. Whereas reading act is also conceived under this perspective, in general, as interpretation (provide meaning), phenomenon comprehension, action anticipation in order to interfere, contend and save problems and even as synthetizing listening skill, information guessing as well as take decision in a range of values.

Concerning basic content learning/teaching methodology for the Portuguese language in basic schooling, based on typology grouping, genres and discourse studies, two aspects are developed: content study based on didactic sequences and linguistic aspects that can develop (according to the material) skills centered in 4 major competences (writing, reading, oral and linguistic).

It is very common, in these documents, the use of words and concepts that are theoretically close to Bakhtin circle studies, specially genre and utterance. The former (genre concept) is shown as a social linguistic event that organize texts based on their socio semiotic characteristics: contents, functional property, style and structural composition (SÃO PAULO, 2012, p.34) closer to text context, namely, presented as textual genre this concept is a little different from genre meaning in Bakhtin studies, much closer to utterance idea.

The use of language is conducted by real and unique utterances (oral and written), produced by the members of certain field of human activity. Those utterances reflect specific conditions and the purpose of each field, not only according to its content (theme) and language style, namely, selecting language lexical, phrase and grammar resources, but above all, according to its composition construction. All of these elements - theme content, style and composition construction - are inseparably mixed to utterances and are equally determined by each communication field features. Obviously, each particular utterance is individual, but each language use field makes its somewhat stable utterance types, determined by speech genre. (^{BAKHTIN, 2016}, p.12)

Facing this context, working with textual genres in classroom can show a perspective on text teaching that is still heavily associated to structural linguistics. Thus, it is necessary to understand how readers to be and textual genres meet. Besides, there is room to promote communicative situations that cause utterances by using current and daily reading practices and how language gets into life by using real utterances (by real users), and how life gets into language through the same utterances (^{BAKHTIN, 2006}, p.16-17). This converges to dialogism perspective, in which there could be movement of voices and speeches. One must bear in mind that dialogue is not only verbal face to face exchange.

Concerning reading practices proposed by that material we take as example two general orientations for the same grade, in order to observe what the orientations for the classroom work are. The description of Portuguese reading, oral and writing content for the 6^th grade, in the first bimester is like this:

Reading, writing and oral content

Reading, narrative text production and listening in different communication situations

Literary and non-literary text interpretation

Enjoyment

Situation status

Coherence

Cohesion

The importance of addresser

Synthesis production

Illustration production

Oral reading in group

Conversation (SÃO PAULO, 2012, p.46)

We can observe that in the first case, there is a specific time for oral reading (Oral reading in group) that can be understood as group or collaborative reading aloud, or just the teacher reading aloud since the next item is Conversation

In the third bimester, when artistic project is proposed:

Reading, writing and oral content

Reading, writing and intertextual and interdiscoursive typology listening and narrative genres organized by artistic project

Literary and non-literary text interpretation

Inference

Enjoyment

Situation status

Dramatic reading

Reading aloud

Coherence

Cohesion

Information

Oral reading: rhythm, intonation, breathing, voice quality, uttering and pause

Steps for writing and reviewing

Working on paragraphs (SÃO PAULO, 2012, p.50)

In the 3rd bimester this is enhanced because oral items are emphasized: dramatic reading, reading aloud and oral reading (rhythm, intonation, breathing, voice quality, uttering and pause). We notice that there are no details for silent reading practice (autonomous) in this document. This practice underlies the Literary and non-literary text interpretation or Inference item, apparently divergent from what PCN guides and in which this practice detailed appears.

Final Remarks

Reading is to know what the graphic text says and text comprehension is not a calm process. Changing from text listening to reading and text production goes through constraints that make this process even more troubled. Although school is not the only one responsible for writing, as the lack of contact with graphical resources has come from family and social reading practices since the early age. It may be one of the only reading opportunities doe many students.

Therefore, searching for reading autonomy assumes a dialogical interaction process that demands a mediation exercise for reading attitude. In other words, student would need to be familiar with an adult reader who reads silently, as well as there should be a space in the classroom for autonomy, with more expression freedom and reading action without the teacher`s voice interposing between them. That is, in the end of the 9^th grade, individual, eye, silent reading demands a more direct contact of reader and text.

The problem with working reader education at school by using everyday reading practices, mainly associated to Portuguese teaching, reflect the obstacles among the studies on reading. Education professionals misuse these studies, many times because of poor teaching training courses, also because of misunderstanding, tensions or imposition that results from the promotion or circulation of official documents for teaching language and reading.