(Re)Approaching the Education of Young Readers: Formats, Convergences, and Transpositions Associated with Literature

ABSTRACT

This study is based on statistical data about reading in the lives of young people aged 11 to 17 years old. It addresses how one can (re)approach the education of readers from an understanding of what reading literature is all about in the 21st century. It discusses the change of format of reading from the book to the screen, but not from the perspective of exclusion or with the intention of arguing that one mode of access is better than another. It stresses the importance of mediating reading with an openness to the different media and forms that have been offered by digital information and communication technologies. Reflections are made to conceptualize literature in the 21st century and then some examples are provided of how literature converges from the written text to other media and vice versa, which suggests that young people are reading in different ways and this fact can be used to enhance the process of educating literary readers.

KEYWORDS:
Reading; Young adult literature; Convergence; Education of readers

RESUMO

Este estudo parte de dados estatísticos sobre a leitura na vida de jovens entre 11 e 17 anos. Reflete-se sobre como (re)pensar a formação de leitores a partir de uma compreensão sobre o que é ler literatura no século XXI. Discute-se a mudança de suporte da leitura do livro à tela, não sob a perspectiva excludente ou com a intenção de defender um modo de acesso como melhor do que outro, pauta-se a importância de mediar a leitura de modo aberto aos diferentes suportes e formas que as tecnologias digitais de informação e comunicação têm oferecido. Apresentam-se reflexões para conceituar literatura no século XXI para em seguida apresentar alguns exemplos de como a literatura converge do texto escrito para outras mídias e vice-versa, o que faz pensar que os jovens estão lendo de diferentes formas e isso pode ser melhor aproveitado no processo de formação de leitores literários.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Leitura; Literatura juvenil; Convergência; Formação de leitores

Introduction

One of the objectives of the fifth edition of the survey Retratos da Leitura no Brasil [Depictions of Reading in Brazil] (Instituto Pró-Livro, 2020 [Pro-Book Institute]) based on 2019 data, and published in 2020, was to investigate the reading habits of Brazilians as far as literature is concerned. Thus, in addition to gathering data on reader behavior in terms of intensity, form, limitations, motivations, and representations, the survey also reports data on a specific type of reading. For the purpose of the present study, these data were retrieved in search of information about the behavior of readers aged between 11 and 17 years, an age group that corresponds to 6th-8th graders in elementary school and high school students. This population was selected, in particular, because while the statement “Brazilians do not read enough.” is quite recurrent when approaching reading research, the statement “Brazilian young adults do not read enough.” is always available as justification in different situations, whether social, political, economic, or educational.

Data from this nationwide survey showed that in the study group, 16.3% of the 8,076 respondents were aged between 11 and 17 years old; among 11- to 13-year-olds, 81% of them were characterized as readers while among 14 to 17-year-olds, 67% were readers. According to the criteria of the Retratos da Leitura no Brasil study (Instituto Pro-Livro, 2020), a reader is the one who read at least one whole book or parts of one book in the last three months. It cannot be said that these data are negative; however, there was a percentage decrease in the two groups of readers compared to the results of 4^th edition of the same survey in 2015, when 84% of 11- to 13-year-olds and 75% of 14- to 17-year-olds were readers. Therefore, such decrease is worth of notice.

Although the statistical data do not show that reading is absent in the lives of young people aged 11-17 years, the decrease in the percentage of readers is remarkable, especially in the second group, i.e., 14- to 17-year-olds, who are typically high school students, according to the organization of Basic Education in Brazil. It also noteworthy that this percentage refers to a profile of readers who read little (one book in the last three months). Are poetic language and narrative language absent from the lives of adolescents aged 11 to 17 years, i.e., 6th-8th graders in elementary school and high school students?

To answer this question, one would need to know exactly what these adolescents read. Given the impossibility of retrieving such data, what this study proposes is to reflect on how one can (re)approach reader education by understanding what it means to read literature in the 21st century, considering that 21% of the readers of literary books identified by the survey are aged between 11 and 17 years and that 13% of readers in this age group read literature only in other formats. What such formats are is a key aspect that contributes to the discussion of the issue: where and how are 11 to 17-year-old young adults accessing literature, that is, poetic language and narrative language? We believe that the answer to this question can pave the way for a literary curriculum suitable for readers and for the time they live in, broadening their reading experiences or accounting for reading activity that is being done, but not accounted for by a conceptual misconception of what it is to read literature. In addition, reflecting on how schools can use these other formats to make literature observable-read by young people may help us avoid the cliché statement that young people do not read enough and begin to understand how they are reading according to the reading practices of their time. We do not refute the data from the survey, nor do we believe in the cliché that always deems young adults as non-readers. We understand that the data serve to ensure that the cliché is not the dominant response to characterize adolescent readers and that the data about being a reader, collected by the Retratos de Leitura do Brasil survey, can serve as a warning that these young adults need to be heard about their reading practices and preferences. Schools do not seem to be enjoying the opportunity to learn about their reading practices nor are they considering such practices to encourage reading activity.

At the heart of this discussion that is based on the counterpoint as the basis for putting forward the argument is the understanding that all human activity is a language event and that the statements that are made and are present in daily life are specific to a field, a style, and a construction (Bakhtin, 1986).¹ In the artistic field, there is a wide range of discourse genres that trigger a particular kind of interaction. These genres are open and conducive to the productions of meaning arising from this interaction: literary books (narratives, poems, imagery), music and lyrics, theater, films in different audiovisual formats, long and short films, music videos, reels, shorts. And culture is built through these interactions; it is changed, renewed, or remains the same, because as stated by Mikhail Bakhtin (1986, pp. 5-6):² “(...) the culture of an epoch, however temporally distant from us it may be, cannot be enclosed within itself as something ready made, completely finalized, and irrevocably departed, deceased.” These initial reflections are the basis for the literature to be seen at this time, here and now, expanding the perspective and possibly understanding of where and how reading happens.

To this end, this paper begins by asking what literature is and seeking to answer it by drawing from the work of different authors (Bakhtin, 1986;³ Cosson, 2014, Dayrell, 2003; Gregorin Filho, 2011; Hayles, 2008;⁴ Lajolo, 2018). Next, we present and analyze some examples of the presence of literature and reading in different forms (supports) that are more in line with the interests of young adults, and that can be adopted more effectively by schools in the process of mediation of literary reading.

1 What Is Reading Literature Like in the 21st Century? - A Concept Aligned With this Century

When presenting the Brazilian edition of the book Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary (Hayles, 2008),⁵ Tania Rösing and Miguel Rettenmaier point to the fact that the printed book that one is reading “was not written on paper. It was written, read, reread, and possibly revised in a digital file.”⁶ (Rösing; Rettenmaier, 2009, p. 9). It is a book that, paradoxically, does not have an electronic version. The authors of the presentation also argued that the file with the translation of that book was saved to be shared with the publisher on “a tiny USB flash drive, which stored the result - or a copy of it - of months of work.”⁷ (Rösing; Rettenmaier, 2009, p. 10). Clearly, both the digitization of writing and the pace of technological advancement have been increasing, as files nowadays are no longer stored on external devices, but rather in virtual clouds.

This whole perspective of technological advancement not only uncovers modernity, but also plays a relevant role when we think about the relationship that we establish with reading, with texts, with literature and, consequently, with the possibilities of production of meaning (a reminder also provided in the same presentation of the book by Nancy Katherine Hayles (2008),⁸ because the author addresses the aesthetics that breaks with the interaction with printed books and approaches the hypertext and other media). One cannot ignore that the original version of Hayles’s book dates to 2008, and it was published in Portuguese in 2009, i.e., it views technology differently from the way we do now in 2023.

However, while technology advances, reading per se, as a practice that involves decoding and understanding, remains the same regardless of the type of motivation and reactions that the text triggers in readers. As Rildo Cosson puts it (2014, p. 4):

From the social perspective, reading is a social activity largely determined by the limits and restrictions imposed by a discursive community. Reading [and what is read] is an interaction controlled by the rules of this community and the reader/writer needs to know or master these rules to fully participate in it, in order to build meanings that are considered legitimate.⁹

When aware of this control, we can then observe that rules have been imposed and they ultimately perpetuate modes of reading and reading practices, and they finally avert any possibility of change, ignoring that cultural alternation also needs to reach reading practices and texts whose reading is mediated by educators. Teenage readers may be doing this independently without the school’s engagement in this movement.

It is undisputed that literature is no longer in physical books only. However, the change of format does not necessarily change its meaning as a cultural object. Bakhtin (1986, p. 4)¹⁰ reminds us that literature itself cannot be separated from the culture of a particular era; however, this does not mean isolating literature within such era, because:

Enclosure within the epoch also makes it impossible to understand the work’s future life in subsequent centuries; [...]. Works break through the boundaries of their own time, they live in centuries, that is, in great time and frequently (with great works, always) their lives there are more intense and fuller than are their lives within their own time.

Currently, literary texts (out)live or gain new lives in new formats, whether through traditional bookbinding - in different editions with varied graphic resources - or in digital reading devices. According to Marisa Lajolo (2018), literature exists in the most varied formats, whether printed or digital, which are not mutually exclusive; rather, such formats coexist and can occur simultaneously. They have already coexisted at other times, for example, at the birth of printing, with the manuscript and the printed book. Similarly, a current conceptualization of literature encompasses the use of different languages. Therefore, literature cannot be restricted to printed books and the written word (verbal text).

For young adults, literature can assume a position of “prominence within the few opportunities that young people find to acquire self-knowledge and start new stages of conviviality in the surrounding universe” (Gregorin Filho, 2011, p. 26).¹¹ Literature can be the meeting point for similar and different experiences that interact with different ways of living one’s youth. We speak of youths, in the plural, to account for the “diversity of existing ways of being young” (Dayrell, 2003, p. 42).¹² Young people must be understood as social subjects, in a conceptualization of youth that goes beyond the ordinary generalizations of the time of “coming to be,” of freedom or of crisis; rather, it must be understood within the specificities of each subject (Dayrell, 2003).

If reading is a transitive verb, as argued by Soares (2008), it needs a complement. Thus, one may wonder: What are these young people reading? Although the media discourse recurrently makes the statements “Brazilians do not read enough” and “the young do not read enough,” as mentioned previously, Roger Chartier (2013), a historian who is a world reference on reading practices, said in an interview, held ten years ago, that we had never read before as much as we do now, because we have a wide range of texts available at all times. We often access these texts on electronic devices. So, we are talking about reading texts of different genres that are available in a wide range of formats, including printed and digital ones (on cell phones, e-readers, tablets). Hayles (2008, p. 3),¹³ when conceptualizing electronic literature, still in a very early context (considering the year of publication of the book and, in comparison to the current concept, argues that trying “to see electronic literature [or other supports for literature] only through the lens of print is, in a significant sense, not to see it at all,” because it is not merely a transposition, not even an overlap, but two existences or several existences that may interact with literary language.

Literature does not change; what changes is the way to access it and, therefore, to interact with it, which also affects the production of meaning. Placing access to printed books and literary texts read on screen on opposite sides in an exclusionary way, i.e. as if one could not exist because the other has emerged, is to create a battlefield and necessarily seek a winner combining the experiences, mediating the understanding of the non-excluding differences of the various ways of reading literature that are offered is an attitude that broadens perspectives, and a desirable and respectful behavior towards the cultural education of everyone.

The education of young readers undertakes to respect readers’ fifth perpetual right: “the right to read anything” (Pennac, 1994).¹⁴ This means that, as reading mediators and reader educators, we must respect the choices of young people, without expressing prejudice against, for example, the choice of best-sellers. João Luís Ceccantini, in an interview to Letra A (Literatura sem preconceito [Literature without prejudice], 2010) addressed this issue by distinguishing the literary value of a work and its role in reader education. Undoubtedly, some best-sellers, such as the sagas Harry Potter (by J. K. Rowling) and Twilight (by Stephenie Meyer), must be acknowledged in reader education for encouraging young people to read not only the volumes of the sagas themselves but also other works related to them or suggested in them; for example, Twilight’s main character (Isabella Swan) was reading Wuthering Heights. So, we must propose a movement of appreciating democratic choices, that is, seeking the “balance between accepting a mediator’s forms of intervention and building reader autonomy” (Bajour, 2012, p. 91).¹⁵ Readers will need to try out their own choices so that they can discover what they like to read or not, as well as experience choices made by others, in order to expand their repertoire beyond previously known ground.

The next section provides some examples of how literature converges and transposes beyond bound books or digital books also in other media, and how it may pave the way for the education of young readers who are immersed in a culture of convergence, as referred to by Henry Jenkins (2006).¹⁶ This culture of convergence involves content production, cooperation, and user migration across different media. This context is also related to participatory culture (blurring boundaries between producers and consumers within the media) and collective intelligence (in which multiple knowledge are combined to benefit the community - based on Pierre Levy’s studies).

2 Literature and Youth: New Formats, New Forms of Interaction

The study Retratos da Leitura no Brasil points out that, among print book readers, 46% are men and 54% are women. Among digital book readers, 49% are men and 51% are women. Although values are balanced between males and females, when we look at the age groups, we can see that the extremes (from 5 to 13 years and from 50 years or older) prefer print books, while among 14- to 39-year-olds, reading digital books is more prevalent. These readers use a cell phone (73%), a computer (31%), a tablet (9%) or an e-reader (5%) to read - mostly - books downloaded free of charge from the Internet (Instituto Pró-Livro, 2020).

It is noteworthy that the use of cell phones as reading support has been growing over the years. Jenkins (2006)¹⁷ noted that cell phones are an important part in the process of media convergence, as they bring together, in a single device, tools to access information on different subjects and to perform different actions (reading, taking photographs, interacting from a distance, etc.). In the 2015 edition of Retratos de Leitura do Brasil, the number of readers who used their cell phones to read digital books was 56%, i.e., an increase of 17% and a consequent decrease in the use of other devices. In addition, the “TIC Domicílios” survey reported that 88% of the Brazilian population has cell phones, which are also the most used devices to access the Internet (Núcleo de Informação e Coordenação do Ponto BR, 2023).

Just as reading is a transitive action across different fields that is important for several tasks, cell phones also open doors to a multiplicity of actions, e.g., reading through different languages. Even if we recognize that cell phones offer a multitude of opportunities for reading, we must critically consider that by using electronic devices, in general, young people will read texts that are hypertextual and nonlinear, that is, they will be navigating in a network of interconnected texts that produce discontinuous ways of reading. This discontinuity can also be positive or negative. While it opens doors for interactions with different types of texts, it discourages careful reading, thus leading to an extensive and hurried mode of reading, as defined by Chartier (2001; 2022). That is, these readers have access to a variety of texts, but they are not likely to read them with the immersion that is typical of an intensive reader; they may as well read the texts in a hurry to get to the last lines and thus start a new textual adventure.

The young adult audience also reflects on the issue of reading on print vs. on screen. In a recent survey, Melo (2022) analyzed the content produced by four Brazilian literary influencers and found a high production of posts aimed at reflection on the format chosen for reading. It was found that both influencers and their followers (based on the comments made on published posts) understand the advantages and disadvantages of each format. They mention particular aspects, for example: digital media allow multiple books to be stored on a single device, which is an interesting resource for very large (and heavy!) books; readers can immediately look up meanings of words and translations of terms in other languages through a single touch on the screen; highlighted quotes can be easily gathered into a file, etc. On the other hand, print books allow handwritten notes and the use of self-stick colored page markers; they enable a sensory experience with the object (e.g., touch and smell), and are items that can be placed on the shelf and admired. Young adults are readers who do not see the different media as mutually exclusive, because they use both print and digital formats, understand their respective advantages and disadvantages, and make use of one or the other according to their needs.

Convergence between different languages also seems to happen on a regular basis in the lives of young readers. Through the analysis of reviews of a book that can be classified as “a teenage novel” - entitled All the Bright Places,¹⁸ by Jennifer Niven (2015) - on Skoob, a specific social media platform for exchanges of opinions on reading, it can be seen that the readers are not restricted to the book, but they also mention the movie that was made out of it. Actually, many reported watching the movie (available on the streaming platform Netflix) before reading the book and made comparisons between the two languages and their characteristic ways of narrating the story. This is exemplified in the following excerpts:¹⁹

“What an amazing experience of reading every word. I cried my eyes out about the ending and though I’d seen the movie I was desperate to read that Flinch was fine and that he was going to get back with Violet.” (Reader 1)

“This book touched me in a way that I can’t even explain.” I already knew the story. I watched the movie first, which I confess was a little frustrating, as I already knew what was going to happen, but the book is immeasurable, you can’t compare.” (Reader 2)

“I liked the book, but I didn’t give it 5 stars because I’d seen the movie first. After a while, I found out that I had the book. I’d bought it thinking it was going to be the same as the movie. I was a little disappointed at the movie, because there are subjects in the book that were not mentioned in the movie, so whoever wants to know more about the story has to read the book first.” (Reader 3)

Another type of convergence may occur from print literature to another literary text. In the Twilight saga (by Stephenie Meyer), mentioned above, the main character interacts with two classics, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847 novel), and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597 tragedy). The novel All the Bright Places (by Jennifer Niven) also makes intertextual relationships. The following books appear in it: The Waves, by Virginia Woolf (1931 novel), and Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, by Dr. Seuss (a classic of world children’s literature of 1991). In addition to intertextuality, these mentions are implicit invitations to read these classic works. If for the young audience “the argument that they [the classics] are works of great cultural value is not enough to convince them to actually read these texts”²⁰ (Cosson, 2014, p. 13), these instances of intertextuality present in best-sellers may be a feasible path.

The hybrid manifestations of literature - which associate different arts such as cinema, music, for example - capture the attention of the young community that tends to see the literary in a broader way, understanding different languages beyond the borders of classics. There are several avatars that literature can assume in this broad conception: movies, comics, electronic literature, television series, telenovelas, video games and advertisements, among others (Cosson, 2014). In a chain reaction, several cultural artifacts are being produced and consumed:

A computer game scenario may give rise to a movie that will lead to a novel whose characters will be used in a television series and the theme will serve as inspiration for a popular song. A comic book may be further developed into a television series that will give rise to a musical, and the songs may be heard outside their original context as independent pieces. A novel may be transposed to the cinema, the scenery may be used for a Role-Playing Game (RPG) and the lines of some characters may be turned into aphorisms printed on t-shirts or on the cover of school notebooks for teenage girls, along with the frames of the movie; the characters may also be given an alternative existence in fanzines of the Internet (Cosson, 2014, p. 19).²¹

Another type of convergence can be characterized by the experience proper of shifting from the book (print or digital) to social media - whether they are dedicated exclusively to reading (such as Skoob or Goodreads) or are general ones (such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc.), producing fanfiction (narratives created by fans, based on a certain fictional universe), or making comments on the text they have just read. Within the participatory culture that characterizes the culture of convergence, these subjects are prosumers (Alvin Toffler, 1980),²² or produsers (Axel Bruns, 2006), i.e., they are consuming content while also producing it on the Internet. They are both hyperreaders, writers-readers and “new critics.”

Ana Claudia Munari Domingos (2015) characterizes hyperreaders as individuals whose reading practices are carried out beyond the traditional print book, i.e., using different media: cinema, games, music, social media, and other cultural objects. Writers-readers, a neologism coined by blending the words writers and readers, are those who continue the work of authors whom they admire by creating fictional universes based on what they read (Domingos, 2015). These are practices that characterize the profile of young contemporary readers, who are immersed in the stories that they read and feel the desire to write: a new end for a particular character, or further exploring the story of a secondary character, among other imaginative possibilities.

Reading on-screen, when performed on media or applications with particular features, is a powerful tool for these writers-readers, since they can

perform multiple operations with a text (they can index it, write it down, copy it, fragment it, rewrite it, move it, etc.); in fact, they can become a co-author. The clearly visible distinction that exists in the print book between writing and reading, between the author of the text and the reader of the book, is blurred for the benefit of another reality: the one in which the reader becomes one of the authors of a piece of writing produced by several voices (...) (Chartier, 1998a, p. 103).²³

To some extent, this idea of co-authorship, which blurs the borders between author and reader, can be observed in the writing of fanfics, which already exists in print and is widely facilitated by the current massive presence of readings in digital format. Importantly, this movement of being a reader and writer occurs regardless of reading format, since the print book can also motivate the production of writers-readers. Reading on electronic reading devices may make the transition between reading and writing more dynamic, but the editions of many print books have margins that may encourage readers to write on them.

The notion of “new critics” is put forward by Chartier (1998b), when he reflects on new subjects who currently assume the role of critics, realizing the Enlightenment dream that every reader (even those on the margins of the legitimate spaces of literary criticism) is considered capable of criticizing artistic works. Based on this notion, there are “common readers,” that is, readers who do not know about literary criticism, producing reviews and assigning scores to literary works, based on their personal experience rather than on the technical aspects related to the aesthetic quality of the texts. There is also an operative collective intelligence, in which subjects share their knowledge in favor of the construction of true communities of readers that are established in social media. Often led by literary influencers, mostly young ordinary readers, these spaces become channels for “laypeople” to express and share feelings and impressions about what they read.

In the context of reader education, especially in formal educational settings, the productions of young people need to be appreciated, since they express their motivations around reading, their creativity, and their connection with other languages. Fanfics, for example, have not yet achieved a good status in the school environment; this is what Cosson (2014) states by pointing out that they are not recognized as school activities, although they have good potential as a reading practice for literary literacy, which is “the process of appropriation of literature as literary construction of meanings” (Paulino; Cosson, 2009, p. 67). ²⁴ Reader educators, inside and outside of school, can encourage the production of fanfics, reviews on Skoob or videos in a format similar to the one created by booktubers (producers of content on reading on YouTube) as a way to avoid clichés: notes, a summary of the story, among others. The use of different practices, connected with the world of young people, can increase their engagement with the proposed activities, in addition to developing their skills beyond writing for a single reader (usually the teacher).

Final Remarks

In 1912, Émile Faguet, in his book L’art de lire [The Art of Reading], translated and published in Brazil in 2021, argued that “there is an art of reading for each and every one [of the writing genres]” (Faguet, 2021, p. 15).²⁵ His statement is in line with the reflections that we made in this paper in that it reinforces the fact that we always need to consider the action of reading as ephemeral, as put forward by Soares (2008). This relates not only to the text itself, but also to the reading experience per se, i.e., how the text is accessed, the format of such text, its form, and its social function in the gears of culture, in line as defined by Bakhtin (1986).²⁶ Considering this plot of ideas helps to understand that the education of young readers is associated with the way reading is understood. In a scenario of technological advances and media convergence, the art of reading or being a reader is not limited to printed texts or printed books; it is not restrained to classical literature or to the literature that is only available in printed books.

Literature is part of culture, as Bakhtin (1986)²⁷ states. Reading literature also part of culture and takes on the forms created by culture itself. Mediating literary reading, i.e., bringing together young people and literature, means understanding how literature fits into the surrounding culture of which young people are a part. It means highlighting the opportunities currently available for them to access literary reading and helping them to understand how such opportunities relate to older formats that are seen as unique or exclusive, although not totally left aside - for example, reading bound printed books.

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• MELO, Camila Alves de. Bookstagram & BookTube: efeitos de condução da conduta leitora a partir dos compartilhamentos entre influenciadores literários e seus seguidores. 2022. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) - Faculdade de Educação, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 2022.
• NIVEN, Jennifer. Por lugares incríveis. Tradução de Alexandra Esteche. 1. ed. São Paulo: Seguinte, 2015.
• NÚCLEO DE INFORMAÇÃO E COORDENAÇÃO DO PONTO BR. Pesquisa sobre o uso das tecnologias de informação e comunicação nos domicílios brasileiros: TIC Domicílios 2022. São Paulo: Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, 2023. Disponível em: https://cetic.br/pt/publicacao/pesquisa-sobre-o-uso-das-tecnologias-de-informacao-e-comunicacao-nos-domicilios-brasileiros-tic-domicilios-2022/. Acesso em: 10 nov. 2023.
  » https://cetic.br/pt/publicacao/pesquisa-sobre-o-uso-das-tecnologias-de-informacao-e-comunicacao-nos-domicilios-brasileiros-tic-domicilios-2022
• PAULINO, Graça; COSSON, Rildo. Letramento literário: para viver a literatura dentro e fora da escola. In: ZILBERMAN, Regina; ROSING, Tânia (org.). Escola e literatura: velha crise, novas alternativas. São Paulo: Global, 2009. p. 61-79.
• PENNAC, Daniel. Como um romance. Tradução de Leny Werneck. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 1993.
• RÖSING, Tânia; RETTENMAIER, Miguel. Apresentação. In: HAYLES, Nancy Katherine. Literatura eletrônica: novos horizontes para o literário. Tradução de Luciana Lhullier e Ricardo M. Buchweitz. São Paulo: Global, 2009. p. 9-11.
• SOARES, Magda. Ler, verbo transitivo. In: PAIVA, Aparecida et al. (org.). Leituras literárias: discursos transitivos. Belo Horizonte: Ceale; Autêntica, 2008. p. 29-36. [Coleção Literatura e Educação].
• TOFFLER, Alvin. A terceira onda. Tradução de João Távoa. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2001.

• Research Data and Other Materials Availability

  The contents underlying the research text are included in the manuscript.

• Reviews

  Due to the commitment assumed by Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies] to Open Science, this journal only publishes reviews that have been authorized by all involved

• 1
  BAKHTIN, Mikhail. Response to a Question from the Novy Mir Editorial Staff. In: BAKHTIN, Mikhail. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by Vern W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986.
• 2
  For reference, see footnote 3.
• 3
  For reference, see footnote 3.
• 4
  HAYLES, N. Katherine. Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.
• 5
  For reference, see footnote 6.
• 6
  In Portuguese: “não foi redigido nas faces do papel. Foi escrito, lido, relido e possivelmente revisado em um arquivo digital.”
• 7
  In Portuguese: “um pen drive minúsculo, que armazenava o resultado — ou uma cópia dele — de meses de trabalho.”
• 8
  For reference, see footnote 6.
• 9
  In Portuguese: “Na perspectiva social, ler é uma atividade social em grande parte determinada pelos limites e restrições impostos por uma comunidade discursiva. A leitura [e o que se lê] é uma interação controlada pelas regras dessa comunidade e o leitor/escritor precisa conhecer ou dominar essas regras para participar plenamente dela, para construir sentidos que sejam considerados legítimos.”
• 10
  For reference, see footnote 3.
• 11
  In Portuguese: “destaque nas poucas possibilidades que o jovem encontra para se conhecer e iniciar novas etapas de convívio no universo que o rodeia.”
• 12
  In Portuguese: “diversidade de modos de ser jovem existentes.”
• 13
  For reference, see footnote 6.
• 14
  PENNAC, Daniel. Reads Like a Novel. London: Quartet Books, 1994.
• 15
  In Portuguese: “equilíbrio entre as formas de intervenção de um mediador e a construção da autonomia do leitor.”
• 16
  JENKINS, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2006.
• 17
  For reference, see footnote 18.
• 18
  NIVEN, Jennifer. All the Bright Places. New York, NY: Ember, 2016.
• 19
  The reviews are publicly available on Skoob. The names of the authors of the reviews were omitted to ensure the secrecy of personal data. The reviews were transcribed literally, as produced by the authors.
• 20
  In Portuguese: “a justificativa de que [os clássicos] são obras de grande valor cultural não é um argumento suficiente para levá-los à leitura efetiva desses textos.”
• 21
  In Portuguese: “Um cenário de jogo de computador pode dar origem a um filme que levará a um romance cujos personagens serão aproveitados em uma série televisiva e o tema servirá de inspiração para uma canção popular. Uma história em quadrinhos pode levar a uma série televisiva que dará origem a um musical e as canções poderão ser ouvidas fora do seu contexto original como peças independentes. Um romance pode ser transposto para o cinema, o cenário aproveitado para um jogo de Role Playing Game (RPG) e as falas de alguns personagens transformadas em aforismos impressos em camisetas ou retomadas nos cadernos escolares das adolescentes juntamente com os fotogramas do filme, podendo ainda as personagens receber uma existência alternativa nos fanzines da internet.”
• 22
  TOFFLER, Alvin. The Third Wave. New York, NY: Morrow, 1980.
• 23
  In Portuguese: “submeter os textos a múltiplas operações (ele pode indexá-lo, anotá-lo, copiá-lo, desmembrá-lo, recompô-lo, deslocá-lo, etc.), mais do que isso, ele pode se tornar seu coautor. A distinção claramente visível no livro impresso, entre a escrita e a leitura, entre autor do texto e o leitor do livro, apaga-se em benefício de uma outra realidade: aquela em que o leitor torna-se um dos autores de uma escrita de várias vozes (...).”
• 24
  In Portuguese: “o processo de apropriação da literatura enquanto construção literária de sentidos.”
• 25
  In Portuguese: “Há uma arte de ler para cada um [dos gêneros escritos]”
• 26
  For reference, see footnote 3.
• 27
  For reference, see footnote 3.

Review II

About the reviewer SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Review II

1. Suitability of the work to the proposed theme. The paper is adequate to the proposed topic in a relevant way: the formation of readers in the 21st century, specifically in the context of adolescents between the ages of 11 and 17. The text takes an in-depth look at the relationship between young people and literature, discussing not only the reading of printed books, but also other formats and media that young people use to relate to literature. In addition, the text proposes a reflection on how to rethink the training of readers in the 21st century, taking into account the reading practices of young people and seeking to broaden their reading experiences. Therefore, the proposed theme is explored consistently throughout the text, addressing relevant issues and providing reflections on the formation of adolescent readers in the current context.

2. Explanation of the aim of the work and coherence of its development in the text. The aim of the text is to discuss the relationship between young people and literature, emphasizing that literature is not restricted to printed books and the written word. It addresses the importance of understanding reading as a social and cultural activity, which goes beyond the text itself, also considering the medium, form and social function of reading. The text also mentions the influence of technological advances and media convergence on the way young people relate to reading. The aim of the text is articulated throughout by addressing the need to rethink the way literature is taught and promoted to young people. The text highlights the importance of adopting different practices, such as the production of fanfics, reviews and videos about reading, which are in tune with young people’s reading practices and which promote greater mobilization and engagement with literature. In addition, the text highlights the importance of understanding reading as a transitive activity, which goes beyond the text itself, considering the support, form and social function of reading. This reflection is based on the theories of authors such as Émile Faguet and Bakhtin, who highlight the importance of considering reading as part of culture and understanding how literature fits into the cultural context of young people.

3. Conformity with the proposed theory, demonstrating up-to-date knowledge of the relevant bibliography. The information presented in the text relates to the proposed theory of reflecting on the formation of readers, especially in the context of adolescents between the ages of 11 and 17. The text addresses the importance of understanding how young people in this age group are accessing literature, whether through physical books, digital books or other formats. It also highlights the growing influence of cell phones as a reading medium and mentions statistical data on the percentage of teenagers who are identified as readers. The text demonstrates an up-to-date knowledge of the relevant bibliography, with citations and references to recent research.

4. Originality of reflection and contribution to the field of knowledge. The reflection of the text addresses the way in which literature is present in different supports and how this involves interaction and production of meaning. The authors argue that there is no exclusivity between the printed book and the literary text on screen, but rather a coexistence and coexistence between different modes of access and interaction with it. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of a broad approach to literature, which goes beyond the verbal text and includes different languages. This reflection on the coexistence and transformation of literature is original and contributes to the understanding of its role in the digital age. The contribution of the text to the field of knowledge is related to reflection on contemporary reading practices, especially among young people. It addresses the convergence of literature in different supports and media, such as printed and digital books, among others. Furthermore, the text highlights the importance of mediating reading in a way that is open to different forms of access to information and digital communication technologies. This reflection on the convergence of literature and the new forms of interaction provided by digital media contributes to rethinking reading practices and training young readers. By considering that young people are reading in different ways, it is possible to explore these different ways of reading and use them more effectively in the literary education process. In this way, the text contributes to expanding the understanding of contemporary reading practices and offers insights into the training of young readers in a context of culture of convergence and participation.

5. Clarity, correctness and appropriateness of language for a scientific paper. The language used in the text is clear and grammatically appropriate. The sentences are well-structured and comprehensible, allowing for fluid reading. The writing is appropriate to the context of a scientific paper, using specific terminology and demonstrating a good command of the language. APPROVED

• peer review recommendation: accept

History

• Peer review received
  14 Feb 2024

Data availability

The contents underlying the research text are included in the manuscript.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  27 May 2024
• Date of issue
  Jul-Sep 2024

History

• Received
  10 Nov 2023
• Accepted
  17 Apr 2024