Writing and school exclusion: Other reasons for (little) John (not) knowing how to write

Abstract

Under the pretext of replying to the article ‘Why little John doesn't know how to write’, by Heather MacDonald, published in the journal Nova Cidadania (no. 1, summer of 1999), in which the author calls for, in very simplistic and reductionist terms, a return to a conservative model of ‘teaching’ writing was advocated, the author of this article, without trying to provide definitive solutions, problematizes different modes of the pedagogic organization of this verbal competency. On this bases, she draws some conclusions with regard to the constitutive pieces of a positive model of teaching an learning of writing competency. A model which, if it is to avoid excluding many youth from school life and the process of writing, necessarily has to foresee didactic means capable of contemplating the pupil-writer as a social and cultural subject.