LIVING AMID AND THROUGH CHAOS: THE POTENTIAL OF LITERATURE AND AFFECT IN CRITICAL LANGUAGE EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

The devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic have impacted various spheres of social life, forcing us all into survival situations marked by the trivialization of life and, consequently, a loss of hope. In this scenario, language education is seen as space of resistance in which criticality is an urgent need. In light of these events, the objective of this article is to discuss students’ work resulting from a project carried out during the second semester of 2020 in an undergraduate English as an Additional Language course at the State University of Campinas, Brazil. The project takes on a short story by Margaret Atwood to raise debates both on the narrative structure of the tale and its central themes, such as feminism and interpersonal relationships. The concept of literary literacy (COSSON, 2020) guided the development of the project, in which literature is conceived as a place where problems, sensitivities, and stories can be discursively materialized, leading to the emergence of spaces of affect (ROCHA, 2020) and feeling (hooks, 2017), despite the distancing experienced on so many levels. The methodological/ theoretical foundations of the activities were based on the multiliteracies pedagogy (COPE; KALANTZIS, 2000); students’ works were analyzed from a discursive viewpoint of language and in light of critical literacy theories (LUKE, 2014; MILLS, 2016; MONTE MOR, 2018). Far from trying to romanticize such painful times, the reflections raised here aim to restore hope (in freirean terms) which seems opaque in times of crises.

Keywords:
language education; English language; literary literacy; critical literacy; affect