The article discusses aspects of school literacy in a first cycle classroom, in which the use of the textbook is central. For that end, thirty-seven hours of classroom interaction were videotaped. The analysis focuses on the interaction process involving teacher and pupils, around the Portuguese Language textbook. It is observed that the teacher changes the initial objective of the book giving it new meaning according to her own practice. The analysis makes use of concepts from Bakhtin’s theory and from interactional ethnography providing evidence as to how literacy processes are constituted. Specific analysis of discursive aspects of the interaction demonstrates that the participants interpret classroom discourse in different ways: pupils and teacher take on social roles that connote an asymmetrical relationship in the teaching-learning process.
literacy; classroom interaction; textbook
