Academic writing in teachers’ formation undergraduation courses: what professors in different areas of knowledge say

Abstract

In this article, we intend to relate the ways in which reading activities are carried out and teachers' perceptions of their students' reading. Therefore, we examined responses to an online questionnaire from teaching professors from public and community universities in Santa Catarina. The study is exploratory, and seeks to provide an overview of what happens in the proposed context. The data were generated in a broader survey on academic literacy, which involved universities in Santa Catarina. Based on the theoretical propositions of academic literacy studies, an analysis of the data showed that the comprehension of the texts read is the main challenge to be faced with regard to reading at university. It includes lack of prior knowledge and little familiarity with the proposed texts, in addition to the lack of time alleged by students and referenced by teachers. However, such aspects do not affect the activities' routing, which are intended, in general, to guide students' ways of reading. There are also movements for the socialization of reading, in addition to serving as a starting point for writing practices. In these directions, it was possible to infer movements towards the academic literacy models proposed by Lea and Street (2006).