Literatura afro-brasileira na sala de aula: o estudo do conto “Maria”, de Conceição Evaristo, como proposta de ensino para uma educação antirracista

Abstract

This work aims to present the short story “Maria”, by the Afro-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo, as a proposal for the promotion of anti-racist education in the classroom, in the 3rd year of high school at the Professora Leuda da Silva Cabral Teaching Center, through the following specific objectives: to promote the Analysis of the Short Story "Maria" by Conceição Evaristo to identify cultural, historical and Afro-Brazilian elements present that can contribute to a discussion on anti-racist education; Identify methodologies implemented or if they have already been implemented and evaluate how the short story “influences” the students' perception in relation to the theme of anti-racist education. The work is classified as applied in nature, with a qualitative approach, having primarily been carried out as exploratory field research combined with a bibliographic review. As theoretical references, these are the main authors: Araújo (2021), Evaristo (2009, 2014, 2016), Gomes (2003), Ribeiro (2017). In this regard, the short story “Maria” by Conceição Evaristo was chosen to address issues such as racism, prejudice, and discrimination, in addition to emphasizing the importance of anti-racist education in schools. Thus, the teaching proposal was methodologically divided into five workshops: 1: knowledge about the topic along with the application of a questionnaire with the students; workshop 2: discussion group about the short story Maria; workshop 3: teaching a class addressing the theme: Afro-Brazilian literature and ethnic-racial relations; workshop 4: development of activities by the class; workshop 5: presentations of the productions and evaluation of the impact of the activities developed through a questionnaire. The results positively reveal how important it is to work with Afro-Brazilian literature for anti-racist education in the sense of discussing and reflecting on racism in the school community, in addition to having enabled the students to understand the importance of addressing racial issues, as well as understanding and learning about the role of Africa in the formation of Brazilian culture through literature. In view of this, the activities developed by the students were fundamental to the proposal of this work. Therefore, this research aimed to reflect and understand the importance of literature as an important tool for promoting ethnic-racial equality.