LITERARY NARRATIVES AS RESOURCE FOR HISTORY TEACHING

Abstract

This article aims at discussing the potential of narratives in history teaching, highlighting the historical narrative in classroom and their dialogue with literary narrative. Therefore, it is resorted to Withe’s (2001) assumptions on the relationships between historical narrative and literary discourse, and to Veyne’s (2008) description of history as a narrative of events. Thus, it is applied principles of ethnographic methodology such as observation, description and analysis, from a wide concept on narrative, highlighting its potential on what regards to history teaching. In view of that, it is analyzed, according to Cardoso’s (2001) typology, the oral narrative from a history lesson about World War I addressed to a high school class, by describing its plot, the manner the characters were worked on, time and space, and the narrator position and its narrative focus. Thereby, it is aimed at identifying what conceptions of history are revealed in such narrative as well as perceiving how the structure and functions of those elements allow the spread of scientific culture and the necessary contextualization in order to interpret history towards didactic ends.