BETWEEN DRAWINGS, TRACES AND FIGURES: THE USES OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN A SCHOOL SCIENCE BOOK

Abstract

The present work results from the research on the illustrations of a book of Sciences of the year 1995, trying to understand how these images can contribute to the understanding of the school culture. Why were they used? To reinforce, approximate or exemplify the content? It was based on the understanding that the notebook is not a mere physical support of writing, on the contrary, it is a device whose articulation generates effects that can be translated into strategies of perpetuation or transformation of a given school culture. When analyzing school notebooks it was possible to visualize the writing practices and their uses. Annotations, copies, and transcriptions are the most common writing activities. Common to all students, the notebook is a place where lessons are copied, where concepts are recorded from the books or explained by the teacher. However, before the university of the use of the notebook to all those who attend school, something particular is expressed in the organization, in the way of making notes and in the way of signaling what they think is more important. The notebooks differ, even in the face of the same content. Drawing can then be a way of personalizing one's own notebook, with spontaneous drawings and simplifications, or an artifice of the teacher to exemplify and approximate knowledge, at first, so far from the students.