Integrating multiliteracy and critical thinking in the classroom: contributions to the critical education of 6th-grade students in elementary school.
Multiliteracies; Critical thinking; Portuguese Language teaching; Multimodal
texts; Textbook analysis.
This study investigates how the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies can contribute to the
development of critical thinking among 6th-grade students in Portuguese Language
instruction. It assumes that students’ immersion in digital media does not automatically lead
to deep or critical reading. The theoretical framework draws on the New London Group
(1996), Rojo (2012), Freire (2001), Saviani (2008), and Santaella (2004), who discuss
language, multimodality, and critical awareness. The qualitative, exploratory–descriptive
methodology is based on Bardin’s Content Analysis (2016) and applied to the textbooks
Aprende Brasil and A Conquista. Guided by nine criteria grounded in the theoretical
framework, the analysis shows that, despite the presence of multimodal texts, activities tend
to be of low complexity and offer limited critical engagement. As a result, the study proposes
a didactic sequence structured around the four stages of the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies,
centered on the theme “News or Fake News?”, aiming to foster critical reading, authorship,
and informational responsibility while connecting learning to students’ digital and
sociocultural contexts.