From textual type to textual genre. The essay in the university entrance exam

Abstract

Today's official documents drawn up by the Ministry of Education in Brazil have advocated that textual production should be taught by the concepts of speech genre or textual genre. Following this guideline, the 2011 edition of the entrance exam, vestibular, of one of the most important universities in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, asked its candidates to write three texts, each one belonging to a different genre. In order to verify the theoretical-methodological horizons that motivated the elaboration of that exam, we analyzed the texts of (1) the candidate's guidelines, (2) the examination essay and (3) the expectations set by the examiners. Our theoretical perspective is the concept of discursive genre as developed by the members of the Bakhtin Circle since 1920. Then, we observe how this new proposal aims at evaluating the characteristics that the University expects to find in each one of its students; how the theoretical perspectives are used in the analyzed texts and how the assessment of the candidates’ argumentative ability is ensured. Finally, we suggest the possibility of working with the genre "scholar essay".