MEMES, WORK, AND HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: AN EXPERIENCE IN HISTORY TEACHING WITHIN PIBID

Abstract

This article analyzes a pedagogical intervention developed within Brazil's
Institutional Teaching Initiation Scholarship Program (Pibid) with a ninth-grade class. The proposal used memes to discuss Vargas-era labor politics, the Consolidation of Labor Laws, and contemporary discourses about work. Organized into six lessons, the experience combined critical reading, discourse analysis, and student authorship. The findings show that technical familiarity with digital culture does not in itself imply critical digital literacy. Teacher mediation increased engagement and helped students identify stereotypes and anachronisms, while also revealing constraints related to time, classroom participation, and the absence of a prior scripting stage. The article concludes that memes can foster historical consciousness when treated as situated sources and cultural productions.