Studies that address literacy in young adult education have neglected contexts in which this group can already read and write, although they do not demonstrate the capacity to efficiently function in contexts of reading and writing. This dissertation fulfills this gap from the perspective of Applied Linguistics. It describes an actionresearch experience, describing writing and reading pedagogical practices, in the light of socio-activity theory, in a classroom of Young Adult Education, at Vida Nova Project, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The guiding principle underlying the pedagogical practices was that the insertion of citizens in the world of writing allows them to extend their worldview, empowering them as active citizens in a predominantly writing social space. To do so, it analyzes notes from field research and 25 reading and writing activities, qualitatively and across time. The texts involve argumentative and retelling experiences. Results indicate that leading students toward literacy includes a commitment to working with language and a process of making them subject of discourse. For this to happen, they need to take distance from practices that see the best text as the one that most resembles the discourse of school books.