In this article, we thematize the uses, interactions and meanings of academic literacy in the scientific initiation of high school students at a public educational institution in Brazil. We aim to understand participants' conception of the practices experienced in academic literacy regarding constitutive elements: participants/groups, artifacts/resources, settings/domain, and activities/routines. These elements are categories provided by New Literacy Studies. We qualitatively analyzed scientific initiation research reports and responses through a questionnaire applied to advisors and students who developed and completed scientific initiation projects in the area of Agricultural Sciences at the Pau dos Ferros Campus of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil) between 2015 and 2017. The data reveal that, on scientific initiation, students have the opportunity to interact with a wide range of text genres from the academic domain. Furthermore, these students would experience and be able to learn the specificities of experiences that are quite characteristic of scientific work. Therefore, high school students can engage in comprehension and textual production activities with academic texts. As a result, scientific initiation is an experience that provides these students with knowledge of academic literacy practices.