Argumentation and textbooks: for an effective partnership

Abstract

Planning a class about argumentation, especially for Basic Education, is a challenge that must be faced by the Portuguese Language teacher - even more if we consider the role of this social practice proposed in the National Curricular Common Base. Based on Patrick Chauraudeau’s Semiolinguistic Theory, our objective was to verify if the activities proposed in the textbooks of grades from 6 to 9 of Elementary School give the necessary support for the development of critical sense in the students. In order to do that, we will present the results obtained from the analysis of the collection “Português - Linguagens”, by William Cereja and Thereza Cochar through quantitative and qualitative research. The results indicate that teachers need to extrapolate the textbook, because the activities included do not address argumentation as a social practice, making the task of developing critical sense in students little effective.