The Contribution of Textbooks in the Learning of Wrinting

Abstract

The policy consisting in teaching structured writing from the very beginning of school has been officially established in France in the early 1880s. However, this policy did not prevail without difficulties. Indeed, official programs have at times given contradictory guidelines and the procedures established by the teachers have proven partly ineffective. As a consequence, results have been considered insufficient by the Institution. What was the role of textbooks in the debate that made official instructions evolve while generating divergent practices in the field? Our contribution aims at fostering ideas on the institutional function and on the prac-tical role of textbooks in the teaching of writing. To this end, we compare three textbooks in use in primary school late classes during the aftermath of World War II and until the advent of the “Renovation Plan for the Teaching of French” (1971). These three books (1947, 1956, 1969) reveal contrasting social and ideological influences, through different interpretations of the official progams. They provide information on the questioning that animate the educational community regarding the status of knowledges, teaching methods, learning dynamics, and the finalities of school.