The linguistic knowledge of the mother tongue teacher in the accomplishment of the argumentative writing tasks of ​textbooks

Submitted by: Isabel Sebastião
Abstract: Writing corresponds to the construction of an object - the text - with the characteristics which turn it into an object of communication. The teaching of this process is usually done through stages known as planning, textualization and correction (Flower & Hayes, 1980; 1981) to which we associated to the pragmatic-discursive issues related to the communication situation and the elaboration and handling of thematic contents (Dolz , Gagnon & Decâncio, 2011).
In this process of teaching and learning, the manual, as a teaching tool with a prominent place in the classroom, is assumed to be ambivalent: on the one hand, it is the vehicle of the knowledge that students have to learn and, on the other hand, it helps the teacher's performance. In the case of writing, this instrument offers proposals for activities promoting the development and improvement of this competence of the students, however, these activities of textual production do not always closely reflect the established guidelines nor do they reveal a systematic and sequential programming regarding the learning textual production competence (Sebastião, 2013).
This presentation, based on the results of a larger project, is intended to discuss and reflect, through a methodology from the perspective of Discourse Analysis, more specifically, in a pragmatic-discursive theoretical framework, the knowledge that the teacher of Portuguese has to possess to teach argumentative writing through the Portuguese textbooks of the 9th grade (15 years old) in Portugal.
The comparative analysis between the teaching of writing presented by the Portuguese textbooks, which is incomplete as the studies have revealed (Sebastião, 2013), and the linguistic theory underlying the textual genres of the order of argument, becomes relevant to perceive the role of the knowledge of the teacher when he or she is completing the shortcomings in the Portuguese textbooks.

Keywords: linguistic knowledge of the Portuguese teacher, teaching and learning of writing, argumentative genres, Portuguese textbooks.

References:
Dolz, J., Gagnon, R., & Decâncio, F. (2011). Produção escrita e dificuldades de aprendizagem. São Paulo: Mercado das Letras.

Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1980). “The dynamics of composing: Making plans and juggling constraints”. L. W. Gregg & E. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive processes in writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 31-50.

Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1981). “A Cognitive process Theory of Writing”. College Composition and Communication, 32, pp. 365 – 387.

Sebastião, I., (2013). Interactividade entre práticas e aprendizagens de estruturas discursivo-textuais no ensino básico - o discurso epistolar. Tese de Doutoramento, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.