Concepción de escritura en los libros de texto de educación básica

among all the possible educational resources, that which enjoys the greatest level of acceptance by teachers themselves is the textbook, a key element for the development, consolidation and preservation of curricula reforms in the venezuelan education system. it is therefore necessary to examine such materials to confirm whether they truly embody the spirit of these reforms. within the limits of this study, we confine ourselves to analyzing the concept of writing in sixth grade textbooks on the basis of the proposals set out in the programs of language and literature and on the activities suggested in the texts selected to consolidate the production of written argumentative texts. we have followed the theoretical presuppositions of hernández and quintero (2001), parodi (1999) and díaz barriga (2000), who all stress the treatment of the different sub-processes that are involved in writing composition, the diversity in ways of handling text structures and the value, both social and communicative, of writing. we conclude that: (a) in the national basic curriculum and the language programs for sixth grade, writing is assumed to be a cognitive process as shown in the procedural contents; (b) textbooks respond to these demands; however, they visualize the writing process as conceptual content, not procedural; the phases of the writing process are set out, but no direction is given as to how to carry out these phases.