Rhetoric has been a part of education since ancient Greece and even though it faded away and disappeared for a long time, it was quite recent reintroduced in the Swedish curriculum. This reintroduction is clearly reflected in the European council’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and in the English subject syllabus in the Swedish 2011 curriculum for upper-secondary school. Teachers may find this reintroduction challenging, and may need support in their teaching, support which textbooks for language education should provide. The question becomes how supportive these textbooks are, and how they chose to present rhetorical appeals, communicative strategies, argumentation and democratic awareness. This essay takes a critical look at how rhetoric is presented in tasks through instructions and terminology in the textbook series Blueprint 2.0, designed for the progression English 5, 6 and 7. This essay also focuses on the assumptions about persuasive-and argumentative speech in this popular teaching material and how those assumptions might steer teaching and learning in the English subject. The result shows that the chosen textbooks are vague about the rhetorical purposes in the oral tasks, which teachers must compensate to create a progression aligned with the subject syllabus. Rhetoric is not only useful for students in the classroom, but also in their civic life. It can also broaden students’ democratic awareness and critical thinking, which is needed in today’s society. In our society, citizens should not only be able to argue for their opinions and persuade others, but they should also be respectful of others and diplomatic.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-58741 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Johansson, Lizette |
| Publisher | Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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