Abstract:

In the Turkish Curriculum, the features to be taken as a basis when choosing texts for textbooks are specified. This research was carried out in order to determine whether the texts in the Turkish textbooks have these basic features (theme, number, and types of texts, the qualities of the texts to be included in the Turkish textbooks) specified in the curriculum. In the study, the document analysis method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used and the 5th grade Turkish textbook of Anıttepe publishing and the 8th grade Turkish textbook of the Ministry of Education publishing were examined. The data of this research were analyzed with the descriptive analysis approach. As a result of the examination, it was determined that the textbooks were generally prepared in accordance with the qualifications specified in the program in terms of "Explanations on Themes". Although a balanced distribution of text types among themes was foreseen in the Turkish curriculum, there was no mention of poetry in the theme of Health and Sports and Science and Technology in the 5th-grade Turkish textbook; in addition, it was determined that the types of e-mails, humorous jokes, and songs/folk songs envisaged in the program were not included in the book. Although the types of biography and autobiography are shown among the types of informative texts that should be included in the 8th grade Turkish textbook in the Turkish curriculum, it has been observed that these types are not included in the 8th-grade Turkish textbook examined. These findings were determined as the deficiencies in the text types and distribution of the textbooks at the relevant grade levels in the curriculum. E-mails, humorous anecdotes, news articles, petitions, cartoons, posters, tables, ephemera, brochures, letters, diaries, and graphics, which are required to be included in the course books in the Turkish Curriculum, were included in the activities and presented to the students. In both textbooks examined, the text formats do not show a fully balanced distribution in terms of ratio. While “essay” in the 5th-grade Turkish textbook and “interview” in the 8th-grade Turkish textbook was the most used informative text type, it was determined that the most common type of narrative text in both textbooks was "story". When the examined textbooks were evaluated within the scope of  "Qualifications of Texts to be Included in Textbooks" specified in the Turkish curriculum, it was seen that the texts generally had these characteristics.

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