A Rhizotextual Analysis of Philippine Secondary Textbooks in History

Textbooks, as a curriculum document text, are subject to nonlinear entry and points of interpretation and implementation. The interpretation of its content is dependent on the reader or the writer, thus making it open to multimodal ways of meaning-making that underscore rhizomatic tendencies. Delueze and Guattari ("A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia," University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1987) introduced the rhizome as a metaphor in curriculum theorizing as a lens of interpreting curriculum documents such as textbooks. Researches in history textbook analyses have taken grounds because of the shift from knowledge mastery to skills acquisition and subject integration. Rhizotextual content analysis of Philippine textbooks, however, remains scant. This study reviewed nine (9) Philippine secondary textbooks in history sourced from three (3) leading publishing houses, which yielded two (2) rhizomatic tendencies culled from the weaving of knowledge development, application and assessment.