This paper deals with various reasons for treating the problematisation of textbook discourse as an important aspect of its educational design. These reasons are derived from: the nature of learning process, the nature of scientific knowledge and both motivational and cognitive saint achieved through a problematisation of learning material. Implications drawn from these considerations, along with textbook genre possibilities and constrains, lead us to define some basic strategies of textbook discourse problematisation. They refer to: way of presenting knowledge (problem structuring of text, presenting the history of knowledge and different perspectives); use of specific questions and tasks; metacognitive support of the learning process and specific type of textbook language (dialogical problem focused, language of thinking).