Argumentative writing: theory, assessment, and instruction

English Journal

22nd Annual Meeting Society for Text and Discourse, 2012

This exploratory study aimed at investigating the relationship between writing strategies and the quality of written argumentation in 120 high-school students. Only half participants attended a training program on writing to argue. During pre- and post-intervention sessions, all students were asked to write an argumentative essay in order to analyze their writing abilities in argumentation. Through five questionnaires, participants’ previous knowledge and stance, their reasoning skills and their beliefs and experiences about argumentation and writing were also analyzed. Findings and empirical implications will be discussed.

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2019

Argumentative writing has long been considered an essential skill for disciplinary learning. For researchers and curriculum developers to develop ecologically valid instructional approaches to argumentative writing, a pivotal prerequisite is the understanding of how teachers use various instructional methods in tandem to teach different argumentative components. This exploratory study identified instructional patterns for the teaching and learning of argumentative writing by observing 187 English language arts class sessions taught by 31 highly regarded high school English language arts teachers (529 students; 40% of the students were males). Multidimensional scaling identified three instructional patterns that vary in the level of teacher centeredness and dialogic interaction. These instructional patterns may reflect the occurrence of explicit teaching, dialogic learning, and in-class writing that was sometimes accompanied with teacher conferencing or coaching. Common across all of these practices was the teaching of claim and evidence. Warranting, counterargument, and response to counterargument, which are more complex forms of argumentation, tended to be taught by instructional practices involving low-to mid-level teacher centeredness and high-level dialogic interaction (e.g., small grouping, discussion). Overall, our findings highlight the gaps between what researchers suggest as effective approaches to teaching argumentative writing and how argumentative writing is currently taught in classrooms.

European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education

The purpose of this study was to explore the different sub-skills of students’ written arguments (i.e., writing an argument, choosing a convincing argument) that might exist, and the content dependency of arguments. This paper presents two written argumentation tools that were designed for 11-14 year-old students, and the main outcomes from applying the tools to evaluate the written arguments of 246 students. The analysis of the data implies that choosing a convincing argument is a different kind of skill than any of the other three aspects of argumentation that were evaluated in these tests; that argumentation is content specific, and that argument construction is easier when the students’ have knowledge of the topic, regardless of whether this is a scientific or an everyday life topic. A main contribution in this study is that we have identified the degree of complexity for all four sub-skills that were included in the test. By identifying that writing an argument is a more diffic...

IJARW, 2024

Studies on teaching argumentative writing are well-documented regarding the adaptation of critical thinking skills, writing strategies, writing behaviors and writing difficulty. However, research on teachers' perceptions and practices of best writing approaches for designing writing materials centering on argumentative essays is still meagre. This review paper aims to put forth an appropriate base and approach for designing writing materials of teaching argumentative essays for upperintermediate students at English Faculty, School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. To this end, it reviews different approaches to teaching writing in EFL classrooms as well as previous studies on teaching argumentative essays, forming a firm base for material development in general and for teaching argumentative academic essays in particular. As a result, an integrative approach to writing instruction comprising writing-as-a-process, writing as a product, and writing following different genres is supposed to be conducive for teaching academic argumentative essays and shall be the cornerstone base for the material development.

Reading Research …, 2011

Acquiring argumentative reading and writing practices reflects a key component of recent curricular reforms in schools and universities throughout the United States and the world as well as a major challenge to teachers of reading and writing in K-12 and college ...

Assessing Writing, 1998

Two studies tested factors influencing ratings of argumentative essays in order to develop a scheme for assessing essays written by middle school students. Study CLAIM-CLARITY assessed the effect of: (a) claim clarity, (b) reason strength, (c) strength of rebuttals to counterarguments, (d) the rater's personal values, and (e) the rater's topic knowledge. These factors explained a third of the variance in holistic scores. There was a significant interaction between raters' topic knowledge and the validity of evidential statements. Raters' values were not significant with respect to the range of topics included in this study. Study DEVELOPMENT assessed the effect of: (a) development, (b) voice, and (c) conventions. The factors explained 63 percent of the variance in holistic ratings. This result was attributed to an assessment scheme that fostered integrated rather than isolated consideration of argument elements.

Scrutinizing Argumentation in Practice (Argumentation in Context). Frans, van Eemeren, Bart, Garssen (Eds). (pp.151-174). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2015, 2015

ABSTRACT: Argumentation strategies constitute a crucial aspect of argumentation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations of the argumentative strategies observed in the writing of adolescents’ texts within language evaluation tests, to the elaboration of their theses and the evaluation of their argumentative competence. Despite the diversity of argumentative strategies employed, their standpoints are not fully elaborated and so their argumentative competence is diminished. These findings are important for the designing of argumentative teaching.

Reading Research Quarterly, 2011

Abstract: Acquiring argumentative reading and writing practices reflects a key component of recent curricular reforms in schools and universities throughout the United States and the world as well as a major challenge to teachers of reading and writing in K-12 and college ...