Argumentative writing across the curriculum

Neo, B. (2004). Explicit teaching of argumentative writing in upper primary social studies lessons (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from http://libris.nie.edu.sg/

Background

The author was interested in whether argumentative writing could be taught across the curriculum or only in English language lessons.

Aims

This study investigated if genre-based explicit teaching in argumentative writing helped upper primary students develop the practice of adopting a stance and providing supporting arguments in their Social Studies classes.

Sample

Five Primary 4 students from a Gifted Education Programme class participated in this study. They did not have prior formal experience in argumentative writing.

Method

The intervention consisted of two stages: modelling of an argumentative text and joint negotiation of the meaning of the same text. Before and after the intervention, the students were given a writing exercise in the form of forum letters to express their opinion on two topics. The texts were analysed for the following argumentative stages: context, stance, argument, and reinforcement of stance. Supporting claims were categorised as:

First level claims: Claims which supported the stance and were supported by other claims;-
Second level claims: Claims which supported first level claims;-
Orphan claims: Potential supporting claims that were badly used; and-
Discordant information: Information which served no rhetorical function.

Findings

The findings showed that all the students in the class were able to state their stance clearly in both their pre- and post-instruction texts. Students’ use of first person pronouns and mental verbs to express opinions, and of statements to set the context increased after the intervention.

The students showed three improvements in constructing supporting arguments. Firstly, the number of students using second level supporting claims to support their first level claims increased. The students were able to use different connectives to link their sentences and points to construct sound arguments. Secondly, the number of orphan claims and discordant information items decreased dramatically. Thirdly, the number of students who could reinforce their stance at the end of the writing increased.

Implications

The author believes that the nature of the upper primary Social Studies curriculum provides an appropriate and conducive context for the learning of the argumentative genre. Hence the author proposes that teachers consider the possibility of teaching students argumentative writing across the curriculum as well.

Original article retrieved from NIE Digital Repository.