Teaching and learning argumentative reading and writing

Newell, G. E., Beach, R., Smith J., & VanDerHeide, J. (2011). Teaching and learning argumentative reading and writing: A review of research. Reading Research Quarterly, 46(3), 273-304.

Background

The authors noted that teaching argumentative reading and writing was a major challenge to teachers of reading and writing in schools and universities. The structural or cognitive view of argumentation was necessary but insufficient for analysing complex argumentative social practices in specific literacy contexts because argument needed to be considered as a set of social practices that were used differently across different literacy events.

Aims

This study investigated the contributions of cognitive and social perspectives in the study of argumentative reading and writing and how these orientations influenced pedagogical knowledge that supported teachers’ understanding of argumentation and how it could be taught.

Sample

The authors reviewed empirical studies of teaching and learning argumentative reading and writing in English classes in schools and writing classes in universities, published between 1985 and 2011.

Method

To identify journals that publish research in reading and writing, the authors began with a manual search of references listed in reviews of research using the terms related to argumentative reading and writing, English language, reading and college writing. They conducted online and shelf searches of the journals that publish articles reporting on evidence-based research on the use of argument in reading and writing. They also included studies published in edited scholarly books.

Findings

The review showed that there was a lack of research integrating cognitive and social perspectives with the study of the teaching and learning of argumentative reading and writing practices in classrooms. That is, there was a lack of research on how cognitive processes were supported by classroom teachers as they planned and taught their lessons on argumentative reading and writing.

The authors found that, although there were studies focusing on argumentative reasoning and the modelling of argumentative reasoning, they did not examine teachers’ use of specific instructional methods in helping the development of their students’ argumentative reading and writing over a period of time. They also did not examine the features of classrooms that facilitated or hindered students’ learning of argumentative knowledge and strategies.

Implications

The authors pointed out that a social perspective was needed to shift teachers’ and students’ views on the purposes of argumentative reading and writing. Teachers and students needed to read and write for actual, authentic purposes. They needed to acquire argumentative reading and writing practices to address issues that affected them directly.

Original article retrieved from Wiley Online Library.