Abstract
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.
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Acknowledgements
The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant 305A100786. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Center for Video Ethnography and Discourse Analysis (CVEDA) and the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University (OSU). The content of this paper does not necessarily reflect the policies of the CVEDA or the OSU Department of Teaching and Learning.
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Lin, TJ., Nagpal, M., VanDerHeide, J. et al. Instructional patterns for the teaching and learning of argumentative writing in high school English language arts classrooms. Read Writ 33, 2549–2575 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10056-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10056-y