How Speech Enters Into Written Argumentation

• In Event: Research in Reading and Literacy SIG: Paper Session 1: Reading and Writing

Abstract

This research is one of the first attempts to examine oral-like features in children's written argumentation.There were 32, second graders. They produced an oral and written text to persuade an intimate target audience to purchase a Snoopy Sno-Cone Toy House. Students conceptualized the task by producing a range of oral-like and written-like organizational forms, significantly more words in the oral than written discourse, as anticipated, and a range of arguments exhibiting speech-like features in their writings that are worthy of further investigation. This study highlights one vital task of the writing teacher is to help the beginning writer make the transition from speech to writing and to clarify when speech within writing can be an asset in persuasion.

Authors

• Rosalind Horowitz, The University of Texas - San Antonio

• Kalpana Mukunda Iyengar, Residential

• Shannon Blady, The University of Texas - San Antonio