Teaching Argumentative Writing as Conversational Move in a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Secondary English Classroom

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Renewing Writing Processes and Priorities (Table 8)

Abstract

Our project engages racially and ethnically minoritized high school students in culturally and socially significant conversations through argumentation and argumentative writing about social issues such as social media’s impact while encouraging multivoiced contributions to the English language arts (ELA) classroom community. The study is shaped by the question, how did an ELA teacher employ "dialogic opportunities" during instruction to support her students in making moves and submoves—ways of talking and writing—for complex argumentative writing? The findings from our microethnographic discourse analytic case study documents the teacher’s uses of classroom talk to teach writing, students’ learning of argumentative moves during instructional activities, and the manifestation of moves and submoves in students’ written argumentative essays.

Authors

• George E. Newell, The Ohio State University

• Tzu-Jung Lin, The Ohio State University

• Meghan Dougherty Kuehnle, University of Notre Dame

• Kevin Fulton, The Ohio State University