Teaching and Learning Decision Making in Argumentative Writing

• In Event: Unpacking the Teaching and Learning of Argumentative Writing in an Urban High School English Classroom

Abstract

This paper will explore the cognitively-oriented activities occurring within the teaching and composing associated with the writing of an argumentative essay. The objective is to examine (a) how the teacher accounted for cognitive processes of writing while presenting instructional material intended to prime students’ construction of an argumentative essay, and (b) the role(s) played by cognitive processes in students’ engagement with the writing task at hand.

Attention to the cognitive processes involved in decision-making in composing can be traced to Flower and Hayes (1980, 1981) question, “What guides the decisions writers make as they write?” Their model portrayed the writing process as a series of decisions made by writers within a goal-directed approach to writing “guided by the writer’s own growing network of goals” (1981, p. 366). While that model has since evolved, there is still value in studying the goal-directed processes of writing embedded in teachers’ instructional practices and the decisions writers make when they compose, particularly with respect to argumentative writing, where writers must negotiate a series of vital components of an essay (e.g., claim, evidence, warrant, counterargument, rebuttal) so that each of the parts contributes successfully to a meaningful whole. Given its componential nature, argumentative writing places especially strong cognitive demands on writers, demands that must also be attended to by teachers of argumentative writing.

As indicated in the general summary of the session, this paper focuses on analysis of one instructional unit in one 11th grade classroom that was part of a broader study. To explore the cognitive processes involved in decision-making in the teaching and learning of argumentative writing in the targeted instructional unit, the paper will draw upon data obtained from classroom observations of instruction, text analysis of student compositions, as well as teacher and student interviews. The corpus of data includes daily video recordings of the instructional unit, analysis of student compositions, student interviews about the processes employed in writing their essays, interviews with teachers regarding their goals and plans, and video-prompted interviews with teachers explicating their views of the writing tasks, the instructional supports, and the responses of students. Data analysis involved (a) identification of the “decisions” for argumentation and writing implicit in the task and in instructional conversations, (b) text analysis of student argumentative essays for implicit decisions regarding the components of argument, (c) identification of “decisions” expressed by the teacher in the video-prompted interviews, and (d) triangulation with student interviews.

Findings suggest that “decisions” involved in argumentative writing are discussed in instructional conversations at both surface and deep levels. At a surface level “decisions” focus on procedural knowledge and processes, while at a deep level “decisions” focus on representing the complexity of arguments and assessing the needs of intended audiences. Student take-up of the “decisions” at a deep level were mostly represented in their oral participation in classroom activities while primarily surface level “decisions” were found in the actual written compositions.

Author

• Alan Hirvela, The Ohio State University