Audience Awareness in Seventh Graders' Argumentative Writing: The Effects of Discipline and Explicit Audience-Cuing

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Literacy Instruction

Abstract

Studies on audience awareness in students’ argumentative writing have highlighted the importance and malleability of skills to appeal to an audience. Nevertheless, no studies have investigated whether students’ levels of audience awareness differ across disciplines. Study 1 analyzes 98 science argumentative essays and 105 social studies argumentative essays and finds that seventh-graders adopt more and a wider variety of audience awareness moves in social studies essays than in science essays. Study 2 further explores whether explicit audience cues in the writing prompts influence students’ audience awareness in science argumentative writing. An analysis of 201 essays shows with the intended audience explicitly identified, students achieve a higher level of audience awareness. Implications for instruction and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Author

• Ran Wei, Harvard University