"No Facts Equals Unconvincing": Fact and Opinion as Conceptual Tools in High School Students' Written Arguments

Autor/in	Imbrenda, Jon-Philip
Titel	"No Facts Equals Unconvincing": Fact and Opinion as Conceptual Tools in High School Students' Written Arguments
Quelle	In: Written Communication, 35 (2018) 3, S.315-343 (29 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0741-0883
DOI	10.1177/0741088318768560
Schlagwörter	Qualitative Research; Portfolios (Background Materials); Persuasive Discourse; Writing Assignments; Writing Instruction; Logical Thinking; Grade 12; High School Students; Essays; Teaching Methods; Concept Formation; Grade 11; Urban Schools; Minority Group Students; Coding + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Qualitative Forschung; Persuasion; Persuasive Kommunikation; Schreibunterricht; School year 12; 12. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 12; High school; High schools; Student; Students; Oberschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Essay; Aufsatzunterricht; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode; Concept learning; Begriffsbildung; School year 11; 11. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 11; Urban area; Urban areas; School; Schools; Stadtregion; Stadt; Schule; Codierung; Programmierung
Abstract	In this study, I present a qualitative analysis of 11 writing portfolios drawn from a yearlong instructional program designed to apprentice students into the practices of argumentative writing typical of early-college coursework in the United States. The students' formal and informal writings were parsed into utterances and coded along two developmental dimensions: reciprocity, or the extent to which each utterance answered to the immediate context in which it was generated; and indexicality, or the extent to which each utterance evidenced modes of reasoning that reflect the conventions of academic argumentation. My analysis found that although students' writing evidenced a high degree of reciprocity, they frequently employed nonacademic modes of reasoning. Focusing on a subset of utterances, I show how their tacit orientations toward the concepts of fact and opinion limited the extent to which their reasoning satisfied the evidentiary expectations of formal academic discourse. This discovery suggests that students' development as writers of academic arguments is closely linked to their formal instruction in argumentative writing as well as to their tacit understandings of concepts fundamental to argumentation. Moreover, these findings highlight important distinctions between formal and informal reasoning and how those distinctions may be implicated in both curriculum and instruction. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01