Analysis and Argument in First-Year Writing and Beyond

A Functional Perspective

By Silvia Pessoa, Thomas D. Mitchell, and Maria Pía Gómez-Laich

Subjects: English as a Second Language (ESL), Writing, Applied Linguistics & Linguistics, Teacher Training
Paperback : 9780472039777, 174 pages, 59 tables, 6 x 9, October 2024
Ebook : 9780472221936, 174 pages, 59 tables, 6 x 9, October 2024
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12754937
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Table of Contents

Developing a language for students and teachers to discuss good writing

Table of contents

Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Theoretical Principles for Scaffolding Argumentative Writing
1. Systemic Functional Linguistics and Genre
2. The 3x3 Toolkit for conceptualizing argumentative writing
3. Understanding the 3x3 through analysis of history arguments: The importance of interpersonal meanings
4. The 3x3 for diagnosing challenges with argumentation: Challenges with interpersonal meanings
5. Applying the 3x3 to unpack the process of analysis: The importance of ideational meanings
6. Applying the 3x3 to scaffolding first-year writing
7. How to use the 3x3 for scaffolding argumentative writing
8. The Teaching and Learning Cycle
Chapter 2. The Onion Model: A resource to help students to move from knowledge display to knowledge transformation
1. What’s the expectation and what is the challenge for students?
2. What does the challenge look like in first-year writing and in writing in the disciplines?
3. What resource can we use to address the problem?
4. Lessons
5. Concluding remarks
Chapter 3: Writing effective claims: Key words, evaluations, and causal relations
1. What’s the expectation and what is the challenge for students?
2. What does the challenge look like in first-year writing and in writing in the disciplines?
3. What tools can we use to address the problem?
4. Lessons
5. Concluding remarks
Chapter 4. I Know, I See, I Conclude: Resources to help students adopt effective patterns of analytical writing
1. What is the expectation and what is the challenge?
2. What does the challenge look like in first-year writing and in writing in the disciplines?
3. How can we help students with this challenge?
4. Lessons
5. Concluding remarks
 
Chapter 5. ENGAGEMENT: Resources to help students align the reader toward the writer’s perspective
1. What is the expectation and what is the challenge?
2. What does the challenge look like in first-year writing and in writing in the disciplines?
3. How can we help students with this challenge?
4. Lessons
5. Concluding remarks
Chapter 6. Justification: Resources for justifying a position among alternatives
1. What’s the expectation and what is the challenge for students?
2. What does the challenge look like in first-year writing and in writing in the disciplines?
3. What resources can we use to address the challenge?
4. Lessons
5. Concluding remarks
Chapter 7. Tips for assigning and assessing argumentative writing
1. Overview
2. The importance of designing assignment guidelines and prompts that align with pedagogical expectations
3. The importance of word choice in prompts and guidelines 
4. The importance of avoiding question sets that are meant to be considered holistically 
5. The importance of having consistent parts in (first-year writing) assignment guidelines 
6. Making language expectations explicit in assessment rubrics
7. Applying the Teaching Learning Cycle: Drafting, feedback, and negotiated construction
8. Concluding remarks

Description

In an increasingly wider range of disciplines college students are expected to write arguments throughout their undergraduate studies. While most instructors know good writing when they see it, they are not always able to articulate the finer details of how language is used to compose the strong arguments they expect from their students. Analysis and Argument in First-Year Writing and Beyond provides a common language to talk about and teach argument writing.

The authors harness over ten years of research on analyzing, scaffolding, and assessing argumentative writing in university classrooms to offer research-based tools for first-year writing and disciplinary instructors to make their expectations explicit to students. To articulate the linguistic resources of argumentation, the authors rely on genre-based pedagogy, informed by systemic functional linguistics (SFL). By leveraging their expertise , the authors offer practical tools for scaffolding writing in key genres across broader fields, such as writing studies, business administration, and information systems.

Each chapter focuses on a single tool, explaining it with mentor texts, sample texts, and visualizations, and provides guided classroom activities that teachers can adapt to fit their own contexts. With these tools, instructors and students will better understand how to: 

  • distinguish between descriptive and argumentative writing;
  • write argumentative claims; 
  • apply an analytical framework in a written text; 
  • maintain a consistent position in an argumentative text while incorporating outside sources; 
  • argue for one position in favor of viable alternatives.

Silvia Pessoa is a Teaching Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar.
Thomas D. Mitchell is Associate Teaching Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar.
Maria Pía Gómez-Laich is Associate Teaching Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar.

“Rooted in a strong theoretical foundation and supported by over a decade of classroom research, the authors have created an invaluable resource. Each chapter not only explains but also exemplifies how the SFL-genre based toolkits can be effectively employed. Readers will gain insights into why, how, and when to use these powerful tools, making this resource both practical and enlightening.”

- Sandra Zappa-Hollman, University of British Columbia

“Pessoa, Mitchell, and Gómez-Laich have given us an incredibly rich resource that integrates current research on argument for teaching not only multilingual students but any student looking for a framework to demystify academic analysis and argument. Students often struggle with task expectations in college writing as well as teacher feedback about those expectations. This book can equip instructors to concretize some of our abstractions and to prioritize writing structures that carry beyond first-year writing toward discipline-specific communication. Through their own teaching practices and their long, careful study of student writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, the authors give us a thoughtful approach that will engage research and teaching across fields of applied linguistics, second language writing, composition studies, and rhetoric.”

- Danielle Zawodny Wetzel, Carnegie Mellon University
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