Supporting Elementary English Language Learners’ Argumentative Writing Through a Functional Grammar Approach.

Abstract

Academic standards recently adopted by a majority of U.S. states promote argumentative writing as a cornerstone of K-12 education, to be taught from the earliest grades on. This creates a pressing need for effective instructional approaches for teaching argumentation in elementary schools. Empirical evidence of the argumentative abilities of very young students, however, is sparse, with a particular gap in research on argumentation in young English language learners (ELLs). To accurately speak to children’s potential to develop effective arguments, we need to know what kind of writing they produce in appropriately supportive instructional contexts. This dissertation study presents linguistic analyses of 25 second- and 27 fourth- grade ELLs’ argumentative writing produced as part of a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-informed instructional unit aimed at providing explicit support for children’s knowledge of the structural, logical, and linguistic features of argument. An SFL-based approach was used to analyze student arguments at the clause and stage (e.g. Claim, Evidence, Reason, Counterargument) levels. Students’ arguments and pre- and post-instruction argumentative writing were also evaluated by independent raters using a primary trait assessment. Independent scoring of pre- and post-instruction tasks showed that the arguments of a majority of students in each grade improved after participation in the argument unit. The findings of this research indicate that second and fourth graders were able to use developmentally appropriate language features in accordance with expectations for the genre. Performance across and within stages was generally not predicted by academic or language proficiency level. These results demonstrate that even students whose age is typically regarded as an impediment or who may otherwise have difficulties were capable of constructing effective arguments when supported to do so. While young children are often supported to attend to such features in writing as voice, organization, and mechanics, this study suggests that they can also benefit from stage-specific instruction and evaluation. The results of stage analysis were thus used to develop grade level-specific descriptions of the range of performance for each stage and corresponding recommendations, including an evaluative framework, for providing targeted pedagogical support for the features of argumentation with which students tended to struggle.