Abstract
The effects of self-regulated strategy development revising instruction for college students that targeted the use of argumentation schemes and critical questions were assessed in three conditions. In the first condition, students were taught to revise their essays by asking and answering critical questions about the argument from consequences and argument from example schemes while writing about controversial topics. In the second condition, students were taught to revise their essays by using argumentation schemes to justify their standpoint, but did not learn the critical questions. In the third condition, students received no instruction about either the argumentation schemes or the critical questions. Compared to students in the contrasting conditions, those who were taught to ask and answer critical questions wrote essays that were of higher quality, and included more counterarguments, alternative standpoints, and rebuttals. These findings indicate that strategy instruction that includes critical standards for argumentation increases college students’ sensitivity to alternative perspectives.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Applebee, A. N., Langer, J. A., Mullis, I. V. S., Latham, A. S., & Gentile, C. A. (1994). NAEP 1992: Writing report card. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Aristotle (1991). The art of rhetoric (H. Lawson-Tancred, Trans.). London: Penguin Classics.
Bensley, D. A., & Haynes, C. (1995). The acquisition of general purpose strategic knowledge for argumentation. Teaching of Psychology, 22, 41–45.
Coirer, P., Andriessen, J., & Chanquoy, L. (1999). From planning to translating: The specificity of argumentative writing. In J. Andriessen & P. Coirier (Eds.), Foundations of argumentative text processing (pp. 1–28). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
De La Paz, S., & Graham, S. (1997a). Strategy instruction in planning: Effects on the writing performance and behavior of students with learning disabilities. Exceptional Children, 63, 167–181.
De La Paz, S., & Graham, S. (1997b). Effects of dictation and advanced planning instruction on the composing of students with writing and learning problems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 203–222.
Deatline-Buchman, A., & Jitendra, A. K. (2006). Enhancing argumentative essay writing of fourth-grade students with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 29, 39–54.
Faigley, L., & Witte, S. (1981). Analyzing Revision. College Composition and Communication, 32, 400–414.
Felton, M., & Kuhn, D. (2001). The development of argumentative discourse skill. Discourse Processes, 32(2&3), 135–153.
Ferretti, R. P., Andrews-Weckerly, S., & Lewis, W. E. (2007). Improving the argumentative writing of students with learning disabilities: Descriptive and normative considerations. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 23, 267–285.
Ferretti, R. P., Lewis, W. E., & Andrews-Weckerly, S. (2009). Do goals affect the structure of students’ argumentative writing strategies? Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 577–589.
Ferretti, R. P., MacArthur, C. A., & Dowdy, N. S. (2000). The effects of an elaborated goal on the persuasive writing of students with learning disabilities and their normally achieving peers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 694–702.
Fitzgerald, J., & Markman, L. (1987). Teaching children about revision in writing. Cognition and Instruction, 4, 3–24.
Graff, G. (2003). Clueless in academe: How schooling obscures the life of the mind. Yale: Yale University Press.
Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (1989). A components analysis of cognitive strategy training: Effects of learning disabled students’ compositions and self-efficacy. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 353–361.
Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (2005). Writing better: Effective strategies for teaching students with learning difficulties. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & McKeown, D. (in press). The writing of students with LD and a meta-analysis of SRSD writing intervention studies: Redux. In L. Swanson, K. R. Harris, & S. Graham (Eds.). Handbook of research in learning disabilities (2nd edn.). New York: Guilford.
Graham, S., & MacArthur, C. (1988). Improving learning disabled students’ skills at revising essays produced on a word processor: Self-instruction strategy training. Journal of Special Education, 22, 133–152.
Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools. New York: Carnegie Corporation.
Graves, D. H., & Murray, D. M. (1980). Revision: In the writer’s workshop and in the classroom. Journal of Education, 162, 38–56.
Kinsler, K. (1990). Structured peer collaboration: Teaching essay revision to college students needing writing remediation. Cognition and Instruction, 7, 303–321.
Knudson, R. E. (1992). The development of written argumentation: An analysis and comparison of argumentative writing at four grade levels. Child Study Journal, 22, 167–184.
Kuhn, D. (1991). The skills of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leitão, S. (2003). Evaluating and selecting counterarguments: Studies of children’s rhetorical awareness. Written Communication, 20(3), 269–306.
MacArthur, C. A. (in press). Evaluation and revision processes in writing. In V. W. Berninger (Ed.), Past, present, and future contributions of cognitive writing research to cognitive psychology. New York: Psychology Press.
MacArthur, C. A., Schwartz, S., & Graham, S. (1991). Effects of a reciprocal peer revision strategy in special education classrooms. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 6, 201–210.
MacCann, T. M. (1989). Student argumentative writing: Knowledge and ability at three grade levels. Research in the Teaching of English, 23, 62–76.
Nussbaum, E. M., & Edwards, O. V. (2011). Critical questions and argument stratagems: A framework for enhancing and analyzing students’ reasoning practices. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 20, 443–488.
Nussbaum, M. E., & Kardash, C. M. (2005). The effects of goal instructions and text on the generation of counterarguments during writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 157–169.
Perkins, D. N., Faraday, M., & Bushey, B. (1991). Everyday reasoning and the roots of intelligence. In J. F. Voss, D. N. Perkins, & J. W. Segal (Eds.), Informal reasoning and education (pp. 83–105). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Persky, H. R., Daane, M. C., & Jin, Y. (2003). The nation’s report card: Writing 2002 (US Department of Education Publication No. NCES 2003-529). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Rushton, J., Brainerd, C., & Pressley, M. (1983). Behavioral development and construct validity: The principle of aggregation. Psychological Bulletin, 94, 18–38.
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1986). Research on written composition. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 778–803). New York: Macmillan.
Sexton, M., Harris, K. R., & Graham, S. (1998). Self-regulated strategy development and the writing process: Effects on essay writing and attributions. Exceptional Children, 64(3), 295–311.
Sommers, N. (1980). Revision strategies of student writers and experienced adult writers. College Composition and Communication, 31, 378–388.
The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2007. (2007). Retrieved February 25, 2011, from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2007/2008468.pdf.
van Eemeren, F. H., & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, communication, and fallacies: A pragma-dialectical perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
van Eemeren, F. H., & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A systematic theory of argumentation: The pragma-dialectical approach. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., & Henkemans, F. S. (1996). Fundamentals of argumentation theory: A handbook of historical backgrounds and contemporary developments. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., & Henkemans, F. S. (2002). Argumentation: Analysis, evaluation, presentation. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., Jackson, S., & Jacobs, S. (1993). Reconstructing argumentative discourse. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Walton, D. (1992). Plausible argument in everyday conversation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Walton, D. N. (1996). Argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
Walton, D., Reed, C., & Macagno, F. (2008). Argumentation schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Song, Y., Ferretti, R.P. Teaching critical questions about argumentation through the revising process: effects of strategy instruction on college students’ argumentative essays. Read Writ 26, 67–90 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-012-9381-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-012-9381-8