Genre-Based Approach to Teaching Argumentative Writing

Genre knowledge can be defined as the type of knowledge that is required to communicate within a discourse community. As an integral part of the academic community, students are also expected to conform to the conventions of particular genres in their assignments, reports or presentations. However, the literature relevant to Genre Knowledge in the Turkish higher education context appears to be indicating a gap regarding if and how the knowledge of a particular genre is related to the written composition profiles of learners. In this respect, the present study aims to find out if genre knowledge is related to writing performance in terms of content, organization, vocabulary, language use and the mechanics of writing. To meet the aims of the study, a quantitative and cross-sectional study design was employed in the setting of a compulsory English Literature course in an ELT department, during which students are frequently assigned to write literary analysis essays. Since the study is of a correlational nature, 30 literary analysis essays were collected from second-year ELT students with low, middle and high levels of genre knowledge, which was assessed by means of a checklist, developed and validated by Uzun (2016) in the same context to assess the level of adherence to the genre conventions of literary analysis essays. The ESL Composition Profile of Jacobs et al. (1981) was used to assess essay writing performance. The relationship between genre knowledge and writing performance was sought for through correlation analyses. Group comparisons were made by means of Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney U tests. The findings are discussed in the conclusion section.

While the monstrous feminine of Hollywood is available transhistorically over much of cinema across the world, the female monster of Hindi horror cinema remains ignored and merits serious academic exploration. Much of the widely accepted modern art-horror theory as applied to the horror genre is predicated upon Julia Kristeva’s notion of the
‘abject’ and the Freudian notion of the ‘return of the repressed’. While Creed (1993, 2002) exemplifies that horror texts indeed serve to illustrate abjection, her work reduces all forms of the monstrous feminine in the horror genre to fear of the abject mother. I posit that there is no universal archetype of the abject mother, and the maternal as an abject figure does not find resonance in the Hindi horror genre. Instead, I propose that a sub-genre, which I term the ‘Monstrous “Other” Feminine’ narrative, within the Hindi horror cinema engendered in the 1980s, presents an interstitial phantasmal female monster with wanton sexual
desire and gaze as the abject ‘other’. Through narrative closures, traditional gendered perspectives are reinforced, normative femininity is deified and the monstrous other feminine, commanding sovereign female desire and controlling gaze, is annihilated. Exorcism becomes the means
not only of expelling the interstitial phantasmal being but also of punishing and disciplining the female body for unrestrained desire and look.

Cohesive devices are important elements in that they contribute to the overall quality of writing in terms of establishing connections, actualizing transitions and linking ideas. Related to this, conjunctions also carry the same importance as cohesive devices since they connect paragraphs, sentences and clauses. In this regard, the present study aims to document the use of conjunctions by upper-intermediate and advanced learners of EFL in their argumentative essays and look for potential relationships between the frequency of the use of conjunctions and argumentative essay performance. The study is of a descriptive nature, utilizing quantitative data to conduct analyses. The corpus for the study is comprised of 160 argumentative essays written by 40 students throughout one semester in an English Literature course. The frequency values regarding the use of conjunctions for each essay in the corpus were formed by the researcher taking Halliday and Hasan's (1976) taxonomy of conjunctions as a basis. For the scoring of the essays, a holistic rubric developed for the scoring of argumentative essays was preferred. The use of conjunctions in the corpus was reported as frequencies and percentages classfying them under the subtitles of additive, adversative, causal and temporal. Spearman's Rank Order Correlation Coefficient was computed to see if there was a relationship between argumentative writing performance and the frequency of conjunction use. The findings are discussed in relation to relevant litearture in the conclusion section.

Integrating a genre-based approach and task-based instruction into the context of teaching writing skills can help learners learn to write more accurately and appropriately. In essence, a genre-based approach allows learners to see the underlying features of a text which make it both similar to and different from other texts, while task-based instruction allows teachers to design and sequence materials or tasks that best suit the learners' needs and proficiency levels. Although the tasks used in this paper relate to a particular context of teaching (i.e. teaching academic L2 writing skills), the principle is applicable to other teaching contexts as well.

Técnicas de escritura en español y géneros textuales / Developing Writing Skills in Spanish es la primera publicación concebida para desarrollar y perfeccionar la expresión escrita en español a partir de una metodología basada en géneros textuales. Cada capítulo se ocupa de un género y está diseñado para guiar al escritor en la planificación, el desarrollo y la revisión de textos. Las novedades de esta segunda edición incluyen: un cuestionario sobre la escritura, listados con objetivos y prácticas escritas, nuevos materiales y actividades, repertorios de vocabulario temático, ejercicios de corrección gramatical y estilo, ampliación de las respuestas modelo y diferentes rutas para la escritura.

University students across disciplines are often expected to write argumentative texts. However, many students, particularly L2 writers, struggle writing arguments and teachers may not be prepared to effectively scaffold argument writing. Despite its importance, argumentative writing is still an underresearched area in second language writing. In this paper, we use a Systemic Functional Linguistics conceptualization of argumentation to examine emergent arguments, texts that meet some of the expectations for argumentative writing but not others. We adapt Humphrey et al. (2010) 3 × 3 professional learning toolkit to analyze student writing from a first-year university history class. The 3 × 3 allows us to highlight these texts' mixed effectiveness in meeting genre expectations, based on how they control the resources of each of SFL's three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, and textual) at the levels of whole-text, paragraph , and sentence/clause. Our analysis of three emergent arguments shows how each exhibits challenges controlling the resources of a particular metafunction. Our application of the 3 × 3 provides a theoretical conceptualization of argumentative writing that can help teachers uncover subtle ways that student writing does and does not meet genre expectations.

Bazerman, C., J. Little, L. Bethel, T. Chavkin, D. Fouquette y J. Garufis. (2016). Escribir a través del curriculum. Una guía de referencia Edición de Federico Navarro. - 1a ed. - Córdoba: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 2016. ISBN 978-950-33-1299-5. Disponible en https://rdu.unc.edu.ar/handle/11086/4030

The single most important statement that can be made with regard to the logical status of human and physical geographical reasoning is that it belongs to the class of non-monotonic reasoning. In other words,  geographical reasoning is defeasible (i.e. earlier drawn conclusions can be defeated by the addition of new facts, some of which are generated by the very application of our ideas outside academe) and non-demonstrative (i.e. our beliefs about reality cannot be demonstrated once and for ever; we must do with building provisional arguments based on the current weight of the evidence, which itself changes with the times). Indeed, unlike mathematics, which is a closed world of formalisms that relies heavily on deduction, demonstration, and proof, geography studies and attempts to improve the real, messy world out there. Because that wild, unruly world is always in a process of becoming, the conclusions drawn yesterday may have to be abandoned today, and so on, without end in sight. The core virtue of geographical reasoning is not certainty, but adaptability. As the world changes, so do geography’s entertained beliefs about how to improve it. The point we are trying to make is that an alternative window into the nature of geographical reasoning, besides the one provided by the discipline’s key concepts, offers an opening toward the more subtle problematic of the mechanisms by which the updating of geographical beliefs operate.

The aim of this study is to view how argumentative text pattern teaching influences constituting argumentative essay elements. The study was performed according to one-group pre-test post-test design. The study was carried out in spring term of 2017-2018 academic year and it lasted for five weeks. 33 prospective teachers who took the course of Text Producing Techniques participated in the study. The data of study were collected through 132 argumentative essays which prospective teachers wrote and Argumentative Text Elements Rubric to evaluate these. The results of the research are as follows: Quite few students included argumentative essay elements before argumentative essay pattern teaching and none of the students wrote justification for counter argument. It was determined that 66,7% of the students didn't write data, 81,8% of them didn't write counter argument, 87,9% did not write justification for counter argument, 84,8% did not write rebuttal of counter argument and 48,5% did not write conclusion. At the third study, number of successful students increased on the basis of all elements. However, the majority of students have reached a partially successful level. At the post test, most of the students achieved successful level on the basis of all elements except refuting counter argument. Significant differences on behalf of the post-test were determined between pre-test and post-test scores at all of the argumentative essay elements.

One of the fundamental concerns of translation quality assessment (TQA) is to reach valid and reliable criteria for evaluating translation quality. One of the lines of TQA has relied on argumentation theory, although this specific line has fallen into stagnation. The purpose of this study is to primarily review Williams’s application of Toulmin’s argumentation model to TQA, and secondly highlight certain shortcomings of the model. Two basic problems that seriously attenuate the application of Williams’s model are observed: first, the model does not consider literary translation, and second the model fails to take into account complex argumentation. To solve these problems, this study proposes a novel method based on pragma-dialectics, called argumentation-based literary translation quality assessment, which is in line with recent trends in translation philosophy.

This article discusses the complex process involved in selection of teaching
subjects in Portuguese language textbooks used in the final years of
elementary school. We hypothesized that is necessary to understand not
only the main cores of teaching, but also the treatment given to each
teaching subject chosen to work in school. For this reason, we chose the
genre “debate” to conduct a constrastive analysis and interpretative work
into three collections of textbooks approved by PNLD-2011. Our studies
demonstrate that each collection offers a unique authorial didactic project
that prioritizes explicit or implicit forms of teaching the genre “debate” in
school and tasks that develop some language skills. The research has also
shown the need to go beyond descriptions of teaching objects that are
presented in the reviews of the National Textbook Guide (BRASIL, 2010).

[Uzun, L. ve Bozkurt, Ü. (2010). Öğrenci Metinlerinde Görüş İçeren Bilginin Yapılandırılışı ve İlişkilendirilişi, III. Uluslararası Türkçenin Eğitimi-Öğretimi Kurultayı (Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi; 1-3 Temmuz 2010, İzmir)]


Bu sözlü bildiride, öğrenci metinlerinde (12-14-16 yaş aralığındaki öğrenciler) görüş içeren bilginin yapılandırılışına ve ilişkilendirilişine yönelik belirgin eğilimlerden söz etmenin mümkün olup olmadığı sorgulanmıştır. Bu temelde çalışmanın amacı, öğrenci metinlerinde görüş içeren bilginin yapılandırılışında ve ilişkilendirilişinde uslamlamanın (reasoning) nasıl gerçekleştirildiğini ortaya koymak ve uslamlama türlerinde ortaya çıkacak dağılımı, savlama (argumentation) ve değerlendirme (evaluation) şemaları temelinde yorumlayarak olası eğilimleri saptamaktır.
Sunuda, görüş içeren öğrenci metinlerinde uslamlamanın sergilediği görünümler, uslamlamanın metinlerdeki sunumunda iki dilsel eylem (savlama/değerlendirme) açısından ortaya çıkacak dağılımlar, bu dağılımlar yoluyla görüş içeren metinlerde sergilenen öznellik ve nesnellik tutumu ve bunun iknâ sözeylemi ve düşünme biçimleriyle ilişkisi üzerine bir tartışma kurulmuştur.

We report on an interdisciplinary collaboration between writing professors with training in linguistics and a design professor at an English-medium university in the Middle East, where the majority of the students have English as an additional language. We briefly describe the iterative process of redesigning the writing assignments and designing writing workshops to make the design professor’s expectations more explicit. We then investigate the impact of the explicit instruction and writing workshops on students’ writing. We use a corpus-based tool to compare the writing of students who participated in the workshops to that of students who took the course in a previous semester, when the workshops were not offered. Our analysis points to an improvement in student writing as a result of the disciplinary writing workshops, particularly in the use of linguistic resources to write analytically.

While Hindi cinema has often been critically engaged as a narrative form while ‘writing’ the nation, the role of Hindi horror genre in imagining this nation is under-explored. Hindi cinema itself emerged in a charged environment of nascent nationalist politics, and early Indian filmmakers saw themselves and their on-screen projections as part of the patriotic scheme. However Post-Independence wars with Pakistan and China, and the eruption of various separatists’ movements in the North-East, Sikh’s Khalistan movement and Kashmiri Muslims engendered narratives and counter-narratives to the state-sponsored scientific secularist discourse. In this article I trace how the Hindi horror genre with its evolving narrative strategies has itself been an area of conflicting ideas and ideologies in imagining the Indian state. Lying at the intersections of myths, ideology and dominant socio-religious thoughts, the Hindi horror genre reveals three major strands: the secular conscious, the traditional cultural and the Hindutva ideological, roughly corresponding to the way the nation has been imagined at different times in Post-Colonial India. Moving beyond establishing theoretical framework, I intend to demonstrate how the Hindi horror genre with its sub-sets provides us with the means to contemplate the nation and its representation.

O estudo que se apresenta neste artigo baseia-se em evidências que mostram que a estratégia de retorno correctivo escrito usada pelos professores pode ser significativamente benéfica para o desenvolvimento das competências de escrita dos seus estudantes (ELLIS, 1997; FERRIS, 2002). Esta pesquisa, conduzida em 2011, parte dos problemas linguísticos que os estudantes universitários moçambicanos evidenciam e procura demonstrar o potencial didáctico do tratamento do erro na solução de tais problemas e, portanto, no aperfeiçoamento das competências de escrita desta população. O estudo teve como ponto de partida a seguinte questão: De que forma é que o retorno correctivo escrito indirecto (RCEI) pode ajudar os estudantes universitários moçambicanos a melhorarem a sua correcção linguística? Os dados para análise são textos escritos produzidos por vinte estudantes do 2o ano da licenciatura em Ensino do Português, em contexto de sala de aula. As principais conclusões apontam para a eficácia da análise de erros e da estratégia de RCEI no aperfeiçoamento da produção escrita dos estudantes, embora algumas áreas de incidência dos erros respondam de forma diferente à estratégia utilizada.

This paper aims to show how an academic writing practice can facilitate character building to the student teachers of English education department of a private university in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The academic writing practice implemented the genre-based approach teaching stages. Two instruments were used to collect the data. First, an open-ended questionnaire filled by thirty-six students regarding their reflections on the academic writing practice. The data then analysed thematically. Second, the student's writings. The researchers selected purposively two writings from a student teacher constructed in the diagnostic test and independent construction stage. The student's writings were analysed by using functional grammar. The findings show that the academic writing practice can facilitate character building through the application of explicit teaching and group work throughout the teaching stages. The student's writing constructed in the academic writing practice showed an improvement of the student's academic writing knowledge, skills, and characters. The findings suggest that character building should be practised in any subjects across the university curriculum.

This article aims at investigating the effectiveness of using a genre-based approach in teaching ESP writing to the Iranian intermediate learners. To achieve its objectives, this research benefited from 60 sophomore female university volunteers who were then categorized into two groups of experimental (genre) and control (non-genre). During the instruction process which lasted 16 teaching hours, the experimental group received a genre-based teaching approach. In this condition, the participants were to evaluate six authentic tourist information texts which lasted for six successive sessions. They were encouraged to find out the major constituent moves previously discussed in class. At last the ESP learners had the opportunities for producing texts of the same genre following the rhetorical structure of the tourism texts extracted from brochures already analyzed in class. With regard to the non-genre group, a common teaching approach was applied in which the participants received the same six authentic texts. The activities included cloze exercises, sentence joining activities and error-correction exercises. No attention, either explicit or implicit, was allocated to the kind of genre and its constituent moves. The participants in this group had also opportunities to compose pieces of writing by making use of the six authentic texts. The design of the study considered two major variables: a) move index and b) texture index in relation to method variable. Move index investigated how well the participants performed on the use of appropriate move structures. The texturing index examined how well the writing assignments were textured. Taking the two groups into consideration, and in order to discover if general writing proficiency improves through using a genre based teaching, a two-way ANOVA was used to measure these variables in the participants' pretest and posttest. The results obtained from this study revealed that the participants in the genre group outperformed the non-genre group in their use of allowable move structures and texturing criteria. It was revealed that making use of the genrebased approach is beneficial in developing ESP writing skill of intermediate students.

En este trabajo presentamos parte de una secuencia didáctica que originariamente constaba de seis guías de trabajo. La secuencia apunta a plantear algunos de los problemas con que el estudiante universitario se enfrenta. Su objetivo es brindar elementos al ingresante para el desarrollo de habilidades que faciliten su acceso al ámbito académico.

This presentation at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (24 March 2006) describes the results of a study that examines how students take up their antecedent genres (from high school, community college, workplace, home culture, personal history) when they write new genres in first-year composition courses.  Based on this research, I argue that first-year composition has value as a middle-space class that teaches potential antecedent genres—both how students build on and deploy the antecedent genres they bring and how the genres students learn in first-year composition courses function as antecedents for the genres they write in school and beyond.

This study focuses on genre based approach of teaching writing as a powerful educational tool.
This study emphasizes the use of  genre approach of teaching writing  which focuses on the generic structure and key linguistic features of  text written for  particular purpose. In the genre based approach of writing, samples of a specific genre are introduced, and some distinctive characteristics of the given genre are pointed out so that students notice specific configurations of that genre with the help of teacher’s intervention and in next phase, students attempt to produce the first draft through imitating the given genre, and finally construct original written task independently. The genre based approach of teaching writing offers students “explicit and systematic explanation of the ways language function in social context and help them to consider the forces outside the individual that help guide purposes establish relationship and ultimately shape writing.” (Hyland 2003). The genre based approach equips the students explicit knowledge of how genre of text is organized. Students learn that genre of text has subject matter and writing style consisting of introduction, body and conclusion of a text. (Martin 1989, Swales 1990) .

With an interest to go beyond an emphasis on linguistic and textual features that seem to prevail in writing practices, this qualitative action research study looked at EFL argumentative essay writing within a genre-based approach, where writing was understood as a situated social practice. A group of undergraduate students from a B.Ed. program in Modern Languages participated in the study. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, class recordings, and students' artifacts. Findings revealed that participants undertook the writing of argumentative essays by bonding with their audience, establishing personal involvement with their texts, and giving support to their arguments. The study suggests that it is important to encourage students to focus on their sociocultural and personal context so that EFL writing can be approached in a more purposeful and meaningful way. Key words: Writing as a situated social practice, argumentative essay writing, genre-based teaching. Resumen Con el interés de ir más allá de un énfasis en las características lingüísticas y textuales que parecen prevalecer en las prácticas de escritura, el presente estudio de investigación-acción cualitativa analizó la escritura de ensayos argumentativos en inglés como lengua extranjera dentro de un enfoque basado en la enseñanza de géneros, donde la escritura se entiende como práctica social situada. Un grupo de estudiantes de un programa de Licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas participó en el estudio. Los datos fueron recogidos a través de entrevistas semiestructuradas, cuestionarios, grabaciones de clase, y artefactos producidos por los estudiantes. Los resultados revelan que los participantes emprendieron la escritura de ensayos argumentativos estableciendo vínculos con su audiencia, involucrándose con sus textos, y sustentando sus argumentos. El estudio sugiere que es importante animar a los estudiantes a enfocarse en su contexto sociocultural y personal de modo que la escritura en inglés como lengua extranjera pueda abordarse de una manera más útil y significativa. Palabras clave: Escritura como práctica social situada, escritura de ensayos argumentativos, enseñanza basada en géneros. Résumé Avec l'intérêt d'aller au-delà d'un 'accent mis sur les caractéristiques linguistiques et textuelles qui semblent dominer les pratiques d'écriture, cette enquête de recherche-action qualitative a fait l'analyse de l'écriture d'essais argumentatifs en Anglais comme langue étrangère, avec une approche fondé sur l'enseignement de la théorie du genre, où l'écriture est comprise comme une pratique sociale située. Un groupe d'étudiants de Licence en Langues Modernes a fait part de cette enquête. Les données ont été recueillies à travers d'entretiens semi-dirigées, des questionnaires, d'enregistrements dans la salle de classe et des écrits produits par les étudiants. Les résultats montrent que les participants ont entrepris l'écriture d'essais argumentatifs en créant des liens avec leurs lecteurs, s'engageant avec leurs textes et soutenant leurs arguments. L'enquête suggère l'importance d'encourager les étudiants à se centrer dans leur contexte socioculturel et personnel, en sorte que l'écriture en Anglais comme langue étrangère puisse être abordée d'une manière plus utile et significative. Mots clés : l'écriture comme une pratique sociale située, l'écriture d'essais argumentatifs, l'enseignement de la théorie du genre.

Este documento contiene instrucciones y rúbrica de evaluación para una política pública compuesta por argumentos sobre una tesis de hecho (género judicial), una tesis valorativa (género epidíptico o demostrativo) y una tesis de política (policy, género deliberativo).
En su revisión, el lector podrá identificar con gran nivel de detalle, los elementos del modelo argumentativo de Stephen Toulmin.

Learners with seemingly adequate linguistic abilities sometimes write in ways that are inappropriate in particular situations. This impacts on the intended communicative purpose, and for exam takers the outcome is underperformance. This presentation outlines the development and implementation of a short distance writing course that was designed to improve writing through a genre-based approach to second language writing (Hyland, 2004) and evolved using good non-native writing samples as exemplar texts (Tribble, 2005) to draw attention to language, in this case based on IELTS exam writing. A key element of the course was the submission of multiple drafts thus allowing a dialogue to develop (Keegan, 1996; Altshul 2001) which in turn encouraged participants to consider how to come closer to genre expectations of organization and structure as well as improving the accuracy and sophistication of their texts.

Set against the backdrop of an English-medium interdisciplinary masters' in Romania, this paper describes the process of familiarising researchers with the genre specificity of research articles published in English language journals. Building on Swales' genre-based approach to research writing (Swales, 2004; Feak & Swales, 2009), the study includes both methodological aspects of genre-teaching / learning and an analysis of data collected through group discussion, reflecting the views of programme participants. Fully aware that it is too early to draw comprehensive conclusions, the authors hope that by integrating various perspectives, this small-scale research will further document the genre-based approach to research writing and will contribute to refining course design and methodology.

Key words: genre-based approach, research article, writing for publication

This paper describes how bodily positions and gestures were used to teach argument diagramming to a student who cannot see. After listening to short argumentative passages with a screen reader, the student had to state the conclusion while touching his belly button. When stating a premise, he had to touch one of his shoulders. Premises lending independent support to a conclusion were thus diagrammed by a V-shaped gesture, each shoulder proposition going straight to the conclusion. Premises lending dependent support were diagrammed by a T-shaped gesture, the shoulder premises meeting at the collar bone before moving down to the belly button. Arguments involving two pairs of entailments were diagrammed by an I-shaped gesture, going from the collar bone to a mid-way conclusion above the abdomen before travelling to the final conclusion at the belly button. The student’s strong performance suggests that placing propositions at different locations on the body and uniting them with gestures can help one discern correct argumentative structures.

According to the genre-based approach to writing, modeling of a ‘target’-genre consists of a useful tool for teaching and learning in language arts. The current study makes part of a broader research concerning teaching experimental strategies for fostering argumentative writing to 25 eleven years-old pupils of a Greek elementary school (case research). Purpose of the study was to examine the influence of an original structural model, “the train of argumentation”, as methodological tool in the context of a socially constructed classroom, to the pupils’ argumentative writing. The proposed model was influenced by Toulmin and used the “journey metaphor” of argumentation for providing pupils with the necessary knowledge about structural exigencies of argumentative genre. Statistical analysis of data proved: a) a significant augmentation of argumentative text structure awareness and b) a significant increase in the use of connective devices inserted in the pupils’ written argumentative texts.

Keywords: genre, argumentative writing, metaphor, model, literacy, elementary school, rhetoric, structure.

The paper is published in: Rhetoric and Communications E-Journal (ISSN 1314-4464), Issue 19, October 2015.  http://rhetoric.bg/fotini-egglezou-a-metaphorical-structural-model-for-teaching-argumentative-writing-in-a-greek-elementary-school