Narrative and Argumentative Writing

Synthesis
Narrative Writing: McKeough:
Features of narrative texts: sequentiality, particularity, intentional states, and canonicity and breach (which addresses plot development and character development)
Development of narrative features:

• 1st grade: able to introduce characters, express characters' feelings and desires in relation to conflict, identify at least one explicit mental state, and create appropriate sequence of events
• 1st-2nd grade: able to include breach and characters' mental states and a resolution
• 3rd-4th grade: able to write more complicated event(s) that impede resolution and add more mental states
• 5th grade: able to fully resolve problems and complications in resolution, fully reveal characters' motivation
• 6th-7th grade: able to reconcile various experiences with characters' personality traits or enduring mental states thereby making more psychologically complex characters
• 8th-9th grade: able to include additional enduring states and traits that appear as both internal and external conflict
• High School: able to increase psychological complexity and resolve dialectic of internal and external conflict through literary devices such as psychological/social similes and metaphors, flashback and foreshadowing, paradoxical consequences or juxtaposed alternatives, and perspective taking

Supporting Development: Teachers must show students how to read established narratives with a "Writer's Eye" which takes into account the following: literary elements and techniques, setting and character selection development, text structure, diction, author's purpose, and author's choice of genre. Students must analyze the features after they have read the text for comprehension, and texts must get incrementally complex as students age. After analyzation, students must be challenged to mirror the author's strategies in their own writings. In middle and high school, teachers need to be conscious to include more narrative writings in their curriculums and can begin placing more emphasis on character development. 

Argumentative Writing: Ferretti and Lewis:
While we all consistently engage in argumentative discourse, woefully few of us are considered skilled arguers as our arguments are poorly developed and do not take alternative perspectives into account. The same applies to students' writings, but they typically also lack transitions among arguments and do not attempt to integrate or rebut alternative perspectives.  The use of verbal discourse to establish standards of quality argumentative thinking and develop students' ability to think and write argumentatively through partner work or online discussions. This approach forces students to address and rebut alternative perspectives which they can then translate into their writing.  Students must understand that resolving an argument through writing is a problem-solving process, and strategies must be taught to help them manage this type of writing.  Students must systematically progress from writing on commonplace topics to literacy and content-area based topics as these require higher-level thinking and incorporate highly specialized knowledge and skills and the ability to critically evaluate opposing views. Writing arguments at this level establishes higher levels of content comprehension and application.
Dialogic Approach: 
Teachers must not be apprehensive about introducing topics that can create conflict and competition because topics that don't lend themselves to some degree of controversy translate to ineffective, inauthentic argumentative output that lack any argument at all. Teachers must incorporate writings for real audiences that are based on real-world social topics that students have vested interest. These writings encourage broader thinking especially about the alternative perspective and more application of the rebuttal technique. Again, using dialogue, face-to-face interactions allows students to successfully establish the components of a successful argument through role-play, and these role-plays can scaffold the writing process and act as a pre-writing technique that produces a more effective product. They also "normalize" the ability to acknowledge and address alternative viewpoints. Technology can improve argumentative writing as well, and if done correctly, technology improves argumentative thinking better than frequent, consistent essay writing.
Strategies:
SRSD (self-regulated strategy development) provides this support through 6 phases:

•  Develop Background Knowledge: strategy's purposes and benefits explained
• Discuss It: strategies taught through mnemonics
• TREE (develop argument): Topic, Reasons for opinion, Examine reason from audience's perspective, Ending
• PLANS (plan): Pick goals, List ways to meet goals, Notes (make them), Sequence notes
• STOP (plan): Suspend judgement, Take a side, Organize ideas, Plan as you write
• DARE (plan): Develop topic sentence, Add supporting details, Reject possible arguments from other side, End with conclusion
• AIMS (introduction): Attract reader's attention, Identify the problem of the topic so reader understands the issues, Map the context of the problem/provide background needed to understand problem, State thesis so premise is clear
• SCAN (revision): Does it make Sense? Is it Connected to my belief? Can I Add more? Note Errors.
• ASCQ (revision through critical questions): Ask and Answer Critical Questions; argument from consequences strategy (policy based on potential positive/negative consequences) and argument from example strategy (cases and instances to illustrate generalized claim)
• PLAN & WRITE (plan/draft): Pay attention to prompt, List main ideas, Add supporting ideas, Number your ideas before drafting, Work from plan to develop thesis, Remember goals, Include transition words, Try to use different types of sentences, add Exciting, interesting words
• Model It: strategies are modeled for students
• Memorize It: mnemonics are memorized through practice
• Support It: student assumes more responsibility for applying strategy
• Practice It: strategy is internalized, maintained and generalized

Content-Area Arguments:

Literary: Students must first be able to analyze and interpret literature by recognizing patterns of language that allow students to comprehend and interpret the text. They must also translate their interpretations into a written argument supported by repetitions (repeated patterns of imagery, symbolism, syntactic elements) and oppositions (repeated patterns that stand in opposition to one another) through quotes, references to the text, and explanations.

Strategy: THE READER to plan and write interpretative arguments based on repetitions and oppositions:

• Develop a THEsis
• Back up the thesis with REAsons
• Include Details through quotes and text references
• Explain how quotes and text references are related to reasons/thesis
• Review main points in a conclusion

Historical: Students must construct an interpretation of an event based on the analysis of various sources and evidences through corroboration, contextualization, and sourcing. 

Strategy: This can be done through STOP and DARE strategies as well as an historical reasoning strategy that includes two self-questioning routines:

• Consider source and analyze for inaccuracy and answer 3 questions:
• What was author's purpose?
• Do the reasons make sense? 
• Do you find evidence of bias (examine word choice and how many points of view were in document)?
• Focus on conflicting perspectives and answer 5 questions:
• Is author inconsistent?
• Is person described differently?
• Is even described differently?
• What is missing from author's argument?
• What can you infer from reading across sources?

Response:

Text-to-self: I have struggled with getting my students to see, acknowledge, and dispute an opposing argument. We will be writing an argumentative essay in a couple weeks, and I'm going to try a couple of the strategies to see how much of a difference they make.

Text-to-text: The approaches to analyzing literary and historical texts in the Ferretti and Lewis article mirror what we've read in the Hinchman and Jetton texts, especially corroboration, contextualization and sourcing in history.

Text-to-world: I think one of the reasons students have such a hard time seeing both sides of an argument is that representation of alternate viewpoints in society, politics, and media typically takes the form of a list of negative characteristics and ideals. They do not typically present a developed counter-argument. Examining these in class and discussing what would make them better could be one way for students to become more aware as well.

Questions:

1. What method do you use to teach argumentative writing, and do you typically write essays or do have your students produce an alternative form?

2. In the secondary setting, what narrative writings have you assigned, and what expectations and rubrics did you give students? Do you feel it was successful?

Writing Instruction

Hinchman:
The chapter emphasized that we do not promote and encourage writing enough in the classroom. Without adequate practice, students do not learn to write for themselves, and instead, they rely on unoriginal, formulated writings. We must teach students to analyze their audience and write, rewrite and rewrite again while they rethink about their topic. Writers' Notebooks seemed to be a great solution. They allow students to write daily in class, go back and review and revise their writing, and give the teacher the opportunity to meet with students individually.

Sweeny:
The article focused on how writing and literacy has changed with technology. Students rely on technology daily and use it for many purposes including "to socialize with friends...to seek out information...[and] to pursue their interests" (124). Because of this, we must begin to incorporate technology in the writing process and show students that their electronic communication is a form of literacy. We can do this by integrating music, online resources, mentor texts from online sources, and word processing. Computer programs allow students to publish their finished products in a variety of formats which help them understand new literacies. There are also a variety of outlets for publication, so students are not limited to writing on paper.

Hansen & Kissel:
The authors broke down writing instruction into three guidelines:
Guideline 1: Writers are decision makers. Students need a safe environment to write in, need to be able to connect to what they're writing about, and need choices and options in their writings. They also need to be able to choose their genre and the way that they will write their final products.
Guideline 2: Writers consider their audience. Students must be aware of the various audiences they write for, so they need experience writing to various ones and they need to be able to adjust their vocabulary and voice for their audiences. Obviously, some audiences are easier to write for, especially their peers, which makes them more passionate about their writing. Finally, teachers need to encourage writing beyond the standardized test writing because they limit and squash students' writing creativity.
Guideline 3: Writers evaluate their drafts. Emphasis should be placed on the writing itself rather than grades so students are more open to writing. Students should be reflect on and evaluate their own writings to improve them, and when writing is taught to the test, students' writing and creativity suffer, and they become less interested in writing. Finally, students flourish when they're able to write/communicate in a way that is comfortable and familiar to them.

Connections:
Text-to-self: Thinking of my own experiences in the classroom, I get more participation and thoughtful responses when students are able to write about themselves or something that is meaningful to them. I am looking forward to finding other formats for their final products, and think that visual literacy and online formats would be interesting to experiment with.

Text-to-world: I think it is difficult at times to remember that social networking and the like fall into the literacy category, but it is an extremely important part of our students' lives, so we have to be cognizant of it and try to incorporate as much technology into our classrooms as possible so that students will embrace literacy and writing more.

Text-to-text: All three texts emphasize the importance of not teaching a prescriptive essay format so that students have the freedom to explore various genres, formats, and audiences. Allowing individual freedoms provides students a safe writing environment where they are more open to exploring new things.

Questions:
1. How do you incorporate social media and visual literacies in your classroom?
2. Have you tried Writers' Notebooks in your room? How much time per class period/week did you devote to writing in them?

History and Art

Synthesis
Jetton:
History is tough! Chapter 8 discussed protocols through analysis of two students, Ayesha and Brad, who had different approaches to reading and thinking about history. History provides a unique opportunity to examine validity and viewpoints through analysis, synthesis, and inference/evaluation of various accounts and texts. An effective teacher will guide students through various texts and give them opportunities to discuss their findings and opinions rather than relying solely on a textbook to teach major events because the teacher knows that students must be able to synthesize and evaluate sources in order to be productive and successful historian. The skill of reconciling different viewpoints, though, is a much-needed lifeskill and can be applied to other content areas as well.

Chapter 9 discussed literacy in the arts and the unique challenge of literacy in subjects that rely on symbols, sounds, and artifacts rather than written language. The arts are a prime area in which to incorporate multimodal literacies such as videos, songs, podcasts, paintings, photographs, and the like. The arts have unique vocabularies and literacies that students must master, and students must be able to synthesize and apply their arts-specific vocabulary and background knowledge in order to understand, identify, critique, and create materials. These skills require higher-level thinking which can also translate into other content areas.

Hinchman:
This chapter also stressed the importance of students critically thinking about historical texts rather than relying solely on the textbook's explanation. The authors stated that historians (and therefore students) needed to do 3 things with historical texts in order to think about ideas: source, contextualize, and corroborate. An effective way for teachers to get students to do this is to provide them with conflicting, contradicting texts that challenge them to sort through facts, opinions, points of views, and purposes in order to glean a true understanding of what actually occurred.

Connection
Text-to-self: I don't remember analyzing contradicting texts in history; I only remember being exposed to various primary source documents. For me, history was mass memorization, and I never did as well in class as I wanted, and I never really learned as much as I had hoped it. I wonder how different my history classes in high school would have been if there was more of a focus on reconciling viewpoints rather than just memorizing facts.

Text-to-text: These chapters continued to reiterate that disciplinary texts are written differently and take different skill sets to work successfully through them. These books as well as others on disciplinary texts all stress the importance of using different literacy strategies in the different content areas.

Text-to-world: As I stated above, being able to recognize there are different versions and viewpoints in history as well as in everyday life. Being able to appreciate this and analyze what you hear and realize you may not have all the facts before forming an opinion would help students in their personal lives as well.

Questions: 
1) How do you motivate reluctant readers to navigate multiple and sometimes complex texts when they lack the motivation/skills to read the textbook?
2) How do you incorporate art into your curriculum? How receptive are students to it?

Disciplinary Texts - Science

Synthesis:

Hinchman: This section talked about Eduardo and negotiating his success in science class.  As an ELL, he struggled initially with science and lacked motivation to do work or participate in class, and he was a frequent distractor. His science teacher Will focused on academic literacy through Talking to the Text and double-entry I Saw/I thought notes and on metacognative discussions. Will continued to expect more and more out of Eduardo's contributions in discussions, and Eduardo gained enough trust in his abilities as well as his teacher to attempt more participation. Once Eduardo experienced small successes, he began attempting more and more, and as the year progressed he became a leader in the classroom.

The premise of "negotiating success" is ongoing "literacy learning opportunities, explicit strategies instructions, collaborative learning structures, and metacognative inquiry into reading and learning" (321-323). Holding students to high standards promotes more willingness to participate and the chance to succeed.

Jetton: This section spoke of the challenges of reading science text, specifically with vocabulary (basic meanings in addition to layered meanings), comprehension (ability to put concepts in different formats together), fluency (knowing where to get information & when to use it), and writing (being able to communicate formulas as well as more intricate lab reports and other data formats). In order to best learn the text, students should focus on the various meanings of vocabulary, actively engage with the vocabulary and text, and write arguments to support findings.

Connections:

Text-to-self: I struggle trying to get students to attempt work they believe is too difficult for them. It can be a big struggle to get them to trust me enough to attempt it, but it's worth the effort when they realize they can do it.

Text-to-text: I think the strategies in this chapter mirror strategies for other disciplinary texts: having to understand academic vocabulary, having to actively work with the text, and writing to reinforce concepts.

Text-to-world: It is important for students to understand how to approach various texts and the different types of thinking that each discipline requires. I think if they can be more aware of the approach to take in each discipline, they will have more success without having to depend solely on the teacher to guide them.

Questions:

1. What strategies are most effective for you when attempting to engage unmotivated students?

2. What do discussions look like in your classroom? How are they arranged/monitored?