1 How Epistemologies Shape the Teaching and Learning of ...

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How Epistemologies Shape the Teaching and Learning of Argumentative Writing in Two

9th Grade English Language Arts Classrooms

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Subeom Kwak M.A., B.A.

Graduate Program in Education: Teaching and Learning

The Ohio State University

2019

Dissertation Committee

Dr. George Newell, Advisor

Dr. Mollie Blackburn

Dr. Caroline Clark

Dr. Alan Hirvela

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Copyrighted by

Subeom Kwak

2019

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Abstract

Classrooms are to be supportive environments where students learn writing as a

way to participate in activities, discussions, and communities. Writing researchers need to

explore the classroom context with a view of writing as a social practice. In 2016, the

National Council of Teachers of English announced the position statement that the nature

of writing instruction is contextualized and complex in order to support students’ writing

and learning about a range of ideas and experiences as well as in a variety of genres.

However, previous studies indicate that writing instruction implemented in secondary

schools in the United States do not always align with this theoretical and practical

perspective. Writing instruction is often designed through teacher experiences and

pedagogical knowledge. However, several other influential factors such as teacher's

differing epistemologies, individual experiences, and process of socialization shape the

instructional designs of writing. To date, little evidence has confirmed the effectiveness

of different epistemologies for teaching writing in English language arts classrooms. This

study provides a unique perspective of writing instruction to show that although they

have the same goal, teachers with different epistemologies orchestrate activities,

understand concepts, and respond to student work differently. Using an ethnographic

approach, I collected data—audio and video recordings, pre and post-observation

interviews, student work, and artifacts—over a period of one academic year, from August

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2017 to May 2018, in two ninth-grade English language arts classrooms. I argue that the

landscape of teaching and learning argumentative writing can be fundamentally different

due to different epistemologies, despite identical teacher training to incorporate the same

writing approach. Through the exploration of writing instruction from two teachers with

different epistemologies, this dissertation presents a way to build an iterative series of

studies in the field of writing research. Identifying the benefits and challenges of

teachers’ epistemologies will prove beneficial in expanding our understanding of the

complex nature of writing instruction as a reflective practice. This work reveals teachers’

epistemologies for teaching writing, previously marginalized areas of writing research,

making their theoretical and pedagogical contributions more accessible. In the process, it

reveals teacher epistemology as a key factor in professional development and direction of

classroom research, ultimately contributing to debates about the social dimensions

associated with teaching and learning of writing. This research provides a rich, complex,

and detailed picture of teachers and students within teaching and learning practices. The

findings have brought many questions to light that still remain unanswered.

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Acknowledgments

I cannot begin to express my thanks to my advisor, Dr. George Newell. I have

been extremely grateful to have an advisor who cared so much about my work, and who

responded to my queries so promptly, and who gave unparalleled support and

unwavering guidance for my research and scholarship. He has spent more time

discussing my research and experiences with me than anyone within the tutorial system

of British institutions. I can recall struggling with my mistakes that I made that stemmed

from cultural differences; I shared these experiences with Dr. George Newell, and he

responded by grinning and sharing his own past mistakes in order to put my mind at ease

before offering me practical suggestions. I am sure I have never had a better mentor and

role model in my academic career. My doctoral journey has been an amazing experience

and I thank Dr. George Newell wholeheartedly, not only for his tremendous academic

guidance, but also for the consistent encouragement, wisdom, and insight.

I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the rest of my dissertation

committee, Dr. Mollie Blackburn, Dr. Caroline Clark, and Dr. Alan Hirvela. They all

played a major role in sharpening and polishing my research writing skills. I could not

have dreamed of a more fitting, or a more formidable, group of readers for a dissertation

on this topic. I gratefully acknowledge my committee members for their time, insightful

suggestions, and profound belief in my work.

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Special thanks to Dr. Emma Marsden, my academic supervisor for my Master’s

thesis, for all her constructive criticism and patience that cannot be underestimated. So

many people complained about the cold and damp weather of England; however, some of

my best days were spent reading books and journal articles during the coldest winter in

England. One day, looking at the snow through the window, I found these reading,

writing, and teachings significant enough to dedicate my entire life to.

I also thank the following scholarship opportunities, from which I received a

financial lifeline: the College of Education and Human Ecology (EHE) Dissertation

Fellowship, the Korean American Scholarship Foundation Scholarship, the Martha King

Scholarship, the Korean Honor Scholarship, the Phyllis Krumm Scholarship, the Rolfe E.

Wood and Michael L. Wood Memorial Scholarship, and the Hethaway Education

Scholarship.

No one has been more important to me in the pursuit of this academic journey

than the members of my family. I would like to thank my parents, Yongnam Kwak and

Kyungsook Lee, whose love is with me in whatever I pursue, and my parents-in-law,

Giseob Lee and Soonae Choi, for their unfailing emotional support. Most importantly, I

must express my gratitude to Hyoseon, my loving wife, for her continued support,

encouragement, and unending inspiration. She has more than three years’ leave of

absence from her promising career to follow me abroad. We were not expecting this

academic journey to be such a roller-coaster ride, but she has loved me unconditionally

with encouragement and patience. There are no words to convey how much I love her.

Hyoseon, without your beautiful smile amidst the ups and downs of life—without you—

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this doctoral journey would have never found its mark. It is to you, my love, that this

work is dedicated.

Finally, I thank the Heavenly Father. Sometimes I forget to stop to thank you for

all that is good in my life because of the challenges I have faced along the way.

However, my blessings are bigger than my problems. In the silence of my soul, thank

you for all that has been placed in my life.

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to

give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power

belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down,

but not destroyed; (2 Corinthians 4:6-9)

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Vita

2010……………………………………B.A. Korean Language Arts Education; B.A. English Education (Double Major), Korea University, Seoul, Korea 2014……………………………………M.A. Applied Linguistics, University of York, England, United Kingdom 2019……………………………………EHE Dissertation Research Fellowship Awardee, The Ohio State University

Publications

Newell, G., Thanos, T., & Kwak, S. (2019). Languaging the teaching and learning of argumentative writing in an 11th grade International Baccalaureate classroom. In R. Beach & D. Bloome (Eds.), Languaging relations for transforming the literacy

and language arts classroom (pp. 131-150). New York, NY: Routledge. Kwak, S. (2018). An analysis of the methods of secondary writing in the United States:

Focusing on research-intensive institutions. Research on Writing, 39, 47-75. Kwak, S. (2018). A reevaluation of Korean written discourse: An analysis of

contemporary Korean high school student writing and Korean language arts textbooks. Korean Language Education Research, 53(5), 77-109.

Kwak, S. (2018). Examining structural relationships among the affective domain:

Writing beliefs, motivation, anxiety, and metacognition. Journal of Korean

Language Education, 42, 35-61. Kwak, S. (2018). Writing Instruction in British universities – Academic literacies. The

Korean Journal of Literacy Research, 9(4), 301-332. Kwak, S. (2018). An analysis of research trends for international language arts education

in South Korea. Journal of CheongRam Korean Language Education, 67, 89-116.

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Kwak, S. (2018). Teaching the methods of secondary writing instruction in the United States. Research on Writing, 38, 35-63.

Kwak, S. (2018). Insights from edTPA and English language arts preservice teacher

learning: The impacts of edTPA on teaching practicum. Korean Education, 116, 221-254.

Kwak, S. (2018). Exploring Korean language arts preservice teacher performance

assessment instruments: A critical review of English language arts preservice teacher performance assessment (edTPA). The Journal of Korean Language and

Literature Education, 67, 87-114. Kwak, S. (2017). How Korean/language arts teachers adopt and adapt open educational

resources: A study of teachers’ and students’ perspectives. The International

Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(4), 193-211. Newell, G., Goff, B., Buescher, E., Weyand, L., Thanos, T., and Kwak, S. (2017).

Adaptive expertise in the teaching and learning of literary argumentation in high school language arts classrooms. In R. Dust, G. Newell, & J. Marshall (Eds.), English language arts research and teaching: Revisiting and extending Arthur

Applebee’s contributions (pp. 157-171). New York, NY: Routledge. Kwak, S. (2017). Approaches reflected in academic writing MOOCs. The International

Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3), 138-155.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Education, Teaching and Learning

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Table of Contents

Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... v

Vita ................................................................................................................................... viii

List of Tables ................................................................................................................... xiii

List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiv

Chapter 1. Teacher Epistemology in Writing Instruction ................................................... 1

Teachers’ Epistemologies for Teaching Writing ............................................................ 2

Contexts for Teaching and Learning Writing in ELA Classrooms ................................. 6

Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 8

Dissertation Outline ........................................................................................................ 8

Chapter 2. Literature Review and Theoretical Frame ....................................................... 10

The "Problem" of High School Writing Instruction: The Current Context .................. 10

Teaching and Learning of Argumentative Writing and Epistemological Stances ........ 14

Argumentative Epistemologies ................................................................................. 18

Communities of Practice as a Theoretical Framework ................................................. 22

Limitations and Implications .................................................................................... 26

Situated Learning and Writing Instruction ................................................................... 27

Ethnography in Education ............................................................................................. 31

Researcher Positionality ............................................................................................ 33

Chapter 3. Research Methods ........................................................................................... 37

Context of the Study ..................................................................................................... 38

Gaining Entrance to the Research Sites ........................................................................ 38

Ms. Foss .................................................................................................................... 38

Ms. Glen .................................................................................................................... 40

Research Design ............................................................................................................ 41

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Participants and School Sites .................................................................................... 43

Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 45

Classroom observations. ....................................................................................... 45

Student work and artifacts. ................................................................................... 46

Interviews. ............................................................................................................. 46

Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 47

Phase 1: Data organization, key event identification, and transcription. .............. 48

Phase 2: Patterns identification across key events, field notes, interviews, and artifacts. ................................................................................................................. 53

Phase 3: Contextualized analysis of writing instruction, writing practices, and writing experiences. .............................................................................................. 55

Chapter 4: How did Teachers Talk About and Plan Curriculum with Their Epistemologies and How are the Epistemologies of Teachers Revealed ......................... 58

Structural and Ideational Epistemologies ..................................................................... 59

Ms. Foss with Structural Epistemology .................................................................... 60

Ms. Glen with Ideational Epistemology ................................................................... 69

How are the Epistemologies of Teachers Revealed ...................................................... 75

Description of Events ................................................................................................ 79

Ms. Foss. ............................................................................................................... 79

Ms. Glen. ............................................................................................................... 83

The Structure and Content of Argumentative Writing with Different Epistemologies ................................................................................................................................... 87

Ms. Foss with Structural Epistemology. ............................................................... 88

Ms. Glen with Ideational Epistemology. ............................................................ 102

Shifting Epistemologies Across the Instructional Chains ....................................... 121

Ms. Foss. ............................................................................................................. 122

Ms. Glen. ............................................................................................................. 128

Teachers' Epistemologies for Teaching and Learning Argumentative Writing ...... 132

Chapter 5. Students' Appropriation of the Teachers' Epistemologies ............................. 133

Argumentative Writing Assignments ......................................................................... 134

Ms. Foss .................................................................................................................. 134

Ms. Glen .................................................................................................................. 136

Rubric .......................................................................................................................... 139

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Ms. Foss .................................................................................................................. 139

Ms. Glen .................................................................................................................. 142

Intertextual Traces Visible in Students' Essays .......................................................... 150

Ms. Foss’s Classroom ............................................................................................. 151

Ms. Glen’s Classroom ............................................................................................. 169

Introduction. ........................................................................................................ 182

Body paragraph one. ........................................................................................... 184

Body paragraph two ............................................................................................ 188

Body paragraph three .......................................................................................... 191

Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 192

Different Views of Learning to Write ......................................................................... 193

Chapter 6. Conclusion and Implications ......................................................................... 195

Theoretical Implications ............................................................................................. 200

Teacher Epistemology and Shifting Epistemologies .............................................. 200

Community of Practices .......................................................................................... 203

Dimensions of Individual Differences .................................................................... 204

Pedagogical Implications ............................................................................................ 208

Methodological Implications ...................................................................................... 210

Concluding Thoughts .................................................................................................. 212

References ....................................................................................................................... 213

Appendix A. Example of Field Notes ............................................................................. 236

Appendix B. Interview Questions ................................................................................... 238

Appendix C. A Graphic Organizer Provided by Ms. Foss ............................................. 241

Appendix D. Analytic Tables for Instructional Chains .................................................. 242

Appendix E. An Example of Color-Coded Essay ........................................................... 315

Appendix F. Argumentative Writing Rubric in Ms. Foss’s Classroom .......................... 316

Appendix G. Argumentative Writing Rubric in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ......................... 318

Appendix H. Analytic Tables for Essays ........................................................................ 319

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List of Tables

Table 2.1. Three Argumentative Epistemologies ............................................................. 20 Table 3.1. Key Features of Classrooms by Teachers ........................................................ 43 Table 4.1. Instructional Events for Literature-Related Argumentative Writing with Focal Events in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ....................................................................................... 77 Table 4.2. Instructional Events for Literature-Related Argumentative Writing with Focal Events in Ms. Glen’s classroom ........................................................................................ 78 Table 4.3. Explicit Instruction about Moves in First Instructional Chain in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ......................................................................................................................... 89 Table 4.4. Explicit Instruction about “Fact Sandwiches” in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ........ 92 Table 4.5. Explicit Instruction about Color-Coding in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ................. 94 Table 4.6. Explicit Instruction about Writing Prompts in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ............ 99 Table 4.7. Explicit Instruction about Structure in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ...................... 101 Table 4.8. Explicit Instruction about Aristotle’s Appeals in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ...... 104 Table 4.9. Conversations about Bullying in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ............................... 107 Table 4.10. Conversations about Appearance in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ........................ 109 Table 4.11. Conversations about Lord of the Flies in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ................ 112 Table 4.12. Conversations about Environment in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ...................... 116 Table 4.13. Explicit Instruction about the Final Writing Assignment in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ....................................................................................................................... 120 Table 4.14. Conversations about Yummy in Ms. Foss’s Classroom .............................. 125 Table 5.1. Explicit Instruction about the Rubric in Ms. Foss’s Classroom .................... 141 Table 5.2. Conversations about the Rubric in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ............................ 143 Table 5.3. Analysis of Daisy’s First Writing Assignment .............................................. 152 Table 5.4. Feedback Ms. Foss Provided to the Focal Students ....................................... 164 Table 5.5. Analysis of John’s First Argumentative Writing Assignment ....................... 169 Table 5.6. Conversations about the Lifeboat in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ......................... 174 Table 5.7. Analysis of Introduction of Kristen’s Essay .................................................. 182 Table 5.8. Analysis of Body Paragraph One of Kristen’s Essay .................................... 185 Table 5.9. Analysis of Body Paragraph Two of Kristen’s Essay .................................... 188 Table 5.10. Analysis of Body Paragraph Three of Kristen’s Essay ................................ 191 Table 5.11. Analysis of Conclusion Paragraph of Kristen’s Essay ................................ 193

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List of Figures

Figure 3.1. A Conceptual Map of an Instructional Chain ................................................. 49 Figure 3.2. Key Event Identification Process ................................................................... 50 Figure 3.3. Instructional Chains in Ms. Foss's Classroom ................................................ 51 Figure 3.4. Instructional Chains in Ms. Glen's Classroom ............................................... 51 Figure 4.1. First Instructional Chain in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ........................................ 64 Figure 4.2. Body Paragraph Structure ............................................................................... 66 Figure 4.3. Color-Coding System ..................................................................................... 67 Figure 4.4. An Example of Color-Coded Student Writing ............................................... 68 Figure 4.5. First Instructional Chain in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ........................................ 74 Figure 4.6. Prompts for the Second Key Event ................................................................ 81 Figure 4.7. Instructional Chain Structure in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ................................. 82 Figure 4.8. Lifeboat Dilemma Scenario ............................................................................ 84 Figure 4.9. Instructional Chain Structure in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ................................. 87 Figure 4.10. Basic Paragraph Structure in Ms. Foss’s Classroom .................................... 90 Figure 4.11. Fact Sandwiches ........................................................................................... 91 Figure 4.12. Color-Coded Paragraph ................................................................................ 96 Figure 4.13. Culminating Writing Task in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ................................. 106 Figure 5.1. Daisy’s Final Essay as the First Argumentative Writing Assignment ......... 151 Figure 5.2. The Curricular Timeline in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ...................................... 155 Figure 5.3. Tracings of Daisy’s Essay and Classroom Events ....................................... 158 Figure 5.4. Focal Students’ First Argumentative Essays in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ....... 161 Figure 5.5. Focal Students’ First Paragraphs in Ms. Foss’s Classroom ......................... 166 Figure 5.6. Writing Excerpt for the First Writing Assignment in Ms. Glen’s Classroom ......................................................................................................................................... 177 Figure 5.7. Kristen’s Final Essay as the Second Argumentative Writing Assignment .. 178 Figure 6.1. Underlying Driving Factors for Teaching Practices ..................................... 205

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Chapter 1. Teacher Epistemology in Writing Instruction

The position statement of The National Council of Teachers of English (2016)

titled, “Professional Knowledge for the Teaching of Writing,” emphasizes the nature of

writing instruction that is contextualized and complex in order to support students’

writing and learning about a range of ideas and experiences as well as in a variety of

genres. Although teachers teach writing according to established concepts—institution's

philosophies, research-based approaches—and national and state standards, teaching

practices can be varied as they adopt and adapt them differently. As a response to these

differences, some writing scholars have argued that research should focus on

interventions by external experts or researchers to help teachers modify curricula and

lessons (Belland, Glazewski, & Richardson, 2011; Howell, Butler, & Reinking, 2017).

The instructional interventions offered by external researchers, however, are limited with

regard to the difficulties the teacher has as a practitioner; there is minimal value or

enthusiasm in vague projects that need to be fully understood, that include requests to

complete questionnaires, pre- and post-test assessments, observers in their classrooms, or

skipping lunches for interviews (McKenney & Reeves, 2012; Plomp, 2013).

Additionally, except for a small number of teachers, most would not have opportunities

to access experts who would work with them for an extended period of time, even though

scholarship on school writing has noted that such interventions may have proven

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effective within the confines of a short-term research project (Graham et al., 2017;

Litman & Greenleaf, 2017). Given the complex nature of writing instruction and teacher

development, not only pedagogical knowledge, but other influential factors including

teachers’ differing epistemologies, experiences, and processes of socialization into the

teaching of writing shape instructional decisions (Langer & Applebee, 1987; Newell,

VanDerHeide & Wynhoff Olsen, 2014; Swanson-Owens, 1986).

To date, however, little work has examined the central roles of different

epistemologies for teaching writing in English language arts (ELA) classrooms (cf.

Newell et al., 2014). Rather, prior studies in the field of written composition, especially

in ELA classrooms, tended to focus on the pre- and post-assessment, textual features,

perceptions, and cognitive process of writing (Behizadeh & Engelhard, 2011; Hyland,

2015; Lillis, 2001; Pasternak, Caughlan, Hallman, Renzi, & Rush, 2014). Consequently,

teachers’ differing epistemologies have been marginalized or ignored, even in studies of

complex social contexts in the classroom setting. Without an adequate analysis of the

process of how ELA teachers with different epistemologies for teaching writing adopt

and adapt their writing instruction to their specific and situated classroom contexts, we

undervalue the impact of epistemologies in the teaching and learning of writing,

ultimately leading to a one-sided, narrow or rigid conceptualization of teachers’

professional development practices.

Teachers’ Epistemologies for Teaching Writing

Knowledge and beliefs are commonly used concepts in education and yet, these

are concepts that are difficult to precisely define. In the present study, knowledge is

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defined as a cognitive state of an individual’s realization of a fact. Knowledge is

considered tangible through verification. Belief will be used to refer to an emotional

condition or tendency to action. One of the differences between the two concepts is that

knowledge is justifiable and supportable, whereas belief is a feeling of assurance, and is

sometimes formed regardless of empirical evidence (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997).

For example, a case study teacher, Ms. Glen, acknowledged that her belief about

teaching writing was changed when she participated in a National Writing Project.

According to her, she took a writing method course for in-service teachers, which

reconfirmed her belief about the nature of writing and teaching writing. This

demonstrates that new knowledge can re-shape or reinforce an individual belief. On the

other hand, the other case study teacher, Ms. Foss, had a lack of pedagogical knowledge

about teaching writing because of her educational background: she had a Bachelor’s

degree in Journalism and Master’s degree in General Education. When sharing her view

about teaching writing, she also mentioned that her colleagues and school culture

emphasized structural aspects of writing. In Ms. Foss’s case, a lack of knowledge may

form her belief about learning to write.

An individual belief can be an instance of knowledge if it is grounded on solid

facts that make it true. An individual belief may sometimes be driven by cognitive

processes. It may also be a by-product of our cognitive faculties (Foley, 2012). Examples

of this are the two case study teachers above, who are representative of other examples

that can be found in many educational contexts. All these different illustrations and

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findings indicate that beliefs and knowledge are intertwined in complex ways (Hofer &

Pintrich, 1997, p. 118).

Teachers’ epistemologies for teaching writing represent “a constellation of

beliefs” regarding learning to write, writing instruction, writing practices, and writing

assessment (Newell et al., 2014). Several studies on teachers’ epistemologies for writing

instruction have identified three categories for teaching writing, noting that beliefs

regarding what counts as writing, what students learn to write, and how students learn to

write have been contested (e.g., Juzwik, VanDerHeide, Dunn, & Goff, 2018; Newell et

al., 2014). Other studies have examined how teachers’ epistemologies influence writing

instruction. This research has led to a better understanding of the role of a teacher's

epistemology in teaching writing (e.g., McCarthey & Kang, 2017; Weyand, Goff, &

Newell, 2018). Newell et al. (2014) found that understanding teachers’ epistemologies

would help demystify how and why teachers adopt instructional concepts, materials, or

interventions. This led to understanding underlying beliefs and an awareness of the

factors that shape teachers’ instructional choices concerning plans, teaching practices,

and writing assessments. The possible interference is that teachers with different

epistemologies will orchestrate activities differently, provide feedback differently, and

organize content differently, relying on their beliefs of what students need to learn

(Juzwik et al., 2018; Newell et al., 2014). This correlation between teachers’

epistemologies and their teaching practices warrant the need for further study of these

two interactive factors.

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This dissertation considers this gap between the field’s understanding of the

significance of teachers’ epistemologies for writing instruction and research concerned

with this issue by exploring the complex social dynamics within two ELA teachers’

instructional decisions, planning, and the social interactions associated with their teaching

practices. This research project will explore the manner in which the teachers adopt and

adapt their instruction to their students and their curriculum in light of each teacher’s

differing epistemology for teaching writing. Through close examinations of how the

teachers orchestrate writing lessons in their ninth grade classrooms, paying attention to

their interactions with students during instructional conversations and the types of writing

practices which they considered essential, I specifically seek to explore the social

dimensions within the teachers’ planning instructional units on writing as well as what

the students in each classroom are learning to do in and through writing. Relying on long-

term classroom observations and extensive teacher and student interviews, I argue that

the teachers’ epistemology-specific writing pedagogy is shaped by their professional

experiences, institutional issues such as state-wide writing assessments, departmental

pressures, and daily instructional conversations with their students.

Both case study teachers, in a greater or less degree, are exposed to the conceptual

ideas that writing is an inquiry and learning since they participated in the Argumentative

Writing Project in the Midwestern United States. Although both teachers designed their

argumentative writing instruction units by drawing on the same concept of writing, their

specific instructional plans, teaching practices, writing tasks and assessments differed a

lot from each other. This is because each instructional unit was created and developed

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through multiple layers of personal, ideological, and institutional components. These

components can be flexible and transform; therefore, it is important to bear in mind

another point. My research will show that despite a predominant epistemology in each

classroom, a teacher's epistemologies are not a static form.

Contexts for Teaching and Learning Writing in ELA Classrooms

Since argumentative writing is part and parcel of teaching and learning writing in

ELA classrooms, it is necessary to understand the broader curricular and instructional

contexts. In the context of this study, the term ‘argumentative writing’ will be used to

refer to a type of critical reasoning, thinking, evaluation, and constructive rhetorical

practice (Newell, Bloome, & Hirvela, 2015; Weyand et al., 2018). Writing researchers

have long discussed the effect of teacher and classroom condition on writing instruction

(Dyson, 1984; Herrington, 1985; Lunsford, 2002; Prior, 1991; Smagorinsky, Daigle,

O'Donnell-Allen, & Bynum, 2010) by considering factors internal to the classroom

context (Sperling, 1995; Sperling & Woodlief, 1997) as well as external factors such as

state-wide writing assessment (Hillocks, 2002). However, a constant in this research is

the assumption that the teacher’s role is significant in how teaching and learning writing

in the classroom are shaped. The teacher’s instructional plan for teaching writing is

influenced and shaped by formal education experiences, such as participation in a teacher

preparation program, professional development, and available materials that contribute to

the teacher’s epistemology for teaching writing. At the same time, how writing is taught

is also largely influenced by school culture, colleagues, student levels, and prior learning

experience as students (Morgan & Pytash, 2014). Smagorinsky (2001, 2007, 2009) has

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shown how the particular pedagogical and social characteristics of each classroom setting

can have an impact on student learning of writing. Howell et al.’s (2017) contextualized

examination of student writing in a high school classroom adds to this line of scholarship

in that they assert that any pedagogical model teachers adopted will be reshaped

according to contextual factors within the classroom. A study conducted by Newell et al.

(2014) helps us understand the influences of teachers’ epistemologies for the teaching

and learning of writing. In short, there are intertwined complexities, tensions, and

challenges for teachers to navigate while teaching writing (Smagorinsky, 2009).

Previous writing research at the high school level has identified that standardized

tests, traditional paradigms of teaching writing, and decontextualized instructional plans

have triggered a range of superficial writing tasks (Applebee & Langer, 2013), including

fill-in-the-blank forms, five-paragraph essays, or grammar lessons (Applebee, 2000;

Behizadeh & Engelhard, 2011; Hillocks, 2002). The superficial surface features of these

writing tasks give rise to formulaic texts rather than the construction of new knowledge

(Newell et al., 2014). While this form-focused approach to writing instruction may be

well suited to preparations for large-scale writing assessments (Hillocks, 2005), failure to

reconsider the prevailing formulas and forms could ultimately lead to a writing education

that fails to reflect the types of writing in everyday life (Applebee & Langer, 2013). The

writing that students are asked to produce based on rubrics and pre-set forms may be

well-organized, clear, and easy to follow, but such writing often does not mean anything

save for the test score it earns.

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Research Questions

The purpose of this study is to investigate what epistemologies are reflected in

two English language arts teachers’ instructional units on argumentative writing and how

the teachers’ epistemologies for teaching argumentative writing are made evident in their

instructional reasoning and the enactment of instructional conversations. My focus is on

the process of teachers’ construction and enactment of instructional units relying on their

distinct epistemologies. However, I am also interested in how and when the teachers’

epistemologies are appropriated by their students in their approaches to argumentative

writing assignments.

The research questions that framed and guided this study emerged from the

issues, idea and concerns I have summarized below:

1. How teachers talked about and planned curriculum with their epistemologies?

2. How are teachers’ epistemologies for teaching argumentative writing made

evident in their instructional reasoning and enactment of instructional

conversations during their instructional units?

3. How and when are the teachers’ epistemologies appropriated by their 9th grade

students?

Dissertation Outline

In this Chapter, I illustrated some context for my research topics and outlined the

research questions that I will address in this dissertation. In Chapter Two, I elaborate a

theoretical framework for epistemology for teaching writing and situated learning. I will

describe the roles of an ethnographic perspective and researcher positionality for this

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study. I then review the relevant literature about teacher epistemology for teaching

writing in high school English language arts classroom settings. In Chapter Three, I

articulate my research methodology in detail. This entails contextual information of the

research sites, my case study teachers and student participants, and then data collection

and analysis process to address each research question. In Chapter Four, I describe the

case study teachers' thoughts about writing instruction and their instructional units they

created. An instructional chain is a series of key events, connected classroom activities,

which linked together for the culminating argumentative writing task. As I examine the

key events, I consider how the key events in these instructional chains shape

argumentative writing instruction in their classroom settings. I then explore teaching and

learning practices of two case study ELA teachers and eight focal students to examine

how they taught and learned argumentative writing within the contexts of high school

English language arts classrooms. In Chapter Five, I analyze writing assignments,

assessments, the case students' argumentative essays, and interviews with them to see

how students appropriated a teacher's epistemology. In Chapter Six, I summarize and

discuss the findings, highlighting the implications that this research has for further studies

in the field of literacy education.

10

Chapter 2. Literature Review and Theoretical Frame

In this chapter, I overview the research that informs my study on the teaching and

learning of high school writing, the teaching and learning of literature-related

argumentative writing, and the role of teacher epistemologies in the teaching and learning

of literature-related argumentative writing. This overview proceeds to examine the ways

writing scholars conceive and subsequently explore epistemologies for teaching and

learning writing. I describe the theoretical underpinnings of this research to illustrate the

nature of teacher epistemologies and writing instruction. I then discuss how these

theoretical concepts support my methodological approach.

The "Problem" of High School Writing Instruction: The Current Context

Although current high school students have more opportunities to write compared

to students in the late 1970s, writing in the classroom still does not exist as a way to

think, construct knowledge, or explore the depth of issues (Applebee & Langer, 2013).

Nearly four decades ago, Applebee (1981, 1984) discovered that secondary students were

given almost no writing instruction. As research and theory on learning to write began to

progress (e.g., Braddock, 1974; Britton, 1970), the field was initially focused on

experimental studies of instructional approaches (Braddock, Lloyd-Jones & Schorer,

1963) or on describing “Of what does skill in writing really consist?” (Emig, 1971; Gregg

& Steinberg, 1980) by examining individual writers. Classroom-based studies were quite

11

rare. By the late 1980s and 1990s, this started to change and interest in instructional

theory increased. By the early 2000s, based on a study of 30 school districts throughout

five states, Hillocks (2002, 2005) pointed out that writing instruction remained primarily

focused on superficial textual features such as mechanics. More recently, Applebee and

Langer (2013) found much of the same: only 4 percent of observed class time in middle

school and 8 percent of observed class time in high school were given to the writing of a

paragraph or more (p. 14). As such, ongoing concerns have been raised regarding writing

education in high school language arts classrooms (Juzwik et al., 2016).

High school students’ lack of writing skills has become problematic (Applebee,

1981, 1986; Applebee & Langer, 2013). While at school, less skilled writers are more

likely to struggle with learning in the classroom. They are likely to get low grades,

especially in classes where students’ understanding is assessed primarily by their writing

(Hillocks, 2002). This, in turn, leads to their chances of entering university being lower,

since colleges view writing as one of primary means of evaluating applications for

admission. At work, from the government, finance, and law to business, IT and

engineering, employees are expected to write knowledgeably and appropriately for

reports, visual presentations, letters, and emails (Lea & Street, 2006).

In spite of the criticality of writing, many high school students do not seem to

learn how to write at a level suitable for university-level education or the workplace.

University instructors have claimed that many students have difficulty in writing at a

level that would be acceptable for university (Halbritter & Lindquist, 2012; Lunsford &

Lunsford, 2008). American businesses spend nearly $400 billion due to time wasted as a

12

result of bad writing: every year they spend $2.9 billion on remedial writing training for

their current employees, not including any expenditure on new recruits (Bernoff, 2016;

Heath, 2018; National Commission on Writing, 2004; Quible & Griffin, 2007).

High schools have been criticized for neglecting to emphasize writing skills

(Applebee & Langer, 2013; Graham & Perin, 2007), with this being argued to be one of

the possible reasons why students’ writing is poor. A potential reason why writing is

neglected in high school classrooms is that language arts teachers have not sufficiently

developed their own skills in how to teach writing from their teacher education

coursework or professional development experiences (Kennedy, 1998; Kiuhara, Graham,

& Hawken, 2009). Writing education and teacher development for writing are complex,

since building a bank of pedagogical knowledge and strategies, not only as declarative

but also as procedural knowledge, takes years of trial and error (Newell, Bloome, &

Hirvela, 2015; Smagorinsky, 2009). An alternative argument is that although teachers

have learned teaching methods for writing, there is a large amount of the

misinterpretation and misapplication of research-based knowledge that has fed through

into teaching practices in the classroom settings (Hillocks, 2011).

Regarding teacher preparation for writing instruction, Kennedy (1998) argued that

pre-service teacher candidates enter teacher preparation programs with their own

interpretations of teaching, and neither traditional nor reform-oriented programs change

teachers’ ideals. This is mainly because pre-service teachers have already served a kind

of apprenticeship from kindergarten through university, observing how their own

teachers taught. Several researchers have identified that many teachers usually teach in

13

the same style that they were taught (e.g., Dunn & Dunn, 1979; Edwards, Carr, & Siegel,

2006; Felder, 1993; Lortie, 1975). It seems then that teachers’ experience from their

school years forms a deep, tacit entrenchment of traditional teaching methods, leading to

a reiteration of teachers’ traditional approaches to teaching writing.

When asked about their preparation as writing teachers, 61% of high school

language arts teachers described that they felt unconfident or unequipped to teach

writing, because of a lack of available writing courses for teacher certification or in-

service professional development (Kiuhara et al., 2009). What is worse is that the culture

of schools has a strong tendency to erase what teachers learn in their teacher education

programs (Smagorinsky, 2010). As a result, many high school students still learn how to

write by the prescriptive methods (McQuitty, 2012).

Although teachers have the opportunity to study methods of teaching writing,

through their teacher education or in-service professional development programs,

external exams (e.g., state, district, Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate

exams) play a key role in shaping instruction. This is a concern because as teachers focus

on “test-prep,” extended writing that asks students to reason through an issue, make an

argument, or explore new ideas may become marginalized (Applebee & Langer, 2013).

When teachers are under considerable pressure to boost standardized test scores, student

performance on multiple-choice or short-answer questions of these external tests would

be their primary focus. According to Applebee and Langer (2013), 55% of English

teachers teach writing in a timed, on-demand format, which is similar to some high-

stakes exams (p. 18).

14

Teachers of high school writing frequently tend to emphasize clear, specific

features that make up different parts of a paper. These features include an introduction,

body paragraphs, citations, and a conclusion. Teacher-centered activities are still more

pervasive than collaborative work. The percentage of instructional time dedicated to

teaching any aspect of writing is very small, and extended writing does not attract much

attention from teachers (Applebee & Langer, 2013; Jeffery & Wilcox, 2014). The texts

students produce are the result of the structure created by the teacher. In other words, the

current instruction in such cases asks students to learn and develop limited skills for

specific types of writing, rather than writing skills that students will need in their future

professional and personal lives (Graham, Capizzi, Harris, Hebert, & Morphy, 2014).

Teaching and Learning of Argumentative Writing and Epistemological Stances

Particularly emphasized by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (NGA &

CCSO, 2010), argumentative writing is one of the three genres in secondary school

writing often assessed at both the state and national levels. As Hillocks (2005) illustrates,

the demands of tests and standards largely influence writing instruction in high school

classrooms. The problem is that the features of the CCSS tend to simplify argumentative

writing by focusing on structural features without considering the social dimensions that

impact how someone writes argumentatively (Newell et al., 2015). Classroom writing

instruction is often limited to focus on formulaic textual features and somewhat effective

test preparation rather than a way of constructing knowledge or in-depth understandings

of conflicting perspectives (Newell et al., 2014).

15

Two typical approaches to teaching argumentative writing are 1) teaching the

textual features of the argument and 2) teaching argumentative strategies (Newell, Beach,

Smith, & VanDerHeide, 2011; VanDerHeide, 2017). The first common approach to

teaching argumentative writing follows the conventional five-paragraph structure and

includes components such as claims, evidence, and counter-argument (Johnson,

Thompson, Smagorinsky, & Fry, 2003; VanDerHeide, Juzwik, & Dunn, 2016). The basic

elements, such as claims or evidence, have been grounded in the Toulmin model

(Hillocks, 2011; Toulmin, 1958, 2003). This approach does not usually ask students to

think about complex social contexts, and students merely use pre-set forms. For example,

graphic organizers are typically used for scaffolding students’ understanding, so that they

grasp the connections between a claim and textual evidence. Some prior studies

supported this traditional formalist approach, because form-focused instruction improved

students’ argumentative writing scores by standardized testing measures (e.g., Nussbaum

& Schraw, 2007; Yeh, 1998). This approach, focusing on textual form, has been

pervasive in ELA classrooms and will likely be privileged until the nature of standardized

testing is changed.

A second typical approach to teaching argumentative writing is teaching the use

of certain writing strategies for argumentative essays (e.g., referencing sources, providing

evidence). The assumption behind teaching how to employ specific strategies is that

successful writers employ effective tactics to create better texts, and novice writers could

benefit from learning how to use these strategies (Newell et al., 2011; VanDerHeide,

2017). In the study of De La Paz et al. (2017), for example, students were taught reading

16

strategies for identifying appropriate textual evidence from historical texts and taught

writing strategies for constructing historical arguments.

The focus on written form or specific strategies could be helpful for preparing

students to “ace” their tests, but not for most other kinds of writing beyond high school

(Hillocks, 2002, 2005). This is because students would not be learning how to make

arguments within complex, often conflicting perspectives shared within the classroom as

a particular kind of social contexts (VanDerHeide, 2017). One common concern writing

scholars have expressed over these two typical approaches is teaching argumentative

writing often ends up asking students to drop content into pre-set structures. This actually

does not qualify as teaching students how to write argumentative essays: “strict forms

limit the potential texts that students can create, limiting their learning and their

participation in classroom, disciplinary, and larger social conversations” (VanDerHeide,

2017, p. 3).

Despite the limitations of typical approaches to teaching argumentative writing, it

is also undeniable that most high school students learn about argumentative writing

through these two approaches in real classroom settings. One possible explanation for the

heavy reliance on these typical approaches is that teaching argumentative writing is

complex and demanding, especially when compared with other types of writing tasks,

such as the creation of descriptive, expository, or narrative essays (Newell et al., 2011).

Students’ limited perceptions of their audiences and teachers’ lack of procedural

knowledge for teaching argumentative writing may also limit the quality of

argumentation in classroom setting (Kuhn, 2005).

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Many studies on the teaching and learning of argumentative writing presupposed

that students would be taught through being introduced to particular writing strategies or

textual forms (Newell et al., 2011; VanDerHeide, 2017). It should also be noted that

researchers have investigated these assumptions using experimental or quasi-

experimental methods of evaluation to elucidate the effects of short-term instruction or

intervention within artificial contexts by controlling different factors. The underlying

logic of such research designs is to identify particular universal factors that have an

impact on writing outcomes. A key question related to prior research from such

perspectives is how to explain the complex process of students’ learning argumentative

writing through social construction within particular sociocultural contexts, which gives

rise to different notions of valued argumentation.

A relatively small number of recent studies have attempted to explore unique

classroom literacy events to illuminate classroom contexts constructed by teachers and

students drawing on situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and social literacies

(Street, 2001). One of the primary attributes of this perspective is that researchers are able

to explore the local event and specific context constructed by teachers and students,

instead of working within artificial conditions a researcher creates. Researchers can then

illustrate how students appropriate particular argumentative practices within particular

classroom contexts (Howell et al., 2017; Smagorinsky, 2011). This focus on the local

event can demonstrate how participants, teachers or students, develop their unique

personal understandings of argumentative writing amidst disparities, tensions, and

contradictory discourse and prior experiences.

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Argumentative Epistemologies

Only in recent years has epistemology become a subject of inquiry in writing

research. While empirical investigations of epistemology have been conducted since the

late 1960s, epistemology was an interest in the field of philosophy and not used in

empirical educational research, especially in the field of writing education. Consequently,

before focusing on the question of how a teacher’s writing epistemologies are

constructed, it is important to consider why epistemology matters. A teacher’s

epistemology is an individual belief regarding the nature of knowledge, how that

knowledge is taught and learned and how learning might be assessed (Brownlee, Schraw,

& Berthelsen, 2011). Until now, a number of studies reported that teachers’

epistemologies influence teaching strategies and learning outcomes (Muis, 2004; Newell

et al., 2014; Phan, 2008; Ravindran, Greene, & DeBacker, 2005; Yang, Chang, & Hsu,

2008). In review of previous research, Maggioni and Parkinson (2008) concluded that

teachers’ epistemologies and student learning achievement are closely related. Teachers

with sophisticated epistemologies for writing will orchestrate instructional plans based on

evidence with consideration of social and disciplinary conventions (Schraw & Sinatra,

2004). Brownlee (2001) also demonstrated that teachers’ epistemologies were consistent

with teaching practices. Teachers who view knowledge to be absolute are likely to plan

instructional units out of more simplistic views of teaching and learning. This is because

teachers’ epistemologies shape their ways of thinking about what is ‘good’ teaching, as

well as their attitudes toward their teaching practices, and their experiences from teacher

19

education and professional development (Hollingsworth, 1989; Holt-Reynolds, 1992;

Kennedy, 1998).

As discussed above, there is a robust body of research to date that examines how

teachers’ epistemologies are related to student learning. However, few studies have

investigated the relationship between teachers’ epistemologies and teaching practices

(Hofer, 2010; Kang, 2008; Rogers, 2011), and even less research has been conducted in

the specific area of writing education. Recently, Hanley and Brown (2017) pointed out

that very little attention has been paid to the relationship between teachers’

epistemological growth and teaching practices. Given the fact that teachers’

epistemologies for writing may influence their ways of teaching writing, their

understanding of writing practices, and their feedback for improving student writing, it is

important to explore teachers’ epistemologies as well as factors that may foster shifts in

their beliefs and practices.

The conceptual images of “good writing” or the characteristics of exemplary

writing samples suggested by a teacher is founded on and shaped by the teacher’s

epistemology for teaching and learning writing. The underlying epistemologies for

writing can serve an integral role in the teaching and learning of writing as

epistemologies justify teachers’ beliefs about what and how writing should best be taught

and learned (Applebee, 1986; Hillocks, 1999). Based on studies of high school English

language arts classrooms, Newell and his colleagues (2014, 2015) identified three

epistemologies for teaching and learning argumentative writing (See Table 2.1).

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Table 2.1. Three Argumentative Epistemologies

Epistemologies for Teaching Argumentative Writing

Focus of Teaching and Learning

Basis for Assessment

Structural Developing knowledge about essay structure as an argument

Argumentative essay structure, patterns, and argument elements of formal essay structure

Ideational Developing original ideas through argument

Development of original ideas using the process of argument

Social Process Developing a social context with an awareness of real audience

Consideration of the social context, audience, as well as appropriate argument elements

In Newell et al.’s (2015) study of 31 English language arts teachers, they

demonstrated that traditions of writing instruction have grown up nearly 60 years were a

mirror of teachers’ enacted instruction (Behizadeh & Engelhard, 2011; Nystrand, Greene,

& Wiemelt, 1993). Beliefs concerning the definitions of writing, and in turn, what

teachers should teach about argumentative writing and also how they should do it, are

inclined to favor one of these three emphases: textual form, ideas, and a social context. In

order to illustrate the underlying beliefs of teachers relevant to argumentative writing

instruction, the key aspects of argumentative epistemologies can be discussed under three

headings: structural—knowledge of a set of rules for an argumentative essay;

ideational—argumentation as a tool for exploring and developing ideas; and social

process—argumentation with audience driven and contextual goals (Newell et al., 2014,

2015).

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The structural epistemology assumes that writing is a unitary behavior in

decontextualized contexts. In this view, teachers typically deliver the lecture, dominate

classroom discussion, and expect their students to apply what they learned into new

writing tasks, regardless of text type or context. What counts as good writing in this

perspective is tied to the correctness of linguistic forms.

The ideational epistemology emerged as a response to the necessity of expanding

the scope of writing and looking for critical, imaginative, and creative activities (Kwak,

2017). From this mode of instruction, teachers view argumentation as a way of

developing original ideas, not as an end. In other words, teachers emphasize the

importance of “meaning” rather than the forms or rules, because the writing is used as a

tool for developing thinking. Therefore, the writing activity is valued in the meaning-

making process (Kwak, 2017). This view of writing values the learners’ voices, and the

teacher’s role is that of the facilitator.

The social process epistemology emphasizes not only textual form and content,

but also the importance of a context and a specified audience. From this perspective, a

teacher’s role is to orchestrate the materials and activities so students will learn how to

write in ways that are socially meaningful by participating in a situated literacy event. In

contrast to the structural epistemology, this view includes learning to consider personal or

social conditions beyond learning about appropriate textual forms.

These classified foci, three different epistemologies, are not necessarily neatly

compartmentalized because different approaches could have commonalities and

overlapping characteristics depending on the situation (Kwak, 2017). Research on writing

22

instruction has indicated that although many teachers can adopt new teaching methods

into their teaching practices, the underlying epistemology for teaching writing tends to be

static. These categories of epistemologies are not mutually exclusive. For example, a

teacher with ideational epistemology could take the structural approach for teaching

argumentative writing while using the ideational process approach for a narrative essay

unit.

I have borrowed from the conceptual framework of Newell et al. (2014) to help

illustrate some of the features of my two focal teachers’ writing instructions. Writing

instruction occurring in the classroom explicitly or implicitly involves a teacher’s

epistemology for writing (Rose, 1985). This is because “our perceptions of how texts are

created and of what classroom methods are effective depend on assumptions about what

counts for knowledge” (Fulkerson, 1990, p. 411).

Communities of Practice as a Theoretical Framework

The concept of communities of practices emerged from Lave and Wenger's

(1991) study of situated learning theory as an alternative to existing cognitive and

psychological theories of knowledge and learning, with a partial answer to criticism of

conventional teaching delivering abstract knowledge. Challenging traditional concepts of

learning, acquisition of abstract knowledge, Lave and Wenger (1991) suggest that

learning occurs through actual practices that learners are engaged in, rather than isolated

forms of acquiring abstract knowledge. Put another way, the conventional cognitivist

perspective assumes that learners could transfer the gained abstract knowledge into

different contexts, whereas Lave and Wenger (1991) shift the focus from

23

decontextualized knowledge to learning as processes in which learners could gain

knowledge by participating in actual practices. This conceptual shift provides insights

into educational research on teaching and learning. According to Lave and Wenger

(1991), learning occurs among participants in the community beyond merely in the heads

of the individuals. Therefore, the relations between individuals and their social context

are crucial for understanding the complex nature of teaching and learning.

The term, situated learning, is often tracked back to Vygotsky’s concept of the

zone of proximal development and activity theory. Discussing different interpretations of

Vygotsky’s work, Lave and Wenger (1991) stress the role of learning environments

providing learners with opportunities to learn through participation in authentic activities

by using the tools of disciplinary community in a situated way (p. 49). As an example,

Lave and Wenger give the example of apprentice tailors learning from dealing with a

garment and cutting material. In this way, the novice tailors developed over time into

experts by understanding not only tailoring but also the social rules for the tailoring

business. An essential aspect of learning is the contextual environments for learning by

being prepared to accomplish the objectives in the real world (Lave, 1988).

A community of practice may be defined as 'a system of relationships between

people, activities, and the world; developing with time, and in relation to other tangential

and overlapping communities of practice' (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 98). Drawing on

Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of learning from a case of novice tailor, which shows

learning occurs through interacting with experts, Orr’s (1996) study further developed the

conceptual idea by showing how peer activities could lead to knowledge development. It

24

is intriguing to note that Orr’s study identifies how learning can occur through informal

interactions among peers. Much of learning might be tacit, implicit, and nearly invisible

improvisation. These findings provide insights into the concepts of communities of

practice in that the effects of sharing knowledge within informal communities on learning

have been revealed.

A key distinction Lave and Wenger (1991) made is what they called “legitimate

peripheral participation,” which means learners “inevitably participate in communities of

practitioners and that the mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move

toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of community” (p. 29). From the

perspective of legitimate peripheral participation, learners learn something by

participating in experts’ practices. In a writing classroom, as legitimate peripheral

participation, learners work on tasks and engage in group discussions the teacher

orchestrated to grasp how experienced writers work on their writing. Taking Lave and

Wenger’s (1991) position, the appropriate analysis unit would be interactions between a

teacher and students or within small student groups, instead of focusing on individuals.

This is important because learning, from their view, is not just a matter of learning by

doing nor simply situated “as if were some independently reifiable process that just

happened to be located somewhere” (p. 35).

Through a comparative study of cognitive and situated learning perspectives,

Greeno (1997) suggests that situated instruction and learning as a social practice do not

necessarily need to be in a group setting. According to Greeno, learners could act in a

social or group setting without physically participating in a group activity. Describing an

25

example of a student teaching himself using a textbook, Greeno (1997) contributed to the

view of learners as an individual within a system and also influenced Wenger’s (1998)

refined conceptions of the community of practice.

In Wenger’s (1998) book, Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and

identity, he moved his attention from legitimate peripheral participation and

apprenticeship to communities of practice and identity. Extending the earlier ideas of

situated learning (e.g., Lave, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Greeno, 1997; Orr, 1996), he

refined the conventional definitions of communities of practice as a group that connected

and cohered through ‘mutual engagement’ on a ‘joint enterprise,’ sharing a repertoire of

ways of engaging in practice. Whereas existing literature had not articulated a uniform

definition of a community of practice, Wenger’s (1998) book is a major step forward in

the discussion of communities of practice and situated learning.

In 2002, Wenger revealed again a shift of his perspective on the idea of the

community of practice in Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder’s (2002) book, Cultivating

community of practice. This is important to the discussion of a community of practice

since it not only reflects Wenger’s shift in his thinking from the earlier works, but also

was the last work so far. The existing notion of community of practice is redefined, as,

“groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and

who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing

basis” (p. 4). The primary different feature of this refined notion compared with a notion

in Wenger's (1998) book is that learning and sharing knowledge, rather than finishing the

work, is a major purpose. Therefore, the orchestrated context is not about creating a space

26

of learners for a joint enterprise as described in Wenger’s earlier works, but constructing

groups of learners for the similar or parallel practices. Indeed, the concept of community

is still quite ambiguous, but this could be the starting point for conducting empirical

research on making groups and spaces of a community of practice (Cox, 2005).

Limitations and Implications

Significantly absent from Lave and Wenger’s view is the sense that such an

influential conceptual idea about learning appears to ignore some essential aspects of

learning. What are the principles of establishing a good community for learning? How

can a learner learn in a practice-focused environment? Lave and Wenger seem to describe

situations in which learning can occur, but readers might be left with questions of how it

occurs. It can thus be suggested that further inquiry into their theory by exploring the

community of practice will contribute to the elaboration of how teachers structure

activities for students to learn literacy skills. Although there is no detailed explanation of

each stage, Lave and Wenger described the control of the transparency of knowledge

would be helpful for structuring situations for novice learners in that novices have no idea

what to attend to and where to look. What is more, the existing account of Lave and

Wenger’s concept does not fully explain the challenges learners may face. It also is

possible, therefore, that further research could be undertaken to elaborate details of

deciding process of controlling the transparency of the knowledge so that students are

allowed to learn through participation in the community.

Although Wenger (1998) offers a relatively clear conceptual idea about a

community of practice, Wenger’s concept of a community of practice has been contested

27

by critics (Cox, 2005; Pemberton, Marvin, & Stalker, 2007; Vann & Bowker, 2001) in

that communities of practice seem to be a natural set of connections through internal

logics. The problem is that a real situation of the community is often impacted by

external factors. For instance, to be more specific, an actual instruction could be largely

influenced by pressure from school and department culture or large-scale test

measurement.

The concept of community and types of learning was also challenged by Haneda

(2006) with regard to literacy education. In the examples of communities described by

Lave and Wenger (1998), readers were unable to find any struggles or tensions associated

with the process of becoming community members except for butcher apprentices. Only

little is mentioned about the differences between newcomers and more experienced

members. This inevitably requires a comprehensive investigation and understanding

because of the complex nature of multiple dimensions of participation in a community of

practices.

Situated Learning and Writing Instruction

My study of teaching and learning argumentative writing in two 9th grade

classrooms draws from theories surrounding situated learning and communities of

practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). High school ELA classrooms have a history of

exploring the procedures and processes of negotiating meaning among teachers and

students. In other words, knowledge constructed in a particular classroom community

context is influenced by the views of teachers and students in that classroom. Teachers

and students as participants in a community of practice develop knowledge through their

28

participations and social interactions within the classroom and materials that are used in

the community. From this perspective, learning in a classroom—community of

practice—becomes a social process of participation, which integrates the classroom

culture into the activities of knowledge construction.

Writing, from this perspective, involves social, dialogic processes of construction.

This perspective rejects approaches which view learning to write as a decontextualized,

impersonal, isolated acquisition of knowledge about textual features. In many schools

and research designs, students simply write to demonstrate what they learned to the

teacher or to complete school assignments (MacArthur, 1994; Prior, 2006). Building on

these empirical foundations, I argue that the research on teaching and learning

argumentative writing calls for a focus on social interactions and an expansion of our

appreciation of the factors that are influential in writing instruction. My goal then is to

investigate teaching and learning argumentative writing within the context of two 9th

grade English language arts classrooms drawing on the theory of situated learning within

a community of practice. Specifically, this research is designed to explore how

argumentative writing in these classroom communities connects students to ways of

understanding and knowing that exist in their classrooms. The theory argues that writing

is an activity that defines and is shaped by the communities of practices within those

classrooms. A key characteristic of legitimate peripheral participation is to engage in

teaching and learning argumentative writing.

Drawing from Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice as a way to explore

daily, key moments of writing instruction in the classroom setting, in this research project

29

writing is used to refer to a social practice: the desired and valued ways of understanding,

approaching, and doing writing in a particular classroom (Newell et al., 2015; Rowe,

2008). Writing as a social practice occurs among participants in a particular classroom

community based on co-constructed understandings of the nature about writing, rather

than individual achievements. The present research project assumes that as students

engage in the writing practices of their classroom community contexts, they start learning

what kinds of textual features, strategies, reasoning and writing processes are desired and

valued for applications in particular writing events within the community of practice the

teacher and students co-construct through instructional conversations. When writing is

regarded as a social practice, the focus shifts from individual cognition to an investigation

of their participation in local writing events (Rowe, 2008). That is, how students learn

new repertoires of practice (Rymes, 2010) related to what is valued in that particular

classroom context. Further, from this perspective, the unit of analysis shifts from the

individual participant’s writing practices to the interactions between the teacher, students,

and materials that are used or produced through writing events.

By viewing writing as a social practice, students will not only learn a set of

general writing skills. They study the textual features, strategies, reasoning and writing

processes, and ideologies shared and promoted by their classmates and teachers in

writing events. Local writing events facilitate learners to shape their understandings about

writing (Street, 2005). We can see what students learn by studying how they engage in

specific kinds of local writing events. “The concept of practice connotes doing, but not

just doing in and of itself. It is doing in a historical and social context that gives structure

30

and meaning to what we do” (Wenger, 1998, p. 47). An essential implication for the

current research project is that there is a need to explore and examine the nature of

students’ participation and local writing events themselves in each English language arts

classroom community (Bloome, Carter, Christian, Otto, & Shuart-Faris, 2005) to

consider how, when and what new repertoires of practices students are asked to take-up

in their argumentative writing. As Lunsford (2002) concluded from her study of high

school students’ learning to argue, “the Toulminian model became a reification that

prompted participants not only to negotiate over how to define and apply its terms, as

well as the various writing criteria that accompanied it, but also to form tacit and explicit

alliances with each other and to reinterpret continually what it meant to be critical readers

and writers” (p. 159).

There are many examples of research drawing on the concept of communities of

practice, in which texts are used to stimulate reflection and thought and to produce

expertise in the English language arts domain simultaneously. Lunsford (2002), for

example, discussed Toulmin’s models of argumentation by employing Wenger’s notion

of communities of practice in order to emphasize the importance of context. For

classroom contexts, according to Lunsford (2002), students should be viewed as “active

shapers of and contributors to, rather than passive recipients of, instruction. As a course

goes on, students and instructors should then become more equal participants” (pp. 122-

203). According to Wardle and Roozen (2012), students’ writing abilities are the product

of “a complex and far-flung network of literate engagements” (p. 111). Informed by the

community of practice as a theoretical framework, many writing practices and

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engagements would obviously occur throughout the high school English language arts

curriculum. Students engage mutually in an activity the teacher orchestrates and develops

a shared repertoire for writing by negotiating meaning together. Through the key events I

will study, this process of negotiation will allow us to see how students shape their

knowledge about writing in the classroom. The key point in this section is that, if writing

is a social practice, then it follows that the beliefs and approaches to writing in classroom

contexts as communities of practice will be brought into the participatory micro-culture.

Exploring writing cultures in a particular classroom context is therefore essential to

provide connections between teachers’ epistemologies, students’ understandings, and

localized disciplinary writing cultures. Understanding these two high school ELA

classrooms will illustrate the complex and involved processes of establishing shared

communities of practice that would enable students to develop as academic writers.

Ethnography in Education

In this study of two English language arts classrooms, the research was guided by

an ethnographic approach. The underlying principles of this approach drawn from

ethnography in education rather than ethnography of education (Green & Bloome, 2004).

An essential assumption of this perspective is the understanding that each classroom

develops a particular culture in which students and teachers co-construct (Dixon, Frank,

& Green, 1999; Frank, 2001; Van Maanen, 2011). From this view, knowledge is

constructed discursively through the social practices in the classroom settings over time

(Blommaert & Jie, 2010; Frank, 1999). Previous research on learning to write tended to

focus on textual features of written products by learners (e.g., Allen, Snow, &

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McNamara, 2016; Crinon, 2012; Olinghouse & Wilson, 2013). However, conceptualizing

learning to write through the social practices in the classroom community suggests new

ways of understanding learning to write; instead of writing as spelling, grammar, or pre-

set structure, students learn to write by taking part in social practices and their

interpretations of their social places and through an ongoing dialogue in a particular

classroom.

On the contrary to natural science, social sciences will always be conceptualized

by multiple competing theoretical frameworks because of the nature of the phenomena

being explored from diverse views and lenses. Reading and writing practices varied

across classroom settings (Newell et al., 2017; Orellana, 1995), and community members,

including the teachers and students, constantly negotiated and reviewed their positions,

the meaning of rules, and practices (Smagorinsky, 2009). Drawing on the theoretical

frameworks, situated learning and community of practices, I argue that an ethnographic

approach will be effective in describing the two English language arts classrooms by

examining the teachers’ and students’ approach to teaching and learning writing,

especially for new insights, thick description, and understandings from multiple

dimensions about the same phenomenon. Given the theoretical framework of this

research postulates teaching and learning of writing are situated within a particular

community of practices, an ethnographic approach could help to advance the

understanding of the multiplicity of literacy practices within the two English language art

classrooms by considering how the individual events are related to the whole unit.

Therefore, by exploring two particular English language arts classrooms, my intention is

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to develop grounded descriptions and understandings about the patterns of practice,

events, and phenomena.

Researcher Positionality

One of the important aspects of an ethnographic study is the researcher’s position

as an outsider or insider at the research sites being explored and the influence of this

position on the research process (Hammersley, 1993). In my research, the term

“positionality” means the researcher’s position in regard to a specific research topic and

the individual’s worldview shaped by prior experiences as well as ontological and

epistemological assumptions (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013).

As a former Korean language arts teacher, a researcher, and a doctoral student, I

have observed high school English language arts classrooms. Green (2014) states,

“attempting to take notes and stay connected to the participants while being a researcher

is a moment of real complexity” (p. 157). I completely agree with this statement. I am not

a U.S. citizen, or a child of immigrants, but I grew up in South Korea, a non-English-

speaking country. When collecting my data, I struggled between two academia. For

instance, I should be able to think about what would be an interesting topic in Western

academia? While also thinking about how my research here would look to Korean

researchers. At first, some high school students asked me about myself, and I replied, “I

am a doctoral student from Ohio State, and I was a high school teacher in my country.” I

am a stranger, observer, and listener of their interactions. Most students were already

comfortable with me being in the same classroom because they have participated in my

34

research project since August 2017. Sometimes, students left a chair and space for me to

come in and my equipment.

I am a learner as well as an ethnographer. Regarding my positionality, whenever I

joined a small group of students for observation or interviewed with focal students, I

introduced myself as a former language arts teacher from South Korea and shared my

interests. I was listening rather than speaking actively regarding topics. The teacher and

students were great, kind, and energetic. The first challenge came from differences such

as language, age, race or ethnicity, and social conditions between myself and the

students. Since I was a language arts teacher in South Korea, I did not think about

studying abroad until I had a question about my practice of teaching. Thus, I have a lack

of knowledge of the American educational system and context, as well as English

language competence. Yet, I did not want to pretend to know what the students knew.

Instead, I often asked, “Could you tell me more about that?” “Could you give me a

specific example of that?” or “Could you describe in detail what happened?” To address

my somewhat “weird” positionality, I wrote several thank you cards to teachers at my

research sites to explain what my observation meant to me and how important it was.

Additionally, when I arrived to the classroom early, I sometimes asked about the English

curriculum and assessment system. The teachers’ common sense was new information

that helped me to understand the ELA curriculum and the rationale for why the teachers

provided certain kinds of assignments.

Although I have observed several ELA classrooms for four years, including my

research experience as a research associate and teaching experience as a teaching

35

associate, I still have difficulty understanding the meaning of every single word, event, or

behavior. At the same time, I have learned a lot from watching and listening to the

classes. I often ask my colleagues about something after my observation for more

understanding about the American educational context. Sometimes, I share my teaching

experiences from South Korea with the students and my colleagues. My movement from

teacher to researcher opened a door, broadening my views of literacy education. Through

this process, I am able to gain an ethnographic perspective.

In this study, I demonstrate how two teachers employed a structural epistemology

and an ideational epistemology and how these epistemologies become manifest in

instructional conversations about argumentative writing. I also illustrate how these

epistemological stances shaped the nature of the instructional conversation leading to

their students’ participation in the differing communities of practice. Language arts

teachers’ epistemologies and the interactions between teachers’ and students’

epistemologies indicate that teachers with different epistemologies will design lessons,

communicate with students, and evaluate student learning differently, with differing

assumptions about student learning and development process (Johnston, Woodside-Jiron,

& Day, 2001; Langer & Applebee, 1987; Newell et al., 2015). Despite the importance of

teachers’ epistemological stances, a search of the literature revealed few studies have

investigated teachers’ epistemologies (e.g., Kardash & Scholes, 1996). Specifically,

much uncertainty still exists about the links among teachers’ epistemological stances and

classroom discourse. In addition, there has been little effort to trace how students’ writing

practices develop as they participate in differing writing communities.

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In Chapter Three, I turn to illustrate the research methods for this study that are

grounded in these theoretical views and principles.

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Chapter 3. Research Methods

This study investigates two ninth grade ELA teachers’ instructional approaches to

teaching their students to write literature-related argumentative essays. Using an

ethnographic stance (Blommaert & Jie, 2010; Frank, 1999; Heath & Street, 2008) to

illuminate the situatedness of writing practices and classroom interactions during the

2017-2018 school year, I employed ethnographic data collection methods. To consider

instructional units in two English language arts classrooms, I applied analytical methods

from qualitative data analysis using coding and a microethnographic approach to

discourse analysis (Bloome et al., 2005; Newell, Bloome, Kim, & Goff, 2018; Saldaña,

2016) to continuously ask, “what is happening here?”

Three questions give direction to my project:

1. How did teachers talk about and plan curriculum with their epistemologies?

2. How are the teachers’ epistemologies for teaching argumentative writing made

evident in their instructional reasoning and enactment of instructional

conversations during their instructional units?

3. How and when are the teachers’ epistemologies appropriated by their 9th grade

students?

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Context of the Study

The study took place in two ninth grade ELA classrooms in two different large,

affluent, high-achieving districts in a suburban area in the Midwestern United States.

Two teachers, Ms. Foss and Ms. Glen (all names of participants and schools are

pseudonyms), recruited for this study, participated in a larger study of teaching and

learning argumentative writing in ELA classrooms. Both teachers had previously

collaborated with the Argumentative Writing Project as case study teachers: Ms. Foss

worked with the project during school year 2016-2017 and Ms. Glen participated in the

project during school year 2011-2012. This previous experience was valuable in that each

teacher had some understanding of not only data collection procedures but had relative

understanding of the goals of the Argumentative Writing Project, that is, to study the

teaching and learning of argumentative writing in high school ELA classrooms. Relying

on information about the teachers’ professional and academic experiences gathered as

part of the larger study, I identified teachers who were committed to teaching writing,

who taught in similar demographic school settings, and who had extensive experience

teaching the same grade level (9th).

Gaining Entrance to the Research Sites

Ms. Foss

Ms. Foss and I met in April of 2017 to discuss the possibility of me conducting

research in her ELA classroom for the school year 2017-2018. Since as part of the larger

project I had observed Ms. Foss’s classroom twice a week from late August 2016 through

the end of April 2017, we have spent much time talking about writing instruction and

39

varying educational backgrounds. She had fond memories of living in London, England

as an exchange student, and I also shared my experience as a postgraduate student in

England. We talked about English people, British English, and historic sites such as

Shakespeare’s Globe. During that time, we developed a good, positive, respectful

working relationship. Prior to the beginning of the new school year, I obtained approval

from her principal to conduct my study. After the first few school days, Ms. Foss and I

chose her fourth period section which was in session from 10:16 to 11:04 as the class I

would be observing. There were three primary reasons to choose this group of 9th

graders. First, Ms. Foss described this group as her more typical student learners, whereas

her other periods had more exceptional students or attention issues. Second, Ms. Foss and

I could meet during fifth and sixth period to work together and exchange ideas after the

class. Third, many of the students in the fourth period class had a study hall after the

class, which meant I could easily interview the students without a complicated procedure.

During one of my earliest observations, I introduced myself to the students in the

fourth period class and explained the main focus of my research, as well as illustrating how

they would be involved in my study. Assent forms for the students and consent forms for

their parents were distributed for signatures and returned to me. All but two of the twenty-

four students’ signed assent and parental consent forms were collected. During data

collection, I adjusted the video camera angles so that the nonconsenting students were not

videotaped.

Ms. Foss and I chose four focal students after a few weeks of observing the class

and reading the students’ first writing samples. The selected four students represented a

40

mixture of varying initial writing performance, gender, and in-class participation. I

explained my research project to each focal student individually and asked about the

possibility of participating in interviews with me about their experiences related to

learning to write and writing assignments. Each student agreed to participate in my

research as a focal student participant.

Ms. Glen

The second teacher I worked with, Ms. Glen, was introduced to me in June 2017

at a summer workshop on argumentation and argumentative writing. We talked about her

teaching experience with writing, and she was interested in my academic journey because

of the linguistic differences between English and Korean. We also talked through my

academic journey from England to the United States. During our conversation, I

discovered that her hometown was located close to Scarborough, England and that she

had earned her bachelor’s degree in Scotland. We quickly developed a smooth working

relationship. We talked about the foods and landscapes in Scarborough and Edinburgh

since I had visited these places while completing my master’s program in the United

Kingdom.

We talked through my initial research plans for collecting data and tentative

research questions. We met several times over a cup of coffee during the summer to talk

about my research in more depth. She agreed to allow me to observe her instruction and

her students. I communicated with her principal and school district superintendent to

discuss the study and obtained their signed approvals for the research project. Unlike Ms.

Foss, who I had already observed for one school year before my research project, I had

41

not had the opportunity to observe Ms. Glen’s lessons previously. Therefore, Ms. Glen

and I met a few more times at a cafe and talked about her teaching philosophy,

educational background, and her typical methods for teaching writing in order to better

understand her teaching practices prior to the beginning of my study.

A primary reason that I decided to focus on her seventh period class is that Ms.

Glen and I could talk after the school. I introduced myself to the students in her seventh

period and explained the main purpose of my study. Student assent forms and parental

consent forms were passed out to sign and return. All but two of the twenty-four students’

signed assent and parental consent forms were collected. I repositioned the video camera

so that the two nonconsenting students were not filmed.

Ms. Glen and I chose four focal students after a few weeks of observing the class.

I used the same criteria I had adopted for selecting focal students in Ms. Foss’s class, that

is, the four students represented a mixture of varying initial writing performance, gender,

and in-class participation. I explained the primary focus of my study to each individual

student and asked about the possibility of participating in interviews during the school

year about their learning experiences surrounding writing and writing tasks. All the

students agreed to participate in the study.

Research Design

I designed this study as qualitative research with an ethnographic perspective

(Agar, 2013; Blommaert & Jie, 2010; Heath & Street, 2008; Purcell-Gates, 2004). I

conducted it over the course of one academic year in two ninth-grade ELA classrooms.

At the beginning of the study, the two teachers and I met individually to discuss their

42

experience with and understanding of teaching writing and each of their curricular and

instructional plans to be implemented in the subsequent months. The large corpus of data

collected for this research consists of ethnographic observation, field notes, related

documents, samples of student work, and audio- and video-recorded lessons of ninth-

grade ELA teachers for the 2017-2018 school year. To render the data more manageable

and comparable, I focused on two instructional units in each teacher’s classroom near the

beginning of the school year; however, I used the more extensive corpus of data as a

wider context to aid in interpretation of the instructional units. The instructional units in

Ms. Foss’s classroom occurred from September 15 to November 14 and the instructional

units in Ms. Glen’s classroom occurred from September 25 to November 6.

Classroom lessons were video recorded to capture how their instructional writing

units engaged students in learning to write and how teachers with different

epistemologies for teaching writing navigated the process. Data included classroom

observations, field notes, instructional materials, and students’ written work. Interviews

with teachers and students will assist in triangulating findings. The data analysis

illustrated below will be collaborative with the teacher participants.

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Table 3.1. Key Features of Classrooms by Teachers

Ms. Foss, 9th Grade English Class

Ms. Glen, 9th Grade English Class

School Demographics

1,571 students: 1,210 White (77%), 126 African-American (8%), 94 Hispanic (6%), 79 Asian (5%), 62 Two or more races (4%)

1,439 students: 1,094 White (76%), 259 Asian (18%), 29 Hispanic (2%), 14 African-American (1%), 43 Two or more races (3%)

Classroom Demographics

24 students: 20 White, 2 African-American, 2 Hispanic

24 students: 18 White, 3 Hispanic, 2 Asian, 1 African-American

Teacher Ethnicity and Academic Demographics

White, B.A. in Journalism and M.A. in Education

White, B.A. in English and M.A. in English Education

Years of Teaching Experience

8 years 25 years

Professional Development Experiences with Argumentative Writing

Participant in a year-long study of teaching literature-related argumentative writing

Participant in week-long course on teaching argumentative writing.

Participants and School Sites

Ms. Foss taught at Hampton High School, a suburban school serving grades nine

through twelve. Hampton is located in a large, affluent, high-achieving district in a

suburban area within the Midwestern United States. Average household income for

families in this school district was approximately $83,800 per year. The majority of the

student population at Hampton is White (around 77%); the remaining demographic is

split between Asian (5%), Black (8%), Hispanic (6%), and multi-racial (4%).

Approximately 85% of the students make their way to 2- or 4-year colleges and

44

universities every year. Most students come from middle-class families. Ms. Foss was in

her eighth year of teaching at a high school level and held a master’s degree in teaching.

Her fourth-period language arts class participated in the study. Twenty-four

students from Ms. Foss’s fourth-period class participated in the study from beginning to

the end. Eleven were female, and thirteen were male. Twenty students were White, two

were African-American, and two were Hispanic. Four students were selected as focal

students in order to gain student views of Ms. Foss’s instruction and their learning

experience. In identifying focal students, they were invited based on whether they write

better or less at the start of the ninth-grade year, according to the teacher’s own

diagnostic assessment.

Ms. Glen, another ninth-grade teacher at Manchester High School, and her

seventh-period language arts class also participated in the study. Ms. Glen has a master’s

degree and 25 years of teaching experience at the high school level. Manchester is

located in a school district in a high-achieving suburban area within the Midwestern

United States. Average household income for families in this school district was

approximately $116,000 per year. The students at Manchester are predominantly White

(76%); 18% are Asians and 2% are Hispanics. Most students come from middle or upper-

middle class families. Approximately 93% of the students make their way to 2- or 4-year

colleges and universities every year.

Twenty-four students from Ms. Glen’s seventh-period class participated in this

study. Eleven were female, and thirteen were male. Eighteen students were White, three

were Hispanic, two were Asian, and one was African-American. Four students, as in Ms.

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Foss’s class, were invited as focal participants to gain a more thorough understanding of

their learning experience from the perspective of students.

Data Collection

To investigate the classroom culture and instructional practices for writing in the

two classrooms, I used an ethnographic approach, which provided an in-depth

understanding of the classroom contexts and practices (Heath & Street, 2008). An

ethnographic approach provided me with an emic understanding of the writing practices

that were valued in each classroom. I observed each teacher’s classroom instruction on a

daily basis to capture the range of patterns and routines the teachers developed for

teaching argumentative writing in their classrooms. I only missed the sessions that were

not closely relevant to the study (e.g., viewing movies). With each instructional unit I

conducted semi-structured pre- and post-observation interviews with the teachers, while

also collecting recorded video/audio files, teaching materials, and student work. These

data captured the teaching practices of two teachers who had differing epistemologies for

teaching writing. I organized all the data and transcribed the key events chronologically.

Classroom observations. For this study I focused my analysis on how teachers

with differing epistemologies for teaching argumentative writing orchestrated the

activities and materials that students engaged in to learn how to write. Observing the two

classrooms, I wrote field notes, which included the routines and patterns of each lesson,

especially for writing instruction, the emphasized areas of writing, and each teacher’s

orchestration of activities and materials, including modeling, teacher conferences, small

group work, and worksheets. I also paid attention to the classroom interactions around the

46

instruction, activities, tasks, and supports. Any potential action that appeared to influence

student writing practices was noted. I have divided my field notes into three columns

(Burgess, 1991). In the first column I describe what happened, using markings with the

clock time and event characteristics. The second column contains methodological notes,

including audio and video recorder placements, student worksheets, and handouts

distributions. Finally, I wrote theoretical notes in the third column, which include

thoughts and feelings I had about the particular classroom events I observed. See

Appendix A for an example of my field notes.

I mounted a video camera in the back corner of Ms. Foss’s classroom and in the

back of Ms. Glen’s classroom in order to record instructional conversations and

instructional activities. I also placed an audio recorder in the classroom in order to record

more student voices than could be heard with just a video recorder. When students

worked in small groups, I moved the audio and video recorder to record just one group. I

usually picked a group that contained one of my chosen focal students.

Student work and artifacts. All documents for the writing task, the student work

produced, and any supplemental materials were collected at the end of each classroom

observation. These data were analyzed for the understanding of instructional supports,

feedback from the teachers, and levels of intellectual challenge.

Interviews. I conducted semi-structured pre- and post-observation interviews

with teachers in order to understand their instructional decisions and pedagogical

practices in the classroom with particular attention on their argumentative

epistemologies. Moreover, through retrospective interviews with the two teachers, I tried

47

to grasp how their different epistemologies for teaching writing interplayed with their

instruction. I also asked questions to better understand how their intentions reflected in

their classroom writing instruction and writing tasks, as well as their responses to student

writing. These interviews allowed me to confirm my interpretations of how the two

teachers organized their instruction by drawing on differing epistemologies for

argumentative writing pedagogy. In other words, my interviews with the teachers

revealed their individual epistemologies for writing instruction, their understanding of

their pupils as writers, and their underlying assumptions behind their didactic supports.

My interviews with eight focal students—four from Ms. Foss’s and four from Ms.

Glen’s class—were about their experiences of learning to write in the classroom. They

usually shared their learning experiences through essays. My intention in interviewing

these focal students was to better understand how they conceived writing instruction,

learning to write, and argumentative writing tasks. I interviewed the focal students

individually in a quiet library room, and each interview typically lasted 15-20 minutes

(See Appendix B for interview questions).

Data Analysis

While the process of ethnographic research across studies shares the effort of

understanding the emic perspectives of participants, literacy researchers have revealed

variations in analytic procedures (Pole & Morrison, 2003). In my research project, in the

midst of the data collection phase, I have conducted analysis of the collected data, which

was helpful in organizing my thoughts and making efficient use of the data. Analysis was

conducted in three phases: (1) data organization, key event identification, and

48

transcription; (2) patterns identification across key events, field notes, interviews, and

artifacts; and (3) contextualized analysis of writing instruction, writing practices, and

writing experiences.

Phase 1: Data organization, key event identification, and transcription. The

first phase of analysis included data organization, transcription, and identification of key

events (Mitchell, 1984). During my data collecting procedure, I organized observational

audio and video files, corresponding handouts, student work, recorded interviews, and

field notes in electronic folders by date. Before the identification of key events, I mapped

the entire set of classroom observations by date, agenda, activity, and any memos I

wanted to describe about that session, primarily drawing upon the re-reading of my field

notes.

Using this map of classroom observations, I then constructed an instructional

chain (VanDerHeide & Newell, 2013), a series of key events, and connected classroom

activities (e.g., lecture, discussion, group work, writing), which all linked together for the

culminating argumentative writing task, per each teacher’s instruction. Regardless of the

primary agenda for each session, different events occur with different intentions; some

may be related to the upcoming school schedules, some may be related to student

behavior issues, some may be related to previous assignments, and some may be

completely unassociated with the major instructional topic. In this regard, an instructional

chain for the teaching and learning of argumentative writing is a set of key events that are

closely and explicitly connected and leading towards a summative argumentative writing

task or event. In the same way, a key event will be used to refer to a classroom event that

49

is essential for students’ learning about argumentative writing and how to write an

argumentative essay.

Figure 3.1. A Conceptual Map of an Instructional Chain

Figure 3.1 is a snapshot of an instructional chain for better understanding.

Identification of key events occurred when I wrote field notes during my observations of

classroom instructions and/or during the review of the audio and video recordings or field

notes after the classroom observations. Identification of key events also occurred during

the instructional chain construction. This preliminary interpretation involves an

interaction within the classrooms, and mediated dialogues between the theories of writing

and data collection. This recurring interpretation helps portray the writing practice

environment, different writing events, and participants. During this phase of

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identification of key events, I also created instructional chains (VanDerHeide & Newell,

2013) for each argumentative writing unit that appears in the data I collected. These

identified and clarified instructional chains and key events within each instructional chain

can be a fruitful guide when looking at the collected data during the ongoing analytic

process. This identification and construction procedure is a recursive rather than linear

process (see Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2. Key Event Identification Process

I judged each instructional chain on how it accumulated into a coherent whole and

continued curriculum as educational activities (Applebee, Burroughs, & Stevens, 2000).

Furthermore, I investigated how the instructional chain related to the teaching of

argumentative writing and by what method each teacher deciphered the event

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significance. Audiotaped data of all such key events were then transcribed. For the

present study, I only chose to further analyze the key events pertaining to major writing

instructional units in Ms. Foss and Ms. Glen’s classes. See Figures 3.3 and 3.4 on the

following pages for the argumentative writing instructional chain for each teacher.

Figure 3.3. Instructional Chains in Ms. Foss's Classroom

Figure 3.4. Instructional Chains in Ms. Glen's Classroom

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Within each instructional chain, the following criteria were used to narrow the

scope of research for selecting key events to be transcribed and for further analysis.

Firstly, I selected key events that were closely relevant to teaching and learning

argumentative writing. Secondly, I chose events in which there were explicit references

to argumentative writing such as argumentation elements. Thirdly, teachers confirmed

and recognized them as significant events in terms of argumentative writing instruction.

In order to grasp the features of epistemologies reflected in each instructional

unit—my first research question—the events can be counted as telling cases (Mitchell,

1984) focusing on teaching and learning about argumentative writing were selected as

material evidence to demonstrate ways of learning how to write in a classroom

community. The term ‘telling cases’ refers to “the particular circumstances surrounding a

case, serve to make previously obscure theoretical relationships suddenly apparent”

(Mitchell, 1984, p. 239). For example, in this dissertation, the first time Ms. Foss

introduced argumentative writing to her students, she walked them through an

instructional conversation about basic terms—claim, evidence, warrant—about

argumentation with example sentences, and then students analyzed an imaginary

scenario. Because this was the first time students analyzed a sample text together to

construct claim and evidence, and because students were able to apply what they had

learned—basic concepts of argumentation—to a sample text for the first time in a high

school classroom, this event was full of opportunities for me as well as the students to

make visible what Ms. Foss valued in argumentative writing and argumentation. The

aspects of argumentative writing Ms. Foss emphasized made apparent features of the

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underlying assumptions, ideology of learning argumentative writing, and a classroom

context as a learning community.

My second research question is associated with the typical instructional

conversations in each classroom. I chose to analyze typical events (Mitchell, 1984) per

classroom at different points in time. These typical events are repetitive patterns that can

demonstrate regularities. I transcribed all these typical, key events myself using NVivo

12 software. During the transcribing process, I focused on identifying different

instructional strategies, methods, and patterns rather than certain intonation, prosody, and

paralanguage. In brief, the primary focus of the analysis was on how teachers and

students instructed and responded to each other, emphasized certain aspects and

conceptions of argumentative writing.

The analyses of instructional conversations in each classroom were triangulated

with student works and interviews with teachers and students. Since I assume students’

act of writing reflects classroom lessons, activity, and learning, I regard student written

products as evidence to demonstrate how key events influence student writing and how

the teachers’ epistemologies are appropriated by their students. Student writing included

in-class writing works and the summative argumentative essays. I typed all of the student

participants’ essays to make transcripts using Microsoft Word. All of the interviews with

teachers and focal students were also transcribed using NVivo.

Phase 2: Patterns identification across key events, field notes, interviews, and

artifacts. In regard to exploring the data, I read through all of the gathered data in order

to fully grasp the information at hand. After analyzing field notes and looking for patterns

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across key events, I investigated inductively transcribed each teacher’s argumentative

writing unit without examining all the additional events that occurred in the classrooms

(e.g., attendance check, seat rearrangement). From scrutinizing the interviews, artifacts,

and instructional chains, the teachers’ goals and beliefs regarding teaching and learning

argumentative writing will be extracted by clarifying patterns in how teachers

orchestrated materials, activities, and writing assignments in order to grasp a particular

underlying assumption or belief for teaching and learning argumentative writing—in

other words, epistemologies for teaching argumentative writing.

I relied on an iterative process of exploring the collected data by re-reading it and

writing memos about initial impressions, interpretations, or emergent patterns. I re-read

the instruction transcripts, handouts, and student work as part of my data analysis.

Through the course of the data analysis, I annotated and made notes to identify patterns

of action and reaction and the types and construction of ‘meaning’ within their learning

community. The transcripts of interviews with teachers and focal students were also

annotated during my analysis. While re-reading and writing memos, I developed a few

initial codes and visual diagrams to illustrate how I was grasping the ways of teaching

and learning of argumentative writing in each learning community.

In order to be more specific, drawing on Newell et al.’s (2014) procedures, I

focused on the following questions to clarify each teacher’s epistemology for teaching

argumentative writing: how do you define argumentative writing and what proves to be

the key aspects of argumentative writing? How would you describe your teaching

methods for argumentative writing and what teaching methods continue to be essential

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for successful argumentative writing instruction? What would you say stands to be the

goals for teaching and learning argumentative writing in high school?

During this analytical phase, I also tried to probe each teacher’s decision process

and individual reasoning regarding key events through collaborative analysis in order to

avoid misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Collaborative data analysis comprises

reviewing video-recorded key events. During the interviews with the teachers, the focus

of this collaborative analysis held to figure out the teacher’s initial intentions and

instructional decisions during the event; I focused on understanding the teachers’

conceptions of the ways of teaching and learning argumentative writing in their

classrooms to gain a more emic understanding of the instructional context. After

examining the motives behind particular pedagogical moves, I could interpret teachers’

classroom contextual understanding, as well as the particular challenges teachers face.

Phase 3: Contextualized analysis of writing instruction, writing practices,

and writing experiences. Key events interweaved, overlapped, and merged into the

larger patterns across longer periods of time as they fit into the larger curriculum of

discourse during the 2017-2018 school year. By continuing to study the structure of

practices of teaching and learning of writing in each classroom, as an iterative and

recursive process, all transcripts of key events were coded according to the coding

scheme. Hence, the coding was used to describe the key events by blocking and labeling

text segments.

Coding is “the process of grouping evidence and labeling ideas so that they reflect

increasingly broader perspectives” (Creswell & Clark, 2018, p. 214). The coding frame

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for the analysis will be created, drawing from a variety of sources (Saldaña, 2016). To

create potential topic codes and coding labels, writing research synthesis texts were used:

Teaching and Learning Argumentative Writing in High School English Language Arts

Classrooms (Newell et al., 2015), Classroom Talk as Writing Instruction for Learning to

Make Writing Moves in Literary Arguments (VanDerHeide, 2017), and Examining

Intertextual Connections in Written Arguments (Wynhoff Olsen, VanDerHeide, Goff, &

Dunn, 2018). In coding stages, I divided the transcribed texts into small message units,

then assigned a code label to each message unit, and categorized them in order to create

major themes. I hand coded the data directly on a transcript and used a qualitative data

analysis software, NVivo, together so that the collected and analyzed data could easily be

retrieved. During this process, intracoder consistency was analyzed to establish the

reliability of this study by checking the consistent manner of coding (Cohen, Manion, &

Morrison, 2011; Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Aside from the classroom interactions, the

transcriptions of student works, materials, and interviews with teachers and students were

also being coded in order to explore argumentative writing instruction from different

standpoints.

Data analysis procedures of each phase for the present study might seem to be a

linear process, but in fact would involve multiple iterations and recursive processes. As

for the third phase, it would consist of a multilayered analysis inspecting all student

works, materials, and relevant events associated with students’ final essays within each

instructional chain and individual session. In doing so, intertextual traces will be

categorized (Dixon & Green, 2005; Wynhoff Olsen, VanDerHeide, Goff, & Dunn, 2018;

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Prior, 1995). Each intertextual trace will be examined for confirming the interpretations

emerging from phase one and two by identifying: 1) the connections between what

students were relying on and the previous events, 2) transformations of the teacher’s

intentions, and 3) the student’s accomplishment within a particular classroom

community. This approach will provide powerful triangulation that demonstrates

concurrent validity (Cohen et al., 2011). The methodological triangulation that examines

multiple data—from the classroom interactions, materials, student writing samples, to

interviews with participants—functions to produce an in-depth and rich description of

each high school English language arts classroom by controlling different perspectives

and subjectivity (Campbell & Fiske, 1959; Denzin, 1970).

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Chapter 4: How did Teachers Talk About and Plan Curriculum with Their Epistemologies and How are the Epistemologies of Teachers Revealed

In this chapter, I will overview each teacher’s epistemology for teaching

argumentative writing by exploring the first instructional unit on argumentative writing in

two ninth grade ELA classrooms. This chapter is an introduction to two teachers with

different epistemologies and aspects of instructional plans. To be more specific, taking a

macro view, I will explore how these epistemologies are reflected in the instructional

units by analyzing instructional conversations and classroom events to understand the

ways of teaching and learning writing within the classroom community. Pre- and post-

observation interviews were also examined to grasp the teachers’ definitions of

argumentative writing, conceptions about key components of argumentative writing, and

approaches to teaching argumentative writing. In doing so, I aim to answer my first

research question:

How did teachers talk about and plan curriculum with their epistemologies?

Recall from Chapter Two that I frame this study within a community of practice

and a sociocultural framework. Since teaching and learning to write are a situated

practice within a particular context and teaching practices and learning outcomes are

influenced by teachers’ epistemologies, grasping of epistemologies is instrumental. These

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epistemologies afford and constrain the ways of learning to write within a classroom as a

learning community. I define epistemology as a constellation of beliefs about writing,

teaching and learning to write, and approaches to teaching and assessment (see Newell et

al., 2014). In other words, a teacher’s epistemology for writing is personal beliefs about

how the knowledge of writing is constructed, which is linked to the features of

instructional strategies and as well as valued contents. In order to understand these

epistemologies within each classroom context, analysis of instructional chains, classroom

activities, and pre- and post- classroom observation interviews with the teachers were

conducted.

Structural and Ideational Epistemologies

In this section, I will discuss how each teacher designed instructional plans for

teaching literature-related argumentative writing. Classroom activities, events, and

instructional strategies were significantly affected by teachers’ epistemologies. I will

begin by discussing how each teacher described their teaching philosophies and teaching

experiences in connection with the teachers’ curriculum plans. Following this, I will

illustrate how each teacher approached teaching argumentative writing. The first

instructional unit is important because it was the ninth graders’ entry into argumentative

writing at a high school level. I will then discuss the features of epistemologies reflected

in each teacher’s instructional units by analyzing teachers’ initial intentions and

debriefings.

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Ms. Foss with Structural Epistemology

When we met in August 2017, Ms. Foss shared her curriculum plan for the 2017-

2018 school year. She explained that this was the second year in which she attempted to

teach argumentative writing. Although she learned about argumentative writing during

the summer workshop, Ms. Foss described herself as a reading teacher because,

according to her, she had not taken any writing method courses during her teacher

education program. She explained that she would give students an argumentative writing

task about Of Mice and Men, and her intention for this argumentative writing task was to

teach argumentative writing as a tool for exploring multiple perspectives toward literary

understandings.

In her first instructional unit for teaching argumentative writing, Ms. Foss taught

the Toulmin’s (1958) elements of argumentation and provided a pre-set structure.

Specifically, Ms. Foss taught basic terms such as claim and evidence through “Tragedy in

the Bathroom” activities (Hillocks, 2011). Ms. Foss repeatedly stated during the

interviews that her academic preparation did not encompass pedagogical training for

teaching writing. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and finished her

Master’s program in General Education. Consequently, several professional development

programs and the book, The Dynamics of Writing Instruction by Smagorinsky and his

colleagues (2010), provided her with minimal opportunities to acquire pedagogical

knowledge for teaching writing. To compensate for the training gap, she concentrated on

Toulmin’s elements of argumentation and a rigid pre-set structure. The limited

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professional preparation narrowed the argumentative writing she presented to students to

a paragraph structure set by the teacher.

When asked how she taught students to apply basic elements of the Toulmin

model to their writing, Ms. Foss explained:

As a class, we come up with a claim and use a graphic organizer to write about it.

So, this would be really just kind of modeling what I want them to do on their

own, but do it as a whole class. So that’s really going to be just modeling, and

then there’s paragraph notes on how to write a paragraph (interview,

09/07/2017).

Graphic organizers represent a pre-set structure that Ms. Foss used in instructional

conversations with students. She said that graphic organizers will provide a format for

students to use to write argumentative essays, which will explicitly help ninth grade

students because they had to complete different types of writing: “I think a lot of times

students in the younger grades did more narrative writing. So that's why I thought it

would be a good idea to start by introducing graphic organizers, as they haven't been

exposed to them before” (interview, 09/06/2017).

Ms. Foss used the terms, chart and graphic organizer, interchangeably. When

asked how she utilized a pre-set structure, such as a graphic organizer, to demonstrate

how to learn to write argumentative essays, Ms. Foss explained, “I am going to have

them complete the pre-writing chart independently. Each student will need to complete

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his or her own chart. I think this helps them to have ownership of their work, since they

must complete their own chart” (interview, 09/06/2017). Within the chart, also called a

graphic organizer in this classroom, there were specific spaces to delineate the claim and

evidence. The graphic organizer proved to be a powerful tool that sparked student

writing. It dissected the mechanics of producing one body paragraph into a step-by-step

process. Students brainstormed and filled in blanks in the graphic organizer sheets.

Robin, one of the focal students, expounded his experience of using graphic organizers

for argumentative writing:

While using the graphic organizer, I didn’t just think about the claim and the

thesis. I was able to start writing right away. The graphic organizer helped me

develop my ideas, which allowed me to compose more effective writing. I think

it was nice because it allowed us to figure out what was missing from our essay

(interview, 12/08/2017).

Ms. Foss mentioned how the graphic organizer would pave the way for effective

argumentative writing: “This first graphic organizer, which you are going to complete,

will allow you to organize your paper and help you get started.” Ms. Foss’s graphic

organizer demonstrated her structural epistemology for assigned writing tasks. Ms. Foss

explicitly taught students to write a body paragraph with sentences sequenced in the

following order:

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1. Claim: the main idea of the paragraph

2. First textual evidence: quoted word-for-word or paraphrased

3. Warrant: an explanation that connects the first textual evidence with the

claim

4. Second textual evidence: quoted word-for-word or paraphrased

5. Warrant: an explanation that connects the second textual evidence with the

claim

6. Conclusion: wrap up the paragraph

Ms. Foss implemented this formulaic approach to provide a scaffold which would

reinforce the proper sequence of sentences and to assist students with meeting writing

requirements. She also believed graphic organizers would assist her students with

handling the argumentative writing task by breaking an assignment into smaller steps and

by allowing them to organize their thoughts visually.

To begin teaching argumentative writing, Ms. Foss questioned her ninth-grade

students: “When you think of an argument, what is the first thing you think of?” She then

pressed students by asking, “What is an argument? What are you talking about if you are

thinking of an argument?” Using an example activity, called the “Tragedy in the

Bathroom,” Ms. Foss and her students spent two days collectively identifying potential

evidence. Then, Ms. Foss requested that each student formed a specific claim based on

what they noticed from the evidence collected from the bathroom scene. Next, Ms. Foss

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explained how claims and evidence could be connected, and then asked students to

explain the relationships between their claims and the available evidence.

During sessions 3 and 4, Ms. Foss introduced two writing strategies: a graphic

organizer and a color-coding strategy. Ms. Foss emphasized the importance of these two

strategies and explained that the students would use these strategies for the whole school

year when they write argumentative essays. The unit’s instructional chain, presented

below, demonstrates her instruction sequence. (See Figure 4.1)

Figure 4.1. First Instructional Chain in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Sessions 1-2 (9/14, 9/15) Ms. Foss lectured definitions of claim, evidence, and warrant using slides. “Tragedy in the Bathroom” activity Students shared the evidence they discovered with their small group members.

Session 3 (9/20) Ms. Foss explained the graphic organizer to the students. She modeled a graphic organizer In small groups, students gathered evidence from “Yummy” using a graphic organizer

Session 4 (9/21) Ms. Foss introduced a color-coding strategy. She modeled how to color-code sentences with a sample paragraph.

Sessions 5-6 (9/22, 9/25) The teacher explained a color-coding strategy again. The teacher and students discussed sample color-coded paragraphs as a whole class.

Argumentative Essay Assignment Writing one paragraph argumentative essay about a short story.

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Session 3 began with an introduction on paragraph structure (Figure 4.2). The

following statement illustrates Ms. Foss’s lecture:

What we are going to look at today is what you should do with the information

that you gathered yesterday to produce a paragraph. So this is a basic paragraph

structure and I will specifically talk about how you write about literature. Writing

about literature is going to be really structured writing. So this will help you

learn basic structure paragraph. When you get older, you can start changing it

[how you construct your paragraphs]. You can add your own voice to it. So right

now, we will focus on writing a strong, structured paragraph.

In her lectures, Ms. Foss required all students to use the same predetermined

essay structure format. The predetermined sequence of elements of argumentation

represents her structural epistemology. Ms. Foss assessed student work based on the

formulaic scaffold she provided. Coupled with the six elements indicated above, Ms.

Foss examined other central factors used to display textual features: appropriate use of

MLA format, transition words, plus grammar and usages. Though Ms. Foss taught the

basic argumentation elements, the predetermined essay structure prohibited students from

flexibly writing. For example, a student could not write a warrant before textual evidence,

for the instructed sequence prevented deviation from the fixed path. Prohibitively, the

assignment forbade students to write beyond the structural sequence.

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Figure 4.2. Body Paragraph Structure

1. Claim (ex: First, …)

2. Information that sets up the textual evidence (ex: For example when …)

3. Textual evidence (ex: “Direct quote”)

4. Explanation of the evidence (ex: This shows/presents/illustrates that …)

5. Information that sets up the textual evidence (ex: Another example is when …)

6. Textual evidence (ex: “Direct quote”)

7. Explanation of the evidence (ex: This shows/presents/illustrates that …)

8. Conclusion (ex: Essentially,/All in all, …)

Ms. Foss also supplemented her structural epistemology through color-coding

activities. Color-coding activities were designed to assist students in remembering the

main role of each sentence and to help organize a paragraph by color-coding. For

example, students needed to highlight their topic sentence in green and their textual

evidence in yellow (See Figure 4.3 and 4.4 for the details).

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Figure 4.3. Color-Coding System

Color Paragraph Element

Green Claim / Topic Sentence

Underline Blue Information that sets up the evidence, including…

· explanation of what’s going on in the story

· speech tag (i.e., who says the quote in the story)

Yellow Textual Evidence

Red In-Text Citation (This means the information in parentheses.)

Blue Warrant

· The writer’s own words of explanation how the evidence

supports the claim

Purple Concluding Sentence (wraps up the main idea of the paragraph)

· Rephrase the claim / topic sentence

· Mention both pieces of textual evidence (fact sandwiches)

Orange Transitions/Transitional phrases

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Figure 4.4. An Example of Color-Coded Student Writing

In Gary Neri graphic novel “Yummy” the main character yummy was a victim of being

in a gang and having a very bad childhood. He was abused and neglected, which out a

mom or dad. Yummy was a victim of having a bad childhood. Through the book, We

learned about the abuse and neglect yummy had felt. His mom had beaten him from a

very young age before the mom was in sentence to time in jail. Sometimes while

hanging out with his friends or other gang member yummy would show the scars off.

Rogers says, “ Ever since I knew him, when he was just 3, Yummy had scars and burns

all over himself. He showed them off to us”(Neri 22). Yummy was so beaten and

abused that he had scars on his stomach. Yummy was a victim of neglect and abuse by

his mom and made him feel unimportant or unwanted. Furthermore, the second piece

of evidence is when yummy shot and killed the girl. Right after that people were

stunned, everybody knew who yummy was and knew this time that he had really

screwed up. When shavon mom was told that shavon died, shavon mom said “I used to

carry that boy to church. He sang in my choir with my daughter”(Neri 47). This shows

that yummy at one point was a good kid who was polite and willing to do good things.

Yummy was a victim of gang violence and of being in a gang. If yummy wasn't in this

gang he would have never pulled that trigger. The reason why he did is because he saw

a rival gang member but, ended up missing the target and hitting shavon.

Lastly,Yummy was a victim of being in a gang and having a abusive childhood and

having no one to be a role model for yummy.

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In addition to asking students to color-code each sentence in their writing, Ms.

Foss provided students with a series of sample paragraphs which she had produced.

Using Ms. Foss’s color-coding system and sample paragraphs, students worked

independently to identify the role of each sentence within a paragraph by color-coding

each sentence individually. After this independent color-coding activity, Ms. Foss

explained the correct color for each sentence. The color-coding activity made it clear

what the role and sequence of sentences should be across sample paragraphs.

As discussed above, structural epistemology was predominant in her instructional

strategies, classroom activities, and writing tasks. Ms. Foss explicitly taught

argumentative writing by having students learn a specific structural form. Ms. Foss’s

instructions helped students produce argumentative essays by relying on a predetermined

form with a specific sequence of sentences within the paragraph. The structured format

that Ms. Foss provided helped students understand what and how to produce a paragraph

in a step-by-step manner, as well as to figure out what elements of argumentation may be

missing in their writing.

Ms. Glen with Ideational Epistemology

As the previous section focused on the first instructional chain for argumentative

writing in Ms. Foss’s classroom, an examination of the first instructional chain for

teaching argumentation in Ms. Glen’s classroom would also be helpful for an overview of

her epistemology for argumentative writing.

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When we met during the summer of 2017, Ms. Glen shared her teaching

philosophy with me. She believes that writing as much as possible is great for learning to

write, whereas writing once a week or quarter might not be as effective. According to her,

repetition and establishing a writing routine are important for high school students. She

also wants to be a good writer and often keeps a journal. She thinks that working with the

National Library Project had the biggest impact on her writing, because it shifted her

perspective to approaching writing as a writer and not as a teacher. Her teaching

philosophy and ideational epistemology were also well reflected during the library day in

her class. Usually every Wednesday, there was a library day in which the students would

read a book individually, write a paper, or conduct a one-to-one conference. She stressed

the importance of the library day for establishing a writing habit by stating:

They’ve been reading a lot. My feeling is, the more you read, the better at writing

you become. My philosophy really is anybody can write - you can write, we all

can write. Yeah, we may not know how to develop our writing, but we can write.

If we can speak, we can write. So, let's start from that space instead of a more

structured you need this and this. Now, there are still some students who want to

know how many sentences should be in the first paragraph. I’m not even going to

answer that question and that's not my philosophy (interview, 09/06/2017).

For the first several weeks of the 2017-2018 school year, she gave multiple non-

graded writing tasks to students because she believed that grades restricted students and

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reduced the educational value of an assignment. The writing tasks Ms. Glen designed

were as follows:

Design a personal coat of arms and explain each element.

Explain what the theme in a story is.

Write a letter to a friend describing Hamadi and his characteristics.

Write a one-page obituary for Doodle.

Write a short story reflective journal.

Draw the Leiningen Map.

Write a narrative essay.

For the first instructional chain for teaching argumentative writing, Ms. Glen

orchestrated a classroom activity involving a dilemma regarding a lifeboat situation. The

students proposed how to determine which six of twelve people must leave the lifeboat.

To Ms. Glen, argumentative writing was a tool for teaching and learning ways of thinking

rather than a particular predetermined structure. Although she did explain terms such as

claim and evidence, these elements typified principles for developing ideas rather than

serving as an end in themselves. In contrast to the typical formulaic approach to teaching

writing using a five-paragraph form, Ms. Glen facilitated an environment in which

students practiced writing every day to be comfortable as writers. To provide appropriate

one-to-one conferencing for each student, she focused on determining the levels of

writing skill of her ninth-grade students:

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At the conference, I will say, ‘I noticed that you wrote a paragraph. How do you

normally approach essays? Is it successful for you? What do you think?’ So, it

gives me an opening to figure out, and it’s usually those kids who really hate

writing – it’s their weak area. So, it gives me an opportunity to look at what they

know already and then really talk to them about it (interview, 08/16/2017).

She stressed the need for learners’ voices and the teacher’s role as a facilitator.

Notably, she identified herself not only as a teacher who evaluated student writing but

also as a writer. Therefore, in her classroom, writing is a valued activity for developing

the students as writers:

I think about how I approach writing and how I can be better at it. It puts me in a

different place compared to simply reading the academic literature and trying

something out. I think, ‘How can I do this, and if I’m having problems, how

would I fix it? How do I make myself a better writer?’ (interview, 08/16/2017).

These beliefs about teaching writing and identity shaped Ms. Glen’s

epistemologies for teaching and learning writing differently, especially in comparison to

those of Ms. Foss. Ms. Foss provided formal writing instruction, explicitly focusing on

appropriate forms and structures. In contrast, Ms. Glen focused on eliminating the

psychological barriers that prevent students from writing:

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One of the problems that kids have is in getting started. So, I’m going to spend a

class period with different brainstorming techniques, just a list of things or ideas

that they can bounce off each other, maybe working in small groups. I have a

whole bunch of ideas that I can use to get them thinking about a narrative

(interview, 09/06/2017).

Devoid of explicit writing instructions about predetermined, acceptable structures,

students in Ms. Glen’s classroom had to determine appropriate forms and textual features

through an analysis of exemplary writing samples. Ms. Glen’s writing assessment

indicated her ideational epistemology. Instead of scoring argumentative structures and

textual features in the writing, Ms. Glen adopted a holistic scoring approach emphasizing

the overall argument quality.

The instructional chain began with class and small group discussions of the

complicated situations within a short story. The discussions provided students with

opportunities for sharing their initial feelings and ideas. For Ms. Glen, these activities

were an essential aspect of her lesson because they allowed the students to practice

making claims with evidence and to develop ideas by exploring conflicting perspectives.

Most students participated in the discussions, and sometimes Ms. Glen randomly called

on students to share their ideas with the class. To elucidate her instructional sequence,

Figure 4.5 exhibits Ms. Glen’s instructional chain.

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After discussing possible outlines, basic rhetorical elements, and the scoring

approach, the students began work on their argumentative essays using their

Chromebooks. Each student chose one person out of twelve who must stay in the lifeboat

and wrote an argumentative essay defending that choice. The instructional unit’s

orchestration and Ms. Glen’s dedication to the writing activities signaled how she valued

the ideas developed by the students. Because there was no prearranged structure in the

writing assignments, the focus of the questions and feedback was on the students’ ideas.

Figure 4.5. First Instructional Chain in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Session 1 (9/25) Ms. Glen lectured definitions of ethos, pathos, logos as basic elements of rhetoric. Whole-class discussions focused on examples of each element. Students read the short story of The People on Lifeboat.

Session 2 (9/26) Ms. Glen explained the basic outline and essential factors considered for a good argumentation in terms of speech and essay. She explained the scoring system.

Session 3 (9/29) Students worked on their essays independently. The teacher walked around the classroom and provided one-on-one conferences.

Sessions 4-6 (10/3, 5, 6) Students presented arguments in front of the whole class and the teacher and classmates asked questions and provided feedback on individual student essays.

Ms. Glen’s approaches to argumentative writing with her ideational epistemology

regard argumentation as a way to create and develop original ideas rather than an end

unto itself. In other words, argumentative writing is a tool for students to develop

thinking and to grasp conflicting perspectives, not the final destination.

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How are the Epistemologies of Teachers Revealed

In this section, I return to the second research question: how are the teachers’

epistemologies for teaching argumentative writing made evident in their instructional

reasoning and enactment of instructional conversations during their instructional units?

This analysis will seek to answer this question by exploring the instructional chain within

each teacher’s classroom to determine how each teacher’s epistemology is evident in

their instructional conversations over time. Specifically, I will explore how each teacher

provides explicit instructions for teaching argumentative writing over time in order to

guide students.

This section demonstrates a discourse analysis of instructional conversations at

different points in time. Recall from Chapter 3 that an instructional chain is a series of

key events and connected classroom activities, which link together for the culminating

argumentative writing task. In this chapter, Ms. Foss’s instruction leads up to the

argumentative essay about Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and Ms. Glen’s

instruction leads up to the argumentative essay about the Lord of the Flies by William

Golding.

The first key event series—the instructional chain 1—was described in the

previous section of this chapter, which provided an introduction of argumentative

elements with the first in-class writing task. As a telling case (Mitchell, 1984), a key

event series showed that the teacher and students in each classroom talked about and

wrote argumentative essays, and they created a learning community by organizing

teaching and learning methods. The second key event series—the instructional chain 2—

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occurred from October 30th to November 14th in Ms. Foss’s classroom and from October

17th to November 6th in Ms. Glen’s classroom. Each instructional chain, a series of key

events, was constructed as a “telling case” (Mitchell, 1984, p. 240), showing a typical,

ordinary type of writing instruction within each classroom during the argumentative

writing unit.

As can be seen below, Table 4.1 and 4.2 present all of the instructional events that

were connected with teaching and learning of literature-related argumentative writing in

each classroom. The content of these lessons focused on the student's understanding and

analysis of the novels, and their subsequent writing tasks. These lessons occurred as

teacher-oriented lectures or instructional conversations that were teacher-led, student-led,

small group oriented or classroom lectures.

As shown in Table 4.1, the event series on argumentation elements that took place

from September 15-21 and on the use of a graphic organizer from October 30-November

1, served particularly well as typical cases. This can be seen in the event series on

argumentation elements that took place from September 25-29 and on writing about Lord

of the Flies from October 26th-November 6th (Table 4.2). This is because each event

series began with a teacher-oriented classroom lecture, then moved to small group

conversations, and finished with independent work. Therefore, each event series

consisted of different routines of instructional conversations.

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Table 4.1. Instructional Events for Literature-Related Argumentative Writing with Focal Events in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Date Topic Whole Class

Small Group

Teacher-Led

Student-Led

One-on-one

8.29 Notice and Note X X 8.30 Notice and Note X X 8.31 Notice and Note X X 9.1 Notice and Note X X 9.5 Notice and Note X X 9.6 Yummy introduction X X 9.7 Reading Yummy X X X 9.8 Discussion and free writing X X X 9.11 Notice and Note X X 9.12 Notice and Note X X 9.14 “Tragedy in the Bathroom” X X X X 9.15 Argumentation terms X X 9.20 Graphic organizer introduction X X X X 9.21 Color coding introduction X X X X X 9.22 Color coding X X 9.25 Color coding X X X 9.26 Evidence, warrant samples X X 9.27 Independent writing X 9.28 Independent writing X 10.3 Of Mice and Men Intro. X X 10.6 John Steinbeck biography X X 10.9 OM&M Reading Chapter 1 X 10.11 OM&M Reading Chapter 2 X 10.13 OM&M Reading Chapter 3 X 10.16 OM&M Reading Chapter 4 X 10.19 OM&M Reading Chapter 5, 6 X 10.24 OM&M Character Sketch X X 10.25 Independent work X X 10.26 Character’s defining moment X X X 10.27 Power chart X X 10.30 Prompts and essay structure X X 10.31 Graphic organizer X X 11.1 Claim proposal X X X 11.2 Textual evidence X 11.3 Textual evidence X 11.6 Textual evidence X X 11.8 Independent writing X X 11.9 Body paragraph X X X 11.10 Independent writing X 11.13 Conclusion paragraph X X X 11.14 Rubric X X

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Table 4.2. Instructional Events for Literature-Related Argumentative Writing with Focal Events in Ms. Glen’s classroom

Date Topic Whole Class

Small Group

Teacher-Led

Student-Led

One-on-one

8.18 Coat of Arms X X 8.21 Coat of Arms X X 8.22 Coat of Arms X X 8.25 Literary terms X X 8.28 A Sound of Thunder X X 8.29 Hamadi X X X 8.30 Letter describing Hamadi X X 9.1 Obituary for Doodle X X X 9.5 Cask of Amontillado X X X 9.8 Most Dangerous Game X 9.8 Discussion and free writing 9.11 Leiningen vs. The Ants X X 9.12 Map project for Leiningen X X 9.14 Peer reading of MDG X X 9.15 Argumentation terms 9.19 Brainstorming X X 9.21 Independent writing X X 9.25 Ethos, pathos, logos X X X 9.26 Lifeboat writing X X X 9.29 Independent writing X X 10.3 Lifeboat speech X X 10.5 Lifeboat speech X X 10.6 Lifeboat speech X X 10.9 Lord of the Flies intro. X X X X 10.10 Chapter 1 reading X X 10.12 Chapter 2 handout X X 10.13 Chapter 3, 4 reading X X 10.16 Chapter 4, 5 reading X X 10.17 Discussion X X 10.24 Discussion X X 10.26 Discussion X X 10.27 Study guide check X X 11.3 MLA style X X 11.6 Prompts and writing X X

Investigating two event series in each classroom at different times, the typical

cases can illustrate ordinary situations in each classroom for teaching and learning

argumentative writing over time. The topics of these key event series were also the main

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focus for argumentative writing, including the following: imaginary scenarios, the use of

a graphic organizer, and literature-related argumentation. Accordingly, these cases were

important social events and processes of teaching and learning literature-related

argumentative writing as a gateway to learn about argumentative writing at the high

school level.

As described in Chapter 3, I examined the selected key events for clear evidence

of argumentative, literary, and epistemological moves that illustrate different ways of

learning to write literature-related argumentative essays in the learning community. I also

explored the key events for explicit instruction for teaching argumentation with different

epistemologies. I will begin by describing basic contextual information on the focal event

series, and will then discuss results and findings about teaching and learning literature-

related argumentative writing with different epistemologies.

Description of Events

Recall that this section presented an overview of two teachers’ approaches to

teaching argumentative writing with different epistemologies before a detailed analysis.

This overview focused on interviews before the start of 2017-2018 school year, with field

notes for August and September, and post-observation interviews in September.

Ms. Foss. In Ms. Foss’s classroom, the first instructional chain—the first event

series—took place September 15th-21st 2017. The primary focus of this three-day

sequence was to introduce argumentation elements and structural forms. Prior to the in-

class instructional conversations, students participated in an activity entitled “Tragedy in

the Bathroom.” This was an imaginary crime mystery scenario, which allowed students to

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play the role of a detective, in order to learn about making an argument with relevant

evidence. The first instructional chain also included explicit instructions on using a

graphic organizer and how to properly color-code. The students were asked to fill in the

empty slots in a graphic organizer and highlight using different colors, according to the

roles of sentences within a paragraph. A graphic organizer was used as a scaffolding tool

for students to learn to create claims with supporting evidence. The use of a graphic

organizer and color-coding assisted students in learning a systematic approach to writing

argumentative essays. For example, students were able to understand what argumentation

elements should be placed in what order within a body paragraph. Additionally, color-

coding activities for multiple writing examples served to reinforce these argumentation

pattern rules.

On the first day, Ms. Foss introduced argumentation elements—argument, claim,

evidence, warrant—as a teacher-led whole-class lecture. She began by explaining the

importance of learning about argumentative writing. According to Ms. Foss,

argumentation is “a skill essential to our success as citizens, students, and workers.

Argument is important in all disciplines.” Following this, Ms. Foss connected the

meaning of literature and learning about argumentative writing. She stressed that creating

argumentative writing about literature is not to win a fight, but to inquire further into the

subject, which helps us more deeply understand and critically think about literature. In

the second key event within the first instructional chain, on September 20th, Ms. Foss

introduced a graphic organizer to better assist students with brainstorming techniques

(See Appendix C), using prompts about four different short stories they had read.

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Figure 4.6. Prompts for the Second Key Event

Choose one prompt for your argumentative writing: Prompt for “Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push” Who was changed more by Chris playing wheelchair basketball - Chris or his dad? Prompt for “Sol Painting, Inc.” How do you think Merci will act differently in the future after what she witnessed her father do at the school? Prompt for Yummy Is Yummy a bully, a victim, or both? Prompt for “The Treasure of Lemon Brown” How did Greg change as a result of meeting Lemon Brown? For the free write, answer the prompt and then explain your answer.

Divided into small groups, the students analyzed a selected short story to find four

examples of textual evidence and then detailed their discoveries using graphic organizers.

On the third day of the first instructional chain, September 21st, Ms. Foss introduced a

basic paragraph structure and color-coding strategy. For this instructional chain, I

analyzed the teacher's method of teaching literature-related argumentative writing and the

class discussion about textual evidence.

The second instructional chain took place October 30th-November 1st, and

November 14th. Prior to this instructional chain, students read Of Mice and Men by John

Steinbeck during October 3rd-19th, and then explored the story plot and character

relations during October 24th-27th. The major focus of the second instructional chain

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was the students' ability to create argumentative writing about the novel, Of Mice and

Men. The instructional chains—the first and second key event series—structured the

writing instruction so that students were able to learn the basic elements of argumentation

and textual features of argumentative essays (Figure 4.7). The summative writing task of

the first instructional chain was the creation of one paragraph of an argumentative essay,

using color-coding and graphic organizers. The final writing task of the second

instructional chain was the creation of a five-paragraph argumentative essay. Detailed

analytic tables for these instructional chains are shown in Appendix D.

Figure 4.7. Instructional Chain Structure in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

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Ms. Glen. In Ms. Glen’s classroom, the first instructional chain took place

September 25th-29th. The primary focus of this three-day event was to introduce basic

elements of argumentation and to establish good writing habits. For this event series,

September 25th-29th, the focus of analysis was on the teacher’s methods of teaching

argumentation elements and the class discussion of these basic elements.

The students were introduced to various topics, such as to Aristotle’s Appeals—

ethos, pathos, and logos—and the nature of speech and writing. Argumentation elements

were classified as tools for generating and developing logical ideas, rather than indicators

of pre-determined sequences of sentences within a paragraph. The uses of argumentation

in this way allowed an independent interpretation, instead of requiring compliance with

textual regulations, such as MLA styles. For example, whenever they were assigned

writing tasks, students often asked several questions about the necessary number of

sentences per paragraph or the required length of the essay, but Ms. Glen did not limit the

number of words or pages.

On the first day of the first instructional unit, Ms. Glen explained to the students

the nature of argumentative writing. Through a teacher-led lecture, she explained the

purpose and audience of argumentative writing and speech. According to her,

argumentative writing and speech are important because “we have to do a lot of it. We

have to do it every year [even after leaving high school].” Additionally, Ms. Glen

explained the perspective of an audience and how to create impactful essays and

speeches. She declared that effective argumentation hinges on establishing credibility,

which encourages an audience to agree with the author's perspective.

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Figure 4.8. Lifeboat Dilemma Scenario

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On September 26th, students participated in an activity entitled “Lifeboat

Dilemma,” in which students had to determine which human beings must leave or remain

aboard on a lifeboat. This was the students’ first argumentative writing task in Ms. Glen’s

classroom for this academic year. The purpose of the task was to apply argumentation

elements to a real-world situation. “Lifeboat Dilemma” asked students to place

themselves into the shoes of a specific character and argue their claims to stay on the boat

using supportive evidence. Students wrote an argumentative essay from the perspective

of their chosen character and then delivered a speech based on this essay. On the third

day of the first instructional chain, September 29th, Ms. Glen allowed the students to

independently finalize their writing.

The second instructional chain took place between October 26th-November 6th.

The major focus of this event series was argumentative writing about Lord of the Flies by

William Golding. Prior to this instructional chain, students read the Lord of the Flies, and

explored the themes and character relations between October 9th-24th. The first and

second instructional chains structured the writing instruction so that students learned the

basic elements of argumentation and how to create and develop their own claims with

evidence (Figure 4.9). The summative writing task of the first instructional chain was an

argumentative writing about the "Lifeboat Dilemma" situation. The final writing task of

the second instructional chain was a literature-related argumentative essay based on Lord

of the Flies. Detailed analytic tables are shown in Appendix D.

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Figure 4.9. Instructional Chain Structure in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

The Structure and Content of Argumentative Writing with Different Epistemologies

One way to discover how teachers' different epistemologies can influence

argumentative writing is to explore the structure and content of teaching and learning. It

is also worthwhile to explore the ways of instructional conversations, since the planned

structure and content can then manifest in classroom discourse. Research on writing

instruction has shown a relationship between instructional plans and epistemologies.

Prior studies (Johnston et al., 2001; Newell et al., 2017; Nystrand, Gamoran, Kachur, &

Prendergast, 1997) also found a strong connection between teachers' epistemologies and

classroom discourse.

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Ms. Foss with Structural Epistemology. Teaching pre-determined paragraph

structure through graphic organizers and color-coding activities are the core vehicles for

writing instruction in Ms. Foss's English classroom. Her writing instruction is primarily

devoted to textual forms, rules, and mechanics. These textual features are followed by

exercises in identifying the role of sentences within a paragraph and visualizing basic

elements of argumentation utilizing color-coding strategies and graphic organizers

respectively.

Returning to the first instructional chain, Ms. Foss began her instruction by

emphasizing that a particular sequence of sentences within a paragraph was an exemplary

model for argumentative writing. She taught that sequence using two tools: a graphic

organizer and color-coding strategy. Her instruction reinforced the ways of writing that

are valued in this classroom community. Ms. Foss's explicit statements referenced

structural and argumentative moves demonstrating the ways of teaching argumentative

writing with structural epistemology. Table 4.3 below shows an analysis of these

argumentative and structural moves with reference to several statements made by Ms.

Foss. Since Ms. Foss dominated the classroom using a teacher-oriented lecture, there

were few student responses throughout the course. An analysis of student perspectives

through post-observation interviews and student works are discussed in Chapter 5, where

the focus is on teachers' planning, intentions, and classroom discourse.

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Table 4.3. Explicit Instruction about Moves in First Instructional Chain in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced The first part of any paragraph, and you guys learned this when you started writing paragraphs, is the topic sentence.

Structural Epistemology Stating Claim

Since we are doing argumentative writing it is going to be the claim.

Stating Claim

What the topic sentence does is it states the paragraph’s main idea. It tells readers what that paragraph is going to be about.

Meaning

Alright, so that’s always going to be the beginning of any paragraph. The next part, or the middle part of the paragraph, is going to have the supporting detail.

Structural Epistemology Stating Evidence and Warrants

What supporting detail you have is going to bond what paragraph, what type of writing you are doing and what you are writing about. The supporting detail can be textual evidence, examples. It can be explanations, or what we have that you guys wrote yesterday, warrants. So that’s all part of what can be in your supporting details, so that’s going to be in the main part of your paragraph.

Stating Evidence and Warrants Meaning

Alright, then the very last part of any paragraph is going to be the concluding sentence, where you’re summarizing the whole paragraph.

Structural Epistemology

The concluding sentence has two jobs that it has to do, it has to rephrase your topic sentence and it has to mention the paragraph’s most important details.

Meaning

Alright, so that’s going to be the basic structure for any type of paragraph you will write.

Structural Epistemology

So, the next part that we are going to talk about is something we are going to call “fact sandwiches.”

Stating Evidence and Warrants

They [fact sandwiches] are going to be part of the supporting detail.

Meaning

So, in the paragraphs that you guys are going to be writing, you are going to have a topic sentence, two fact sandwiches, and a conclusion sentence.

Structural Epistemology

This part now that we are going to talk about is going to be the middle part of our paragraph.

Meaning Structural Epistemology

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In the explicit instruction column, underlined content represents the moves and

shaded content represents pronoun references in relation to the students, indicating that

Ms. Foss gave explicit instruction through pronoun usage. She used either "you" or "we"

to give direction or share declarative and procedural knowledge for literature-related

argumentative writing. Ms. Foss's direction on argumentation and paragraph structure

was based on her own structural epistemology, which she believed to be universal. She

indicated this by stating, "The first part of any paragraph is the topic sentence. Since we

are doing argumentative writing, it is going to be the claim." Her straightforward

statements implied that she believed that the structure she used is universal. Following

instruction on basic paragraph structure, she continued this implication when she said,

"Alright, so that is going to be the basic structure for any type of paragraph you write."

This approach to teaching argumentative writing simplifies a complex process by

providing a prefabricated formula.

Figure 4.10. Basic Paragraph Structure in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

1. Topic Sentence / Claim

× States the paragraph’s main idea

2. Supporting Detail

× Textual evidence, examples, explanation / warrants

3. Concluding Sentence

× Rephrasing the topic sentence AND

× Mentioning paragraph’s most important details

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Ms. Foss provided more instruction on writing a paragraph by introducing the

concept of textual evidence. With a diagram to illustrate how textual evidence should be

presented, she used the term "Fact Sandwiches" and indicated that these are incorporated

in the middle of a body paragraph. As shown in Figure 4.11, fact sandwiches provided

students with an organizational scheme which consisted of an introduction to the textual

evidence, citation of the evidence, and warrants connecting the textual evidence and

claim. The table below presents the explicit statements regarding fact sandwiches.

Figure 4.11. Fact Sandwiches

Ms. Foss provided specific instruction for the students, asking them to first write a

topic sentence, followed by an introduction of textual evidence, the textual evidence

itself, warrants between the textual evidence and the initial claim, and the concluding

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sentence. By pre-determining the structure of a paragraph involving textual evidence, Ms.

Foss seemed to limit the students. Ultimately, however, she provided an acceptable

method, which proved especially helpful for students struggling with argumentative

writing. Ms. Foss gave a concrete shape to a defined set of writing steps. In doing so, she

broke the writing barrier. A concrete, defined set of writing steps using pre-determined

structure would keep students from feeling overwhelmed by the complex process of

writing. The students in Ms. Foss's classroom overcame the difficult writing process by

focusing on collecting textual evidence supporting their claims. This is important because

many high school students have difficulty even beginning the writing process (Gallagher,

2006, p. 54).

Table 4.4. Explicit Instruction about “Fact Sandwiches” in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced So, the next part that we are going to talk about is something we are going to call “fact sandwiches.” The “fact sandwiches” are going to be part of that blue, they are going to be part of the supporting detail.

Structural Epistemology Stating Color-coding

So, in the paragraphs that you guys are going to be writing, you are going to have a topic sentence, two fact sandwiches, and a conclusion sentence.

Structural Epistemology

The first part of our “fact sandwich” is going to be the introduction to the evidence, and it’s going to be underlined blue if you are color-coding it.

Structural Epistemology Stating Color-coding

Alright, so then the next part of our sandwich: after you introduce your textual evidence, then you are going to have the textual evidence. So that is going to be yellow if you are color-coding.

Structural Epistemology Stating Evidence Stating Color-coding

Alright, then after our evidence, we are going to have to have a citation. That’s why I had you guys yesterday write down the page number that you found the quotes on.

Structural Epistemology Stating Citation

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After our citation, the very last part of our sandwich is going to be the explanation of the evidence, or, because we’re doing argumentative writing, the warrants. That is going to be highlighted in blue, so you can put that in blue if you are color coding.

Structural Epistemology Stating Warrants Stating Color-coding

Alright, so that is all the different parts of our sandwich. And like I said, you will have two fact sandwiches in the middle of your paragraph.

Structural Epistemology

The next set of notes are about our concluding sentence. The concluding sentence rephrases your topic sentence. You are reminding your reader what this entire paragraph was about.

Structural Epistemology Meaning

Ms. Foss continued to provide specific instruction regarding the components of

each paragraph, saying, "You are going to have a topic sentence, two fact sandwiches,

and a conclusion sentence." This is very didactic. Initially, she did not ask any questions,

and the students wrote down her explanation. As she continued, she sometimes paused

and asked, "Does anybody have any questions?" This was merely to check whether

students were grasping her instructions. After her lecture, however, Ms. Foss was open to

any questions that the students had regarding their writing. While they brainstormed,

students who needed help had one-on-one conferences with her. Ms. Foss's method of

teaching writing through structured paragraphs seems to be an effective way to deliver

the declarative knowledge about argumentative writing.

After explaining "Fact Sandwiches," Ms. Foss then demonstrated how to color-

code (Table 4.5). Color-coding strategies consisted of coloring sentences according to

their role in an argument (for the color-coding system Ms. Foss used, refer to the Figure

4.3). Ms. Foss adopted this strategy to help her students locate or incorporate each

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element of argumentation within a paragraph. With a graphic organizer, color-coding

activities created another layer of support for teaching argumentative writing.

Table 4.5. Explicit Instruction about Color-Coding in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced Alright, so do we all have this opened up? Alright, I want you to notice a couple of things right from the beginning. This is going to be the final product that you guys are going to produce and turn into me for our final writing.

Structural Epistemology Stating Model

This is what you are going to turn in. Your writing is going to look just like this.

Structural Epistemology Stating Model

Alright, so what we are going to do now is take everything we learned in those paragraph notes and apply it to a paragraph. So, we are going to go through and color-code it.

Stating Color-coding

Like I mentioned when we are doing the notes, this is very structured writing. That’s to help you guys learn how to write a well written paragraph.

Structural Epistemology

Our first sentence there is: “In Langston Hughes’ short story, “Thank You, Ma’am,” Roger becomes a better person because Mrs. Jones treats him with kindness.” You want to highlight that green, that’s our topic sentence, or our claim. So that should be green.

Structural Epistemology Stating Color-coding Stating Claim

Alright, so our next sentence says, “After Mrs. Jones takes Roger to her apartment for dinner, she asks Roger why he was trying to steal her purse. Roger tells her the truth. Roger says,” so this is going to be underlined blue. Not highlighted blue, there’s two different kinds of blue. There’s underlined blue, and highlighted blue. You want to underline this. In the underlined blue, what you are doing is introducing the textual evidence.

Structural Epistemology Stating Color-coding Stating Evidence

The paragraph that we just highlighted, that’s what you guys are going to be submitting for your final assessment for this whole writing process.

Structural Epistemology Stating Model

We are just going to be writing one paragraph, and your paragraph is going to look just like that.

Structural Epistemology Stating Model

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Ms. Foss showed an example color-coded paragraph as a model (see Appendix

E), which she projected onto the classroom whiteboard. Ms. Foss then demonstrated how

to go through the paper and color-code sentence by sentence, stressing that the final

written work students produced should look like the sample essay. Her color-coding

strategy is a powerful approach to argumentative writing as it makes visible exactly what

students need to add or revise in their essays. The transcript in Table 4.5 is the first

writing instructional session for teaching color-coding strategy in the 2017-2018 school

year. Color-coding, combined with a graphic organizer, vividly displays paragraph

structure and shows the relationships between sentences. In fact, previous research found

that the color-coding strategy as an additional scaffold enhanced student writing

development (Ewoldt & Morgan, 2017; Olson & Land, 2007). In light of such research,

Ms. Foss distributed copies of sample paragraphs to the students and let them color-code

individually. Using a projector, she then displayed a sample paragraph, reminded the

students of the meanings of each color, and reviewed all the steps of color-coding

sentences. Once the students learned how to highlight sentences, they practiced color-

coding multiple sample paragraphs to become familiar with the process. Color-coding

strategy was practiced and modeled for three instructional days, September 22-26 (see

Table 4.1), until the students mastered it. Figure 4.12 contains a sample of a literature-

related argumentative paragraph that has been color-coded with the steps described

above.

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Figure 4.12. Color-Coded Paragraph

In Langston Hughes’s short story “Thank You Ma’am,” Roger becomes a better

person because Mrs. Jones treats him with kindness. After Mrs. Jones takes Roger to

her apartment for dinner, she asks Roger why he was trying to steal her purse. Roger

tells her the truth. Roger says, “I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes” (Hughes 2). When

he was asked why he was stealing her purse, he could have lied and told her it was for

something more important than blue suede shoes so that she would not be mad at him.

He could have told her it was for food or medicine or rent money. However, Roger

chooses to be a good person and not lie. Later in the story while Mrs. Jones is

preparing dinner, she turns her back on Roger and does not watch him to see if he will

run or to watch her purse. This gives Roger an opportunity to show how he is

changing. Hughes writes, “But the boy took care to sit on the far side the room where

he thought she could easily see him out of the corner of her eye, if she wanted to. He

did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be mistrusted now”

(Hughes 3). This demonstrates that Roger is becoming a better person because he has

the opportunity to steal Mrs. Jones’s purse or run away when her back is turned.

Instead, he doesn’t touch her purse and stays where she can see him so that she knows

he is not doing anything wrong. Roger wants to show her that he can be trusted

Overall, because Roger received kindness from the woman he attempts to rob, he

chooses to tell the truth and not steal her purse when he has the opportunity, showing

how this experience changes him and makes him a better person.

Turning now to the second instructional chain on argumentative writing about Of

Mice and Men, across the four days, the key explicit instruction took place at the

beginning of the first day when Ms. Foss explained an argumentative writing task to the

students. As she introduced an argumentative writing task about Of Mice and Men, she

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also clarified her expectations of student writing: "It’s like the paragraphs we wrote in the

first quarter, except it’s going to be a little bit longer because it’s going to be an entire

essay." Again, she explicitly stated that the basic principles and rules would be the same

with the writing assignment they did during the first instructional chain, except for the

length. The use of the pronoun, we, points out a connection between the students and the

classroom as a learning community: at this point, they have shaped and constructed

declarative and procedural knowledge for argumentation and argumentative writing for

three months.

The instructional conversations are linked intertextually (Bloome & Egan-

Robertson, 1993) to the graphic organizer and color-coding activities as well as the basic

paragraph structure. In particular, graphic organizer and color-coding activities provided

explicit instruction about the valued way of writing in this classroom context: "On

Wednesday, what we are going to do is a free-write [graphic organizer] to kind of get

your ideas on paper so you can start thinking through your prompt." Ms. Foss offered,

"You can definitely, you have already done our character sketch assignment [graphic

organizer], so you already have a lot done on one character, so if you want, you can

choose that character and use some of the work you have already done there." When Ms.

Foss explained writing prompts, she also intertextually referenced "Fact Sandwiches" as a

core aspect of body paragraph, "So, this is the same basic format we wrote in quarter one,

and is what we are going to be doing again. So, each paragraph is going to have two fact

sandwiches."

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Ms. Foss with structural epistemology repeatedly asked the students to recall the

textual features of basic paragraph structure at the beginning of class: "So each of your

paragraphs, your body paragraphs that you are going to have, are going to have two

pieces of textual evidence from the novel." The teacher, Ms. Foss, made many explicit

instructional moves by revisiting and restating the pre-determined structure as well:

You are always going to have to start your paragraph with a claim or a topic

sentence for the body paragraph. It’s going to state your main idea. You are

going to have your evidence next. So, for this writing we are going to have

textual evidence – direct quotes from the book. You are going to have two per

paragraph, and then you will have your warrant. How does that textual evidence

support your claim? Then you are going to have a concluding sentence.

While this is an introduction to an argumentative writing task, it is also space to

reconfirm Ms. Foss's structural epistemology by revisiting the valued way of writing in

this classroom community (see Table 4.6 for transcript and Appendix D for analytic

table). A key element of writing instruction for the first instructional chain suggested to

students that the centrality of writing argumentative essays lied in a well-organized

paragraph structure. Perhaps one interpretation of a pre-set structure with graphic

organizers and color-coding strategy is the teacher's effort to teach the students to

produce argumentative written texts avoiding a complex writing process of

considerations and negotiations.

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Table 4.6. Explicit Instruction about Writing Prompts in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced It’s like the paragraphs we wrote in the first quarter except it’s going to be a little bit longer because it’s going to be an entire essay.

Structural Epistemology Stating Model

You are going to have claims that support your argument. You are going to support those claims with textual evidence from the novel. So each of your paragraphs, your body paragraphs that you are going to have, are going to have two pieces of textual evidence from the novel.

Structural Epistemology Stating Claim Stating Evidence

I wanted to go over them quickly before we go over the sample essay. So, this is just the basic paragraph structure.

Structural Epistemology

You are always going to have to start your paragraph with a claim, or a topic sentence for the body paragraph. It’s going to state your main idea.

Structural Epistemology Stating Claim

You are going to have your evidence next. So, for this writing we are going to have textual evidence – direct quotes from the book – you are going to have two per paragraph.

Structural Epistemology Stating Evidence

And then your warrant. How does that textual evidence support your claim.

Stating Warrant

Then you are going to have a concluding sentence. Your concluding sentence is going to restate your claim and mention both pieces of textual evidence.

Structural Epistemology

So, it’s the same basic format we wrote in quarter 1 is what we are going to be doing again. So, each paragraph is going to have two fact sandwiches. So you will introduce your claim and then have two fact sandwiches. So you are going to introduce your textual evidence. Tell what is going on in the story at the time of your textual evidence. Then you are going to have a speech tag.

Structural Epistemology Stating Model

Then you will have evidence, which will be a quote from the text. You are going to need a citation.

Stating Evidence

Then you are going to have your warrant. Your warrant is going to explain how does this textual evidence support your claim.

Stating Warrant

So that’s what you are going to have and what we are going to see in the essay we look at today.

Stating Model

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As shown in Table 4.6 above, Ms. Foss expected students to adopt a pre-set

structure provided by her. She taught them argumentation with a goal of creating texts as

a final product, rather than promoting thinking. According to Ms. Foss, pedagogical and

curricular goals helped students understand the appropriate structures of argument. Given

her ninth-grade students' lack of experience with literature-related argumentative writing,

Ms. Foss developed an approach to support her students with a pre-set structure using

graphic organizers and a color-coding strategy.

During the next two days, October 31 and November 1, the students shared their

initial ideas in small groups, and then they worked on two graphic organizers

independently. Although the teacher indicated that a small group discussion was

brainstorming, the questions set by Ms. Foss for small group discussion—what prompt

they had chosen and what textual evidence they had collected—narrowed the scope of the

discussion. As for the graphic organizers, there were two different sheets: a claim

proposal and a textual evidence packet. A claim proposal was a sheet in which the

students were asked to include the thesis statement and three reasons, and a textual packet

required the students to find six pieces of textual evidence to support their claims (see

Appendix C for the detail). Ms. Foss explained the merit of these graphic organizers,

"Once you finish this, then you will be ready to start writing your paragraphs, and it is

going to be very easy."

Even more noteworthy is the fact that Ms. Foss regulated smaller components of

structure (see Table 4.7 for transcript). There are three limitations for the evidence the

students were able to use for their argumentative writing: first, evidence should be

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concise; second, evidence cannot exceed the three sentences; third, only evidence from

the book could be counted as evidence supporting claims for this writing assignment.

Table 4.7. Explicit Instruction about Structure in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced What your thesis statement is going to be is, it is basically a one-sentence response to whatever prompt you choose.

Structural Epistemology Stating Claim

You will copy your textual evidence from the book and you put the page number.

Structural Epistemology Stating Evidence

Your textual evidence also needs to be concise. Structural Epistemology Stating Evidence

You want to choose one to three sentences for your textual evidence. And the reason for that is that if you put like a paragraph in it for your textual evidence, I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

Structural Epistemology Stating Evidence

The last thing is you want to choose textual evidence that should be something your character says or does or another character says or does about your character.

Structural Epistemology Stating Evidence

Ms. Foss mentioned the reason of short space for evidence is for effective

assessment: she did not want to spend too much time reading students’ papers. The fact

that only textual evidence from the novel can be counted as evidence reflects structural

epistemology based on objectivist, rather than social constructivist notions of knowledge

within a classroom community. With these regulations for evidence, the students were

unable to use a variety of evidence such as observation, discussion, and personal

experience. During the interviews, Ms. Foss was aware of the social process perspective

toward writing instruction and shared her positive view on it, but her instructional

decision was to focus on breaking through writing barriers by providing graphic

organizers and a color-coding strategy.

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Through explicit instruction on literature-related argumentative writing, Ms. Foss

structured the students' learning about argumentative writing, with an emphasis on textual

features. Explicit instruction provided students with declarative knowledge of

argumentative and structural moves. The students also acquired procedural knowledge

for how to color-code sentences by identifying different types of sentences within a

paragraph and for how to use a graphic organizer as a planning stage of writing. Because

Ms. Foss's instructional plans encompassed regulative and repetitive practices of color-

coding, the students gained procedural knowledge of key elements of argumentative

essay, and this process enabled them to write argumentative essays without missing any

key elements.

Considering the prior studies criticizing the five-paragraph paradigm (Miller,

2010; Nunnally, 1991; Wesley, 2000), the result might be somewhat disappointing: Ms.

Foss's approach to support student writing development ended up with a summative

argumentative writing within a five-paragraph theme.

Ms. Glen with Ideational Epistemology. Teaching argumentative writing as a

tool for supporting students in developing ideas is a primary purpose of writing

instruction in Ms. Glen's English classroom. Generating and developing ideas were

privileged by Ms. Glen, and the students shared this view in her classroom as a learning

community. Ms. Glen's ideational epistemology reflected on exercises in non-graded free

writing to establish writing habits and exercises in analyzing texts individually in order to

understand deeply the content and develop original ideas.

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Returning to the first instructional chain, Ms. Glen explained about Aristotle’s

Appeals as a basic principle for argumentation. Two ways—daily writing and idea

development—represented the meaningful ways of learning writing in Ms. Glen’s

classroom as a learning community. Ms. Glen’s explicit statements referenced ideational

and argumentative moves dominantly illustrating the ways of teaching argumentative

writing with ideational epistemology. Table 4.8 below presents an analysis of the

argumentative and epistemological moves with reference to several of the explicit

statements. Although Ms. Glen provided more opportunity to share opinions when

compared with Ms. Foss, most of her instructions were also teacher-oriented lectures with

a combination of independent work. They shared their thoughts usually through a format

of presentation in front of the whole class, rather than a small-group or whole class

discussion, which could pave a way to explore conflicting perspectives. However, the

students in Ms. Glen’s classroom often worked independently and for much longer hours

than those in Ms. Foss’s classroom. As I noted earlier in this chapter, an analysis of

student perspectives through post-observation interviews and written work produced by

students are discussed in the Chapter 5. I focus on teacher’s instructional planning and

classroom discourse in this chapter.

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Table 4.8. Explicit Instruction about Aristotle’s Appeals in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced You are going to use Aristotle's Appeals. Now you may have heard of these before. These are Ethos, Pathos, Logos. We are going to use this.

Stating Aristotle’s Appeals

One way to do this is by using credibility. This is ethical appeal and it means by the character or the author or in this case the speaker so your first paragraph will be ethos or credibility.

Stating Ethos

Well you are sure you are credible and often times that you show your people that you know what you are talking about. So it could be something as simple as: I am a professor I have worked at Harvard Law school and Yale Law school and written so many books- blah, blah blah. That's credibility. Or could be something like I am a parent. I have four children, I have gone through the whole high school experience, so I know what is going to happen to you as a student in high school. Showing that you are credible.

Stating Ethos Modeling

Emotional appeal is pathos. Emotional means persuading- appealing to the readers emotions. That's connecting to people emotionally.

Stating Pathos

So it could be something such as I understand that many of you are nervous giving speeches. I know I used to be nervous every time I gave a speech. I understand that feel goof nausea before you get up to the podium so it is that connecting through emotions.

Stating Pathos Modeling

Last one is Logos and this one is persuading by reasoning. This is probably the most important technique that you will use in school. So logos is reasoning. Either deductive or inductive reasoning.

Stating Logos

This one is where you can add the facts and figures. The scientific.

Stating Logos Modeling

Now what I put up here is a very basic outline for you to use but you can in fact switch these around you maybe want to start with a pathos or the logos and go to either one of these. You do not need to follow them like this. That is up to you. However, you want to do this. You could maybe integrate some of these. But if you are not sure just start making get simple a paragraph each.

Ideational Epistemology

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In the explicit instruction column, I have underlined content that is relevant to the

moves and have shaded pronoun references to the students since it demonstrates Ms.

Glen’s explicit instruction with her usages of pronouns. Ms. Glen used “you” or “we” to

give directive moves or share declarative and procedural knowledge for argumentation

and argumentative writing. A closer look at lines shows that Ms. Glen suggested a basic

outline, but emphasized argument as exploring ideas, rather than argument as structure:

“You can, in fact, switch these around…You do not need to follow them like this. That is

up to you.” This is an ideational epistemology because the teacher’s task enabled the

students to explore an imaginary scenario for issues of dilemma, instead of memorizing

formulaic sequences and patterns. The writing task Ms. Glen gave her students included

delivering a speech and reframed argumentative writing to be more about argumentation

with the audience within an imagined social context. Since a speech is not just read out

loud, opportunity to deliver a speech prompted more serious reflection about audience.

These explicit statements are about basic principles of argumentation mirroring

Ms. Glen’s ideational epistemology. Ms. Glen taught and suggested Aristotle’s Appeals

as a foundational principle for effective argumentation, rather than mandatory rules.

Before this instructional chain, as described in the previous section of this chapter, Ms.

Glen orchestrated low-pressure writing activities with various topics including

symbolism, theme, letter, characters, and plot. According to Ms. Glen, her intentions

were to gauge student writing performance through a variety of writing tasks, which

would bring it all together into a culminating writing task (Figure 4.13). Therefore, at a

surface level, this event—teaching Aristotle’s Appeals—was for argumentative essays

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about a lifeboat situation for the moment, but it was simultaneously also one of the

middle writing pieces towards a literature-related culminating writing task during the

second writing instructional chain.

Figure 4.13. Culminating Writing Task in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Between the first and second instructional chains in Ms. Glen’s classroom, the

students read and studied the novel Lord of the Flies (Table 4.2). It is the same with Ms.

Foss’s instructional plans; after Ms. Foss’s first instructional chain, she and her students

read the novel Of Mice and Men before the second instructional chain (Table 4.1).

There had been a conversation in Ms. Glen’s classroom on October 9 which

showed intertextual traces between the first (lifeboat situation) and second instructional

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chain (Lord of the Flies). The transcript begins with bullying in the novel, Lord of the

Flies, and our world today.

Table 4.9. Conversations about Bullying in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Speaker Message Unit Notes 101 Teacher Let’s look at another question. Initiating new topic 102 When given a chance, people often single

out and degrade another to improve themselves.

Statement

103 Who would like to take that one? Shifts floor to students 104 Gery I said I disagree with this statement Elaborate on reported

speech 105 because, often, I find that most people are

pretty nice that I’ve noticed. Disagrees with the statement

106 Teacher Okay. It happens, Revoicing 107 but it’s not the general rule. Elaborate on the topic 108 Ana I said I agree, Agrees with the

statement 109 because most people don’t like to be singled

out so when they are, they kind of single out someone else to kind of look better.

Providing evidence

110 Teacher So, if they’re feeling better about themselves, they’re more likely to make somebody else feel bad to make themselves feel better kind of thing.

Reported speech

111 Ana I said people often compare or degrade others to feel better about themselves.

Confirms

112 Teacher We understand that that bully mentality is because they don’t feel good about themselves.

Warrants

113 Ana When given a chance not everyone does this. An example of this is bullies degrade others to improve their own self-image.

Elaborate on reported speech

114 Teacher Do you see much bullying in our own world?

Connecting real-world experience

115 John A little bit. Confirms 116 Teacher Is it more interpersonal between individual

groups when you hear about it? Do you think we outgrow it?

Proposing question

108

117 John More private. 118 Teacher It’s not like you see somebody picking on

one person in front of everybody else. You don’t see that type of stuff.

Elaborate on reported speech

119 But you know that it’s going on within groups. Are girls more likely to use this behavior or do guys do it, too?

Shifting floor to other students

120 Kristen Girls do it more in private. Claims 121 Teacher Guys do it in public to make it seem funny.

Would you all agree with her? Shifting floor to other students

122 Jake Anyone can bully anybody. Outside or inside.

Claims

123 Harry When you see a person picking on another person, usually they just do that as a joke.

Elaborate on reported speech

124 It’s one of their friends that push them into a locker just to be funny that they’re not seriously bullying.

Provides an example

125 Teacher You can’t think of anything that’s serious stuff as far as you know. What were you going to say?

Shifting floor to other students

126 Kristen In the life boat speech, Intertextual trace 127 weren’t people degrading older people, too? Connecting two

different events 128 Teacher Yes. Validates Kristen’s

comment 129 Kristen I find that offensive. Claims 130 Class [ laughter ] 131 Teacher I do, too. Validates Kristen’s

comment 132 What are you saying about that? Requesting elaboration 133 Kristen It just kind of happens all the time when you

least expect it to. Claims

134 Because even on the life boat speech, you think you try to be friendly to get on the life boat, but you’re degrade others.

Elaborate on reported speech

135 Teacher But if you want to live, you going to call old people old and get them off, right?

Connecting two different events

136 It’s kind of an act of desperation is what you’re saying.

Connecting two different events

109

As shown in this transcript, Ms. Glen and her students discussed bullying in the

novel and real world today, and Ms. Glen asked students to explain why people degrade

others (lines 102, 103, 107). We can see Ms. Glen move directions from a general notion

of bullying based on the novel to more nuanced perceptions in our real world today. Ms.

Glen had asked the students to share their ideas in the whole class about bullying in our

world today (lines 112, 114). They discussed bullying in school contexts further (lines

115-124). Then, interestingly, Kristen, one of the focal students, made a clear connection

between the lifeboat speech and an issue of bullying (lines 126, 127). Ms. Glen positively

evaluated Kristen’s intertextual comment (lines 128, 131), and pushed her to elaborate on

her response (line 132). Explaining her idea, Kristen kept participating in this

conversation (lines 133, 134), and Ms. Glen also followed up on her ideas (lines 135,

136).

Two weeks later, on October 27, another thematic intertextual trace was present in

a conversation in Ms. Glen’s classroom (Table 4.10).

Table 4.10. Conversations about Appearance in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Speaker Message Unit Notes 101 Teacher Why does Ralph think that dressing like they

were would assist them in dealing with Jack? Initiating new topic

102 Demian I would say he thinks it would be a reminder that they aren’t savages and that they could still be civilized.

Claims

103 Teacher What is it he is trying to do? What does that mean?

Requesting explanation

104 Demian Kind of, like, intimidate a little bit in a way. Provides explanation Teacher By looking… not that they could do much

with their clothes, but what could they do? Requesting elaboration

110

106 Demian I guess be mean a little bit, like, pressure them with their looks.

Elaborate on reported speech

Teacher And what can he do with his looks? Requesting explanation Demian He can put a mask on and stuff. Provides explanation 109 Teacher Well, that’s what Jack is doing. Checking the fact 110 What about Ralph? Asking a question 111 John Oh, he could, like, tie his hair back. Responses

112 Teacher He could “clean up.” He could “clean up” what does this cleaning up, look the best that you can, do for you?

Revoicing Requesting elaboration

113 John It presents yourself as more, not sophisticated, but, like…

Responses

114 Teacher You’re on the right track. Validates John’s response

115 Are people more likely to believe you or listen to you if you look a certain way?

Asking a question

116 John Yea. Confirms Teacher And do you think that’s what he is trying to

do there? Requesting elaboration

118 John Yea. Agrees 119 Teacher Ok, yea. Good. Validates John’s

response 120 We’ve heard this before with the speeches,

right? Intertextual trace

121 If you dress up it does seem to help you look authoritarian to a certain extent.

Connecting two different events

In this transcript, Ms. Glen and her students discussed how Ralph dressed and the

effects of different dresses (lines 101, 102). Demian claims that Ralph could try to be

intimidating by being dressed differently (lines 102, 104, 106), and Ms. Glen kept

pushing students to think about the effects of different appearances in social and

interpersonal relations (lines 105, 107, 112). Extending John’s response (lines 111, 113)

about Ralph’s look, Ms. Glen both validated John’s comment (lines 114, 119) and

reminded students of the importance of different ways of dressing up they discussed

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while talking about the lifeboat speech event (lines 120, 121). These two thematic traces

revealed in Table 4.9 and 4.10 indicate intertextual traces between two instructional

chains. This data suggests a natural continuation that Ms. Glen wove into her curriculum.

One of the big differences in reading literature between these two classrooms is

that Ms. Foss had her students read the novel in class listening to the audio files provided

by the publisher, while Ms. Glen’s students were asked to read chapters in advance at

home. As a consequence, Ms. Foss’s students spent most of their time flipping pages of a

book as a narrator read in class. On the other hand, Ms. Glen and her students had

discussions in regard to the chapters they had read, worked on worksheets, or wrote some

papers in class. Ms. Foss provided study guide questions, but the questions Ms. Glen

provided promoted more stimulable thinking for writing. For example, Ms. Foss usually

asked questions to check comprehension (“What does “it” refer to?” “Who has been

listening to and finally interrupts George and Lennie’s conversation about the ranch?”).

Ms. Glen also asked some questions to check student understanding, but also other types

of questions as well: interpretive (“Which is more important in development, genetics or

experience? What do you think Ralph and Jack’s nature and nurture were?”), literacy

(“Explain the significance of the symbol, why it is symbolic and how over the course of

the novel that symbol change.”), and affective (“What did you learn from Lord of the

Flies? What’s your impression of the book so far?”). Because of the varying complexities

of these questions, the students were busy writing down what the teacher said during the

discussion in Ms. Foss’s classroom; meanwhile, Ms. Glen’s students explored conflicting

perspectives.

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The transcript (see Table 4.11) shows the conversations oscillated between a text

and real world context that fed into the unfolding discussion. On October 26th, for about

30 minutes of the whole class discussion, Ms. Glen led the class in a discussion of

definition of murder and boundaries of responsibilities in Of Mice and Men. She asked

the students to provide distinctions between murder and manslaughter.

Table 4.11. Conversations about Lord of the Flies in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Speaker Message Unit Notes 102 Teacher Let me ask you this, was it murder? Or was

it something else? Is everybody responsible for this? Is Ralph and Piggy as responsible as everybody else? Or are by-standers responsible?

Initiating new topic

103 Ana Yeah, well I don’t think three by-standers versus a crowd could really do much. The crowd of people all doing the same thing, I don’t think three people could affect that matter. Especially in this one.

Claims

104 Teacher So do you think they should not feel guilty? Requesting elaboration 105 Ana I mean, they should probably feel guilty

because they didn’t try hard enough to stop them.

Elaborate on reported speech

106 Teacher Did they try anything? Not that we know of, right? Is it murder? Raise your hand if you think it is murder.

Questions

107 Most of you. Confirms 108 The other people what do you think?

Manslaughter? Accidental death? What do you think? Why is it different?

Naming new topic – Shift floor to other students

109 John Murder is premeditated. Manslaughter is in the moment.

Presents differences

110 Teacher Yea, manslaughter is accidental. Validates John’s response

111 Murder on the other hand is planned. Validates John’s response

113

112 This is a tricky spot though because it’s not likely like shot into the crowd, by accident, it goes off. They were dancing. It could have stopped. They could have stopped, but they didn’t.

Elaborate on the topic

113 Does that make it more likely to be murder, or not? They’re still a bunch of kids as Piper was saying. Can kids be held responsible?

Requesting elaboration Proposing question

114 John Yes! Well, there was a recent link in the news were this kid was dropping rocks over a bridge and killed people and they were tried as adults for second degree murder.

Elaborate on reported speech Connecting real-world evidence

115 Teacher I saw that. Right. And there’s even been incidents of younger because I think they were teenagers?

Validates John’s response

116 John Yea, they were like 15 or 16. Confirms 117 Teacher So should they be tried for murder? Proposing question 118 John They shouldn’t be tried as adults, but they

should be tried for murder. Elaborate on reported speech

119 Teacher Ok. Validates John’s response

120 Anybody else? What if somebody was 10 or 12? Should they be tried for murder?

Shifting floor to other students

121 Kristen Anybody could be tried for murder. It was murder. They did it specifically.

Agreeing with John

122 Teacher What about if it is little kids that find a gun? This happens all the time.

Naming new topic

123 Kristen If they know. If there’s significant evidence that they planned or tried to do it then… if it was an accident.

Locates warrants

124 Teacher Are there any lines that say, “no they are too young to be tried for murder?” What age is it too young to be tried for murder?

Requesting elaboration

125 Kristen 8 or younger. Because they don’t really know what’s going on. They do whatever they’re parents want them to.

Elaborate on reported speech

126 Alysha 5 or younger. Elaborate on reported speech

127 Alysha It kind of depends. When kids understand the concept of death, like when you do something like that and kill somebody, there’s almost a point… anybody older than 9 understands what’s happening, but I think

Elaborate on reported speech Locates warrants

114

if you don’t understand what you’re doing then you shouldn’t be charged for murder.

128 Teacher Can you remember how old you were when you were cognoscente of what you were doing? I can’t remember. Can you remember? What age were you when you understood the difference between right and wrong?

Requesting elaboration

129 Alysha Six Claims 130 Teacher So, first grade? Questions 131 Alysha I was going to say they shouldn’t be tried for

murder if they can’t talk or defend themselves.

Elaborate on reported speech

132 If they can speak and, like, be presently there and know what happens then you can try them. Then they can talk to people and tell them what happens because if they can’t talk then they can’t tell people what happened.

Elaborate on reported speech

133 Teacher You are talking young. Like, two? Three? Requesting elaboration 134 Alysha Well, they need to be able to know where

they are and, like, what’s happening. Elaborate on reported speech

135 Teacher So they need to be aware of more than just that they’re here.

Revoicing student comment

136 Gery I think it’s hard to tell because development is a slow process over time. There’s no, like, something’s bad. The development of mental capacity of right and wrong and the concept of death.

Table 4.11 presents discourse segments and analysis. The instructional

conversation was mapped drawing on procedures from Bloome et al. (2005) and Newell

et al. (2018). The instructional conversation begins with Ms. Glen asking the students

what defines murder and the people being responsible for Simon's death. A student, Ana,

claimed that three bystanders were unable to affect the other people, but should feel

guilty not trying enough to stop animalistic murder. Ms. Glen then asked the students to

provide more elaboration on why manslaughter and murder are different. Another

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student, John, commented that murder is premeditated whereas manslaughter is

accidental. Ms. Glen then linked these definitions to the situation in the book to ask for a

deeper discussion on the issue intertwined with a civilized moral code and law system.

To illustrate the definition of murder, John quoted recent news about a rock-throwing

death case. Ms. Glen focused on ideas by encouraging the student discussions about the

issue of murder with the rock-throwing death case. This discussion oscillated between

textual evidence and real world context, which is an example of ideational epistemology.

Ms. Glen’s teaching did not primarily focus on argumentation drawing on

structural assumptions using a pre-set structure, but instead oriented her discussion to

promote student ideas. This is important because Ms. Glen's response signified that idea

development is more valued and privileged in her classroom than a formulaic structural

approach to argumentative writing. In particular, recalling Ms. Foss's case that other

resources except for textual evidence were not counted as acceptable evidence for the

argumentative writing tasks, the Table 4.11 shows Ms. Glen focused attention to content

understanding and idea development she and her students co-constructed. She also paved

the way for the students to see themselves as the active maker of meaning exploring

ideas. Using revoicing (e.g., lines 104, 115, 117, 135) and reported speech (e.g., lines

110, 111. 119) emphasized ideational aspects of argumentation; the students explored

ideas rather than studied a pre-set structure provided by a teacher. The conversation,

therefore, revealed Ms. Glen's ideational epistemology about teaching argumentation and

argumentative writing.

116

Toward the end of the class period, Ms. Glen posed the question of whether

human behavior is determined by genetic inheritance or by the environment. While

telling the students to use their mobile phones to find out a definition of a psychopath,

she also asked them if they read the book, My Friend, Dahmer. These statements by Ms.

Glen are noteworthy because (1) she explicitly allowed the students to support their

claims with external evidence, not only limited to textual evidence from the book, Lord of

the Flies, and (2) she framed the students as active makers of meaning via exploring

ideas, not as passive users of a pre-set structure.

Table 4.12. Conversations about Environment in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Speaker Message Unit Notes 101 John Well, are Jack and Ralph, like, from the

same, are they both from? They never say where they’re from or city. They go to private school, but.

Initiating new topic

102 Teacher They don’t go to the same school, but they’re from the same British background and same middle class background.

Elaborates on the topic

103 That’s a good question. Validates John’s response

104 How can there be two different ideals between the two boys if they’re brought up the same with education. Why is one of them crazy and pointed toward evil and the other one not so much?

Initiating new topic-environment

105 John There are multiple mental disorders that can be genetic or environmental just depending on the person.

Claims

106 Teacher So, is a psychopath born? Or is that a disease?

Proposing question

107 John It could be both. 108 Teacher Could you look it up for me? I just want to

get a definition. Requesting external information

117

Connecting real-world evidence

109 Do you become a psychopath or are you born a psychopath? And I was just reading this book, has anyone read the book “My Friend, Dahmer” the graphic novel?

Exploring environment

110 John Jeffrey Dahmer? The cannibal dude? Requesting elaboration

111 Teacher Yea. You know he was,

112 Well I’ll tell you. He went to school in Ohio and his friend wrote about him in high school. What he was like. Like, some sort of insight in what he was like before. Now his parents, his mom seemed to be mentally ill, but his dad was normal, engineer, middle class, they had a nice house, they were not poor.

Exploring environment

113 What happened there? 114 John So, as to be expected, almost every website

that I found that goes over that topic is blocked by the administrator.

Connecting real-world evidence

115 (laughter) 116 Teacher Can someone look on their phone? See if

anyone else can find something. While people are doing that let’s settle in and listen to Packer.

Requesting external information Connecting real-world evidence

117 Packer Everyone’s capable of doing that. It’s just a whether or not you should?

Connecting real-world evidence

118 Teacher What do you think of that? Shifting floor to other students

119 Packer’s saying that everyone is capable of murder but it is if you choose to or not.

Framed as reported speech

120 John I think it’s the other way around. I think you can choose to do it but are you capable of doing it? If you’ve ever gone hunting or something, I don’t know, like if you could shoot it would you shoot it? Are you capable of it? You could choose to do it.

Framing response

121 Packer I think everyone is capable of it, but you have guilt after you kill it and no one wants to deal with that.

Framing response

118

122 Teacher Yea, I don’t know how you could deal with that.

Validates Packer’s response

123 Gery So, I found an article on Psychology Today, it says “Found: A Neuroscientist describes one day when he saw a brain scan that looked like it belonged to a psychopath. It showed low activity in areas tied to self-control, empathy, and ethics.”

Connecting real-world evidence

124 Teacher So the brain scan showed a different brain in a psychopath than a normal person?

Framed as reported speech

125 Gery Yea, but it was actually his own and he’s not a psychopath right now. He’s normal.

Elaborate on reported speech

126 John Right now. You don’t know that. 127 (laughter) 128 Teacher Alright, come on. 129 Danial I agree with Gery. Anybody can choose to

kill somebody, but nobody can be, like, go do it. People can, but like, a lot of people can’t. Like, anybody in this room can be like, yea I’m going to go kill somebody, but nobody’s actually going to kill anyone.

Agreeing with Gery

130 John Mr. Fischer was telling us about his study they did on babies in a room and had them interact with each other and none of them, like, left each other out. Like, race, color, size but like as we grow up we seclude people based on how you grow up, so I don’t think that you can, like…

Connecting real-world evidence

131 Teacher So you’re saying environmental? Elaborate on reported speech

132 John Yea. Confirms

The mapping (see Table 4.12) represents how the teacher led the students in a

discussion about the nature versus nurture. This mapping suggests that Ms. Glen drew

attention to exploring ideas. We can see the same conversational strategies in this table as

in Table 4.11: reported speech (e.g., line 119); and revoicing student responses (e.g., lines

106, 122, 124, 131). Again, revoicing (O’Connor & Michaels, 1993) by Ms. Glen in

classroom conversations facilitated positioning the students as the active makers of

119

meaning, rather than passive note-takers. Reported speech (Myers, 1999) by Ms. Glen

also positioned the students as the active, legitimate participants in discussions.

They have explored ideas in order to construct and develop an argument, in

contradistinction to understanding argumentation as a textual, structural form. Analysis of

the instructional conversation also demonstrates that the students engaged in discussion

as Ms. Glen created an environment for the students to see comparisons between

literature and their lives. Ms. Glen pushes her students to present and develop their ideas

by allowing Googling (e.g., lines 108, 114, 116, 117, 123). She also broadens the scope

of the discussion by quoting a contemporary graphic novel (e.g., lines 109, 110, 111,

112). What are critical are the connections between a story and real-world, especially

given the fact that many high school students could not understand why they read literary

works and what they can get out of literature (Gallo, 2001). In doing so, Ms. Glen and her

students co-constructed the classroom as a learning community with sharing views

toward argumentation (Bloome, Katz, Solsken, Willett, & Wilson-Keenan, 2000).

Ms. Glen's dominant roles as a teacher in this classroom discussion were either

facilitator (e.g., lines 102, 108, 111, 116, 118, 131) or participant (e.g., lines 104, 109,

122). Her role as a facilitator and participant helped build student idea development and

interpretation by encouraging the students to establish the rationale for their conceptions

of human development. In addition to building idea development, Ms. Glen encouraged

the students to share whether or not they agreed with others' responses. Acting as a

facilitator, she tried to expand students' comments rather than assess them. Then, as a

participant, Ms. Glen listened, questioned, and responded in order to clarify student ideas.

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It is suggested that students' discussion is closely related to the teacher's ideational

epistemology that emphasizes investigating ideas based on the text they had read.

On November 3rd, Ms. Glen taught MLA style to her students and then she

introduced a final writing assignment on November 6th. The students were given a list of

writing prompts and they chose which prompt they would like to work on (see Table

4.13).

Table 4.13. Explicit Instruction about the Final Writing Assignment in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced You need to make an outline. Structural Epistemology

Stating outline as a pre-writing

This is just an outline. Structural Epistemology Stating outline as a pre-writing

You need to do that because today is the day when you gather your information to answer the prompt and start putting that in order.

Explaining Agenda

You may use the novel, the study guide, or any of those in class.

Ideational Epistemology Stating Evidence

It all depends on which prompt you’re going to choose. Ok?

You’ll start plugging in the information. For example, it says “Introduction: You need to have a general statement, a bridge statement, and a thesis statement.”

Structural Epistemology

This is not new. Then it goes on to the body, the claim, the evidence, and the analysis.

Structural Epistemology

You may have four paragraphs, you may even have five. That’s absolutely fine.

Ideational Epistemology

121

The mapping of the instructional conversation (Table 4.13) shows a dual focus,

structural aspects of argumentative essay and ideas. Ms. Glen commented, "You need to

make an outline. This is just an outline." At a surface level Ms. Glen appeared to provide

instruction with structural epistemology. However, her ideational epistemology still plays

a critical role in her instruction as she more stressed ideational aspects than structural

features. For example, Ms. Glen commented, "You may use the novel, the study guide, or

any of those in class." This statement by Ms. Glen indicates that the students can use a

variety of data as evidence. If our goal is to equip our students for the new literacy

demands of the twenty-first century, we should provide students with opportunities to use

various kinds of data as evidence to support claims, instead of having them use only

evidence from a book (Smith, Wilhelm, & Fredricksen, 2012). Therefore, Ms. Glen's

flexibility about a variety of evidence signals her ideational epistemology, in particular

when compared with Ms. Foss's instruction narrowing the scope of evidence that only

direct quotes from the novel can be used as evidence in her classroom.

Shifting Epistemologies Across the Instructional Chains

Consistent with the findings and discussion above in this chapter, a teacher would

emphasize one epistemological stance over others. However, boundaries between

different epistemologies that were present in the teaching practices blurred from time to

time and two or more epistemological stances emerged and intertwined within a

classroom event. This likely due to the multiple layers of complexities within writing

practices in classrooms (Newell et al., 2015, 2018). Although the original research

questions are not relevant to the shifting epistemological stance, as the study progressed,

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my analysis revealed shifting epistemologies across the instructional chains in both

classrooms. Sometimes, Ms. Foss's teaching practices oscillated between structural

epistemological stance and an ideational one, while Ms. Glen's teaching practices

oscillated between ideational and structural stances. Overall, Ms. Foss showed more often

relied on structural stance rather than ideational stance throughout the entire school year

of 2017-2018. In contrast, most of Ms. Glen’s teaching practices revealed her ideational

epistemological stance, but structural epistemology was, rarely, also identified. It is

important to analyze shifting epistemologies in the teaching practices in both classrooms

to further understand the complex conflicts and contextual factors surrounding teacher’s

epistemological stances.

Ms. Foss. A contributing factor for shifting epistemological stance is Ms. Foss's

experience of participating in the Argumentative Writing Project for the 2016-2017

school year, a year before my research project (2017-2018 school year). She learned

about argumentation and argumentative writing by attending the summer workshop in

2016. She did not have much experience as a writing teacher, and therefore everything

she learned during the workshop was new to her. During the 2016-2017 school year, I

observed Ms. Foss's classroom approximately twice weekly from the end of August to

the end of May. I also committed to dense observations for a few weeks, during which I

studied her teachings of a short novel for the Argumentative Writing Project. She also

studied a range of approaches to argumentation across the school year in monthly teacher

meetings. She liked approaches to writing grounded in the principles of a structured

process approach (Smagorinsky et al., 2010) and the concept of writing as inquiry

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(Ivanič, 2004; Newell et al., 2015; Prior, 1998; Street, 2005). Ms. Foss theoretically

understood and accepted those approaches. In her actual teaching practices, however,

during the 2016-2017 school year, she tended to teach writing in separate, distinct, and

relatively brief instructional units. This excluded writing distinct from other components

of her instruction, such as literature, reading, and language study.

Before my research project for the 2017-2018 school year, she shared with me her

initial curricular plans as well as her plans to try something new.

This year I definitely want to make some changes to what I did last year. I read

this book [The dynamics of writing instruction by Smagorinsky and his

colleagues] over the summer. I haven't read all of it. I kind of like to pick that

types of writing. I loved it, thought it was great stuff and I can see how you are

already pointing me in that direction (interview, 08/14/2017).

To sum up, contrary to her initial intention, her teaching practices for the 2017-

2018 school year were definitely categorized into a structural epistemology as discussed

above. Her overall teaching practices were the same as her teaching practices from the

prior year. This finding, while preliminary, suggests that shifts in teachers'

epistemologies are not straight-forward. This finding is also consistent with that of

Newell et al. (2018) who explored some of the challenges a teacher went through

teaching argumentation.

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On the other hand, it is important to note that Ms. Foss's teaching practices

oscillated between different epistemologies about argumentation. Although minimal, the

oscillations were noticeable. For instance, Ms. Foss tried to provide opportunities for free

writing for her students to explore their own ideas, without worrying about grades.

One change that I made for this year is starting the students with free writes. I

have noticed this year that since we have been doing free writes since the

beginning of the school year, students are writing more consistently for the entire

five minutes than they did last year. I have not collected any of the free writes, so

I am not sure what the students are writing about, but I do like the idea that this is

no-risk writing. They are hopefully writing on a topic for themselves (interview,

9/20/2017).

For Ms. Foss, writing was sometimes a tool for exploring ideas even though most

of her instructional strategies, plans, and lectures were based on the typical five-

paragraph theme. Some instructional conversations about literature revealed Ms. Foss’s

shifting epistemologies between structural and ideational stances. In the following

transcript, Ms. Foss and the students were discussing Greg Neri’s (2010) graphic novel,

Yummy. Ms. Foss raised the question about how Yummy’s childhood impacted his

behavior. As students responded, they kept discussing the question of whether Yummy

was responsible for his actions if he was influenced by his circumstances.

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Table 4.14. Conversations about Yummy in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Speaker Message Unit Notes 101 Teacher Do you think Yummy's troubled childhood

excuses his behavior because of his age? Initiating new topic

102 So what did you guys come up with? Shifts floor to students 103 Harry I just said that it does because he went

through a rough childhood and maybe even tortured.

Claims Presents evidence

104 So he had no family his family. His mom and dad treated Yummy wrong. he was trying to like-

Presents evidence

105 Teacher find a place? Framed as reported speech

106 Harry Yeah find a place. Validates 107 Teacher Okay Validates 108 Ron, so do you agree with him? Shifts floor 109 Ron Yeah I agree with him. Validates 110 Teacher Anything to add? Requesting elaboration 111 Ron just think that he had no father figure? Presents evidence 112 Teacher He had no what? 113 Ron Father figure. 114 Teacher Yep he didn't have a father figure. Validates 115 What do you think Gina? Shifting floor 116 Gina I said that it doesn't because he could have

looked at the situation but instead made his own choice.

Claims Presents evidence

117 Teacher So you think he bears the responsibility for what he does?

Framed as reported speech

118 Gina Yea he does. Framing response 119 Teacher Yeah, that's a good point like he could have

looked at the situation and made other choices but he chose to go with the gangs.

Validates

120 So he was definitely though influenced by his parents and by the gang. That was definitely a huge influence.

Validates

121 Alright, back here.. do you think Yummy understand the enormity of his crimes?

Naming new topic

122 Why or why not? 123 So do you think he understands what he did? Shifts floor to students 124 Jenny I don't think that he realized what he did

because he was only eleven. Claims Presents evidence

125 Teacher Okay. Validates

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126 Gina So that the gang pretty much influenced him to do stuff and just didn't really care about his feelings and all. Like after what happened.

Presents evidence

127 Teacher What do you think Irvin? Shifts floor to students 128 Irvin I agree 129 [ laughter ] 130 Seth I think he knew what he was doing. Claims 131 Teacher You do think he knew what he was doing? Framing reported

speech 132 Seth Because when he did the crime he was

hiding from the cops and stuff so that made him know what he was doing like-

Presents evidence

133 Teacher Yeah, so the fact that he just hid that shows that he understands what he did right?

Requesting elaboration

134 And what did-what happened right after he shot the girl?

135 Seth He wondered what happened. He didn't mean to.

136 Teacher Yeah he just talked about that It was an accident.

Validates

137 Even when he-when he- is on the phone he says, ' Grandma, why is the police looking for me? It wasn't my fault. So he- he kind of understands like he's done something wrong but maybe not how bad but he does like hides from the police so that shows us that he does understand that it's wrong because he's hiding.

Presents warrants

138 So what do you think does Yummy have any redeeming qualities?

Naming new topic

139 Marc Uh, yeah because on page 58 and 59 he says like 'thank you' and 'excuse me' and 'pardon me.'

Locates evidence Presents evidence

140 He has like all these redeeming qualities which I think is like why he has got options to choose the right thing

Claims Presents evidence

141 Teacher So I think Marc makes a really good point Validates 142 and we do see he does know enough to 143 Colin, can you close your iPad for me? Classroom

management 144 He does know enough to say please and

thank you so he must know some amount of

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good right and wrong which almost makes it worse that he did what he did.

145 So I think Marc brings us a really good point.

Validates

146 I don't think anyone has brought that up today because he does have these human qualities that make it worse.

In this excerpt, Ms. Foss focused on exploring ideas in this topic, pointing out the

possibility of different interpretations (lines 101, 102). She foregrounded the students’

comments and tried to make them see conflicting perspectives. Actually, the focus on

ideas began before this segment in the teacher’s orchestration of the daily writing task, to

explore and interpret the short stories including Thank You, Ma’am, Sometimes a Dream

Needs a Push, Sol Painting, Inc., The Treasure of Lemon Brown as well as Yummy. For

example, after reading the short story Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push, students wrote

how would they describe guilt, what made them feel guilty, how do they live it with it or

how did they make the guilty go away. Doing so was contextualized by close reading

strategies drawing on Notice and Note by Beers and Probst (2012); Ms. Foss taught the

six signposts to identify text features. The transcript represents how Ms. Foss and her

students reframe literary interpretation of “Yummy” with a discourse of responsibilities

and growth environment. Considering most discussion across the academic year occurred

with closed-end questions to check the understanding of literature they read, this

transcript reveals Ms. Foss shifted primary concerns toward ideas rather than surface

features of texts based on objectivist notions of knowledge. She uses the conversational

strategies making the students to see themselves as the active participants of exploring

ideas such as reported speech (e.g., lines 119, 120, 142, 144) and revoicing student

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responses (e.g., lines 114, 136). Ms. Foss also validates student comments, which

provides a way for her and the students to co-construct verbal argument. Due to the

limited space, only one transcript (Table 4.14) is included in this section; this is an

example to show how Ms. Foss approached for the first several weeks. In particular,

when Ms. Foss felt that they fell behind schedule, she quickly turned to the structural

aspects of argumentation. Nevertheless, this instructional conversation as Ms. Foss tried

giving more opportunities to explore ideas plays a critical role in shifting the focus from

only structural features of argumentation to idea exploration. In other words, though there

is not much, the conversation indicates oscillation between two different epistemologies.

Ms. Glen. Ms. Glen’s ideational epistemology has been predominant as her

ideational stance was manifest in her teaching practices as well as the verbal explanation

of her teaching philosophy through multiple pre- and post-observation interviews.

Structural aspects of writing and argumentation were not her major interest. For example,

students were encouraged to analyze the texts and write to demonstrate their own

knowledge and interpretation rather than to learn about textual form and structures.

On the other hand, Ms. Glen’s view of argumentation could not align with the

wider context of “good argumentative writing,” shaped by the CCSS and the school

district. She had to use the rubric developed by the school district. The school district

developed the rubric reflecting the formalistic perspective toward writing promulgated by

the CCSS. The rubric Ms. Glen had to use is contrary to her ideational epistemology in

that the former focuses on surface textual features of writing whereas the latter

emphasizes the importance of generating and developing ideas. From the perspective of

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her students, they were aware that exploring ideas was valued in Ms. Glen’s classroom

through lectures and conversations, but they might realize that they ended up writing

essays with structural epistemology if they figured out the discrepancies between Ms.

Glen’s ideational epistemology and the rubric as an assessment tool. In fact, one of the

focal students, Kristen, shared her strategies to be successful in Ms. Glen’s classroom by

stating that:

I just was trying to follow those guidelines and the rubric. So I tried to have

paragraphs and make it organized. I don’t know, just follow the guidelines …

For the writing, most of it was on your own … You need more figuring things

out on yourself (interview, 12/07/2017).

Kristen was deemed a successful writer in Ms. Glen’s classroom throughout her

writing assignments. Ms. Glen taught argumentation by introducing basic elements of

argumentation and Aristotle’s Appeals and asked her students to use these basic

principles to construct arguments. She did not provide a pre-determined structure, but

emphasized the importance of students’ ideas. According to Kristen, the teacher’s

explanation was not concrete enough, thus she analyzed the rubric and guidelines

carefully in order to get a good grade. As a consequence, as she explicitly mentioned in

the interview above, she figured out the crux the rubric was structural aspects and

focused on paragraphs and organizations, ignoring prior classroom events implying

exploring ideas as a valued aspect. Not only the students, but Ms. Glen also actually

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acknowledged the discrepancy between her beliefs about writing and the rubric. Ms. Glen

tried to negotiate it through a discussion with her students; I will discuss later her own

negotiation process in Chapter 5. However, despite all her efforts, this case shows how

institutional forces including formal curriculum or standardized testing influence

epistemologies for teaching and learning argumentative writing. In other words, Ms.

Glen’s teaching practices oscillate between ideational stance (e.g., teaching philosophy,

lectures, discussion) and structural epistemology (e.g., writing assessment tool mandated

by the school district). Ms. Glen’s statement explicitly represents the role and impact of

institutional forces in her decisions about curriculum:

I’m following whatever is on the standard that we have to follow for the school

district. So we are doing the narrative writing. We are doing the formative

writing and the analysis paper. These are what we are working on so that by the

end of the year. Everything that is on the standard should have been touched on

hopefully more than once (interview, 11/04/2017).

In Ms. Glen’s classroom, as Kristen stated, students needed to figure out the

features of good writing on their own. As discussed above, when it comes to

argumentative writing, Ms. Glen introduced basic elements of argumentation and

Aristotle’s Appeals. Some students attempted to apply these elements into new writing

tasks, but others struggled with writing or wanted to take the easy way out decided to use

the five-paragraph theme learned in middle school years. Kent, one of the focal students,

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also relied on the five-paragraph theme for the argumentative writing assignment about

Lord of the Flies: “I answered the question using the outline [five-paragraph theme]. I

didn’t cheat. I just wrote it in a simpler form and then expanded upon it when writing my

final copy” (interview, 12/07/2017). His statement demonstrates, without careful support

and scaffolding, students may quickly turn to the epistemology they got used to,

regardless of the teacher’s stance.

Sometimes, especially for types of writing students infrequently learn, Ms. Glen

asked her students to mimic and copy the text written by professional writers. This might

be helpful at the early emergent stage of writing of ELL students or preschoolers (Coker

& Ritchey, 2015; Emerson & Hall, 2018), but such writing practices require little

creativity and individual thinking. For instance, when Ms. Glen taught obituaries, she did

not give instructions on ideas or opportunities to discuss, but just said “go and look

online. Go to these websites and check out what the obituaries look like.” She then

showed her students some example obituaries from New York Times and Chicago Star:

“You had to do read these and then go back to the text and pull out information and then

add some creative part to mimic the same. I think mimicking in writing is important, very

useful.” Although she added that students could add some creative part, not to mention

lack of explanation, mimicking remained a major part of instructions students should

follow. In this situation, most students spent their time figuring out a plausible format

from the texts written by others, instead of using the time to write to explore, think, and

wonder.

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Teachers' Epistemologies for Teaching and Learning Argumentative Writing

Through instruction and conversation, two teachers structured teaching and

learning literature-related argumentative writing in each classroom as a learning

community. Each teacher provided students with declarative knowledge of argumentation

with different epistemologies. Procedural knowledge for how to construct an argument

was constructed differently in each classroom community. Explicit instruction as a way

of building both knowledges shaped student learning experience differently according to

different teacher epistemologies.

In the next chapter, I turn to the writing assignments, student written works and

their views in order to understand how writing assignments were orchestrated and how

individual students appropriated teachers' epistemologies in two different classrooms.

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Chapter 5. Students' Appropriation of the Teachers' Epistemologies

To better illustrate the ways of writing instruction, in this chapter, I turn to eight

focal students' written products and post-observation interviews as well as the writing

assignments. The primary focus of analysis is on students' appropriation of the teachers'

epistemologies in order to understand how the teachers' epistemologies appropriated by

their students. By doing this, I answer my third research question: How are the teachers’

epistemologies appropriated by their 9th grade students?

Describing the two writing assignments per each classroom, I investigate each

focal student’s work along with post-observation interviews. Writing can be looked upon

as a process of social participation (Heap, 1989). This view is similar in perspective to

other writing scholars in that a student's written work is not just the student's own

collection of facts and words, but a response within a certain cultural, historical, and

social context (Lunsford, 2002; Newell et al., 2017; VanDerHeide, 2017; Wynhoff Olsen

et al., 2018). Against this backdrop, an analysis of instructional context including writing

prompts and rubrics as well as student essays is warranted.

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Argumentative Writing Assignments

Ms. Foss

The first argumentative writing essay was in response to a short story. Ms. Foss

provided four different prompts to the students and they could choose what they wanted

to write. These are the prompts provided in Ms. Foss's classroom:

1. Who was changed more by Chris playing wheelchair basketball - Chris or his

dad? (Prompt for Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push)

2. How do you think Merci will act differently in the future after what she

witnessed her father do at the school? (Prompt for Sol Painting, Inc.)

3. Is Yummy a bully, a victim, or both? (Prompt for Yummy)

4. How did Greg change as a result of meeting Lemon Brown? (Prompt for The

Treasure of Lemon Brown)

Overall, the main purpose of this argumentative writing assignment of the first

instructional chain was to scaffold students' understanding of a graphic organizer and

color-coding to facilitate an argumentative writing task about Of Mice and Men in the

second instructional unit. For the first argumentative writing task, there was a word limit

set by Ms. Foss, only one paragraph, which in turn affected the extent to which students

explored diverse aspects, but Ms. Foss prioritized limited space with a pre-set structure as

to minimize diversity and uncertainty of student writing. I collected 20 student essays for

this writing task: 16 essays about Yummy, 3 essays about Sometimes a Dream Needs a

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Push, and one essay about The Treasure of Lemon Brown. When I asked how and why

they chose a certain prompt during the interviews, students said that they chose a topic

they had confidence in or were familiar with. From my view, most students decided to

write about the third prompt because Ms. Foss and the students spent much more time on

Yummy than other stories and perhaps this novel deals with the familiar theme of

bullying.

The second argumentative writing essay was in response to the novel Of Mice and

Men by John Steinbeck. The prompts provided to the students were:

1. Name your character’s three most dominant characteristics. Make arguments

to support your description of your character. You can choose from: George,

Lennie, Candy, Curley’s wife.

2. Do you think George was right or wrong in killing Lennie? Explain your

answer.

3. What is your character’ rank on the ranch in terms of power? What is their

source of power? How do they use their power on the ranch? You can choose

from: George, Lennie, Candy, Curley’s wife.

4. Who is the loneliest character on the ranch? Why is the character the loneliest?

How does your character deal with his or her loneliness? You can choose from:

George, Lennie, Candy, Curley’s wife.

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Similar to the first argumentative writing assignment, there were four different

prompts about Of Mice and Men and students could choose one prompt for their writing.

In comparison to the first writing task, students were able to write more than one

paragraph. The sample essay Ms. Foss used was explicitly a five-paragraph structure

when she explained this writing task. As a consequence, most students writing ended up

writing five-paragraph forms even though Ms. Foss mentioned that students could write

as much as they wanted. I collected 20 student essays for this writing task: 14 essays

responding to the third prompt, 4 essays responding to the fourth prompt, and 2 essays

responding to the first prompt. After reading Of Mice and Men, students filled out a

character chart worksheet focusing on a power issue, which might be a reason why many

of them chose the third prompt. Indeed, focal students told that they chose the third

prompt because they already collected textual evidence through the classroom activity

and felt it could be an easy way to get a good grade by choosing this prompt.

Ms. Glen

The first argumentative writing essay was in response to an imaginary lifeboat

dilemma situation. From the beginning of the semester, as they had opportunities to write

three to four times per week, the students began to establish their writing habits. Ms. Glen

tried to give as many writing opportunities as possible according to her belief that

developing positive writing habits is an important aspect of writing instruction. The

prompt read: Determine which human being must stay on the lifeboat. Explain why you

must stay on the lifeboat.

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Each student chose one character out of 12 people in the scenario. Ms. Glen

explained the Aristotelian appeals—ethos, pathos, logos—and argumentation elements,

such as claim and evidence, but did not provide any pre-set structures as Ms. Foss did.

Accordingly, the students had to write essays drawing on basic elements of

argumentation. With these parameters, the students enjoyed a greater extension of

freedom in terms of length, structure, and form.

The second argumentative writing essay was in response to the novel Lord of the

Flies by William Golding. There were five different prompts for this writing assignment.

The prompts provided to the students were:

1. Defend and/or criticize Ralph's actions as a leader. What were his

motivations? Did he contribute to the tragedy in any way? Could he have acted to

prevent any of the deaths? What would you have done differently in his

situation?

2. Some readers of Lord of the Flies have argued and each and every one of the

boys' actions is nothing more than an attempt to survive in difficult conditions.

Think about the mounting of the sow's head, Simon's ascent up the mountain, and

the murder of Piggy in particular, as well as any other key scenes that stand out

for you. Is it fair to say that the boys' actions were merely the result of the human

survival instinct? Why or why not? If so, can you use these examples to draw

some general conclusions about the human instinct to survive?

3. The struggle for power and the different types of power is one of the themes in

Lord of the Flies. Discuss the different types of power in the novel and the

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struggle for it-who has it and who wants it? What is Golding saying about the use

of power and the connection between good and evil?

4. The conch is an all-important symbol in the novel. It is almost a character in

its own right. Trace the development of this symbol. How does Golding develop

this shell into this symbol? Discuss what it means, and the effect it has on the

group of boys, from the first assembly to its eventual destruction. You may want

to include in your discussion its relation to characters like Ralph, Piggy, or even

Jack.

5. Discuss the development of one of the major characters (Ralph, Piggy, Simon,

Jack). How do they change from beginning to end? Is the change a "good"

change, or a "bad" one? Be sure to support your response with specific examples

from the text, as well as information you learned from the class discussions

(Simon as a Christ figure, or Piggy as representative of knowledge, etc.).

I collected 22 student essays for this writing task: 8 essays responding to the fifth

prompt, 7 essays responding to the fourth prompt, 5 essays responding to the third

prompt, and 2 essays responding to the second prompt. The literature-related

argumentative writing assignment stated that the students should write an interpretive

argument about characters, themes, or symbols.

I will now move on to discuss students' argumentative and literary moves in these

four writing tasks, and how teachers' different epistemologies were appropriated in the

ways of writing in each classroom.

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Rubric

Rubrics are often used to assess writing (Ferris & Hedgcock, 2005). As such,

rubrics influence teachers by framing their perceptions toward argumentative writing.

Teachers, while having consideration for contextual information, can also privilege a

certain rubric by revising or adopting it (Spence, 2010). Thus, rubrics reveal teacher

epistemology whenever a teacher is able to choose a rubric, or they lead to conflicting

epistemologies when a teacher should use a rubric chosen by others.

Ms. Foss

Using the nine traits rubric, Ms. Foss and one of her colleagues developed and

updated their rubric to teach ninth grade students. Concerning her methodology, Ms. Foss

explained: "Just over the years I have made changes to it [the rubric] and it is just kind of

like every year I changed it a little bit more" (interview, 11/05/2017). Since she designed

her rubric from scratch, I could see the ownership she felt as a teacher towards the

writing assessment used in the rubric. She said: “We can make it really whatever we

want. It's been mine. I developed it with another teacher and then I made it mine over

time. And every year I make some changes to it" (interview, 11/05/2017).

This nine traits rubric is simple. It measures nine structural traits: MLA format,

Claim, Introduction of the Textual Evidence, Textual Evidence, Warrant, Concluding

Sentences, Transition, In-Text Citations, and Writing Conventions (see Appendix F for

the full rubric). Nine traits consist of a 9 × 3 matrix containing 27 pairs descriptors.

Without taking a closer look at each of the descriptors, it is evident that all the traits are

about structural aspects of argumentative writing. If one were to take a closer look at an

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individual trait, the focus on structural aspects of argumentation would be clearer. For

instance, the rubric for Introduction of the Textual Evidence illustrates how such values

are injected into the writing assessment:

1. Each piece of textual evidence is not effectively introduced with an

explanation of what's going on in the story. And/or the speech tag does not tell

the reader who says/writes the piece of evidence before each piece of textual

evidence.

2. Each piece of textual evidence may not be effectively introduced with an

explanation of what's going on in the story. And/or the speech tag not tell the

reader who says/writes the piece of evidence before each piece of textual

evidence.

3. Each piece of textual evidence is effectively introduced with an explanation of

what's going on in the story. And/or the speech tag tells the reader who

says/writes the piece of evidence before each piece of textual evidence.

These three descriptive statements show a heavy central focus on surface textual

features. Whether a student introduces each textual evidence with a speech tag is the

essence of this rubric section. These features will influence the way students understand

the essential parts of argumentative writing and ways of organizing their papers. In other

words, the rubric will put a constraint on the student writing process and development

(Spence, 2010).

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The rubric that Ms. Foss used in her classroom signified her structural

epistemology for writing: the multiplicity of forms of evidence, the individuality of the

writer, or idea exploration was not acknowledged. On November 14, Ms. Foss provided

instruction regarding her rubric (see Table 5.1 for explicit instruction by Ms. Foss).

Table 5.1. Explicit Instruction about the Rubric in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Explicit Instruction Move(s) Referenced The next thing I want to do is I want to talk about the rubric.

Stating the Rubric

So, the first section is going to be the MLA format and that’s worth three points. So, you want to make sure that you’ve got the correct heading on your essay.

Structural Epistemology Stating MLA style

You want to make sure you have a title and it’s correctly placed and it’s appropriate. So, our title should be something that’s relevant to your essay.

Structural Epistemology Stating MLA style

The next section is going to be your introduction. You got your thesis statement which should preview the main ideas in your essay and also clearly state what you’re arguing. That’s going to be your introduction paragraph.

Structural Epistemology Stating Thesis Statement

Then you’ve got the two body paragraphs, the second and third body paragraphs.

Structural Epistemology Stating Paragraph Structure

With your claim, I’m looking that your claim is clear and that you’re explaining what your paragraph is about. So, that’s what you want in your claim. In your introduction to the textual evidence you should explain what’s going on in the story, the time of your textual evidence, you also need to have a speech tag. And, your speech tag should be correct.

Structural Epistemology Stating Paragraph Structure

Alright, so then we’ve got a section on transition words. Remember, there’s a chart on Canvas for transition words, for body paragraph. It tells you exactly where you need your transition words in the body paragraph.

Structural Epistemology Stating Transition Words

Make sure that after each piece of textual evidence you have an in-text citation. You want to make sure that it’s formatted correctly.

Structural Epistemology Stating In-Text Citation

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And then, your writing conventions. Make sure you’re checking your punctuation, your spelling, capitalization.

Structural Epistemology Stating Writing Conventions

During instruction concerning the rubric, Ms. Foss focused on structure and style,

revealing what she considered to be "good writing" within the context of her classroom.

From her perspective, "good writing" is chiefly concerned with the structure of an

argument. Her instructional intention for a summative writing task was to check a system

capable of creating an argumentative essay that was both acceptable and appropriate in

terms of structural aspects. She also took an authoritative stance, delivering her

expectations explicitly regarding the final product of an argumentative essay. While

doing so, she did not attempt to involve her students in the classroom conversation;

instead, she positioned them as passive note-takers. During a post-observation interview

about this segment of the instruction, Ms. Foss commented that, "I know it is very

formulaic. I think a lot of times it is looked down on but I think it will help them"

(interview, 10/16/2017). This quote might explain her tendency to privilege the structural

aspects of argumentation.

Ms. Glen

Ms. Glen used the six traits rubric to score her student argumentative essays.

Unlike the rubric developed by Ms. Foss, the six traits rubric was designed and adopted

by the school district. According to Ms. Glen, this rubric reflected the Common Core

State Standards (CCSS, 2010). In a similar fashion to the nine traits rubric, the six traits

rubric measured six aspects of argumentative writing: Introduction, Body Paragraph,

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Conclusion, Understanding, MLA, and Mechanics. These six traits consisted of a 6 × 5

matrix with 30 paired descriptors (see Appendix G for the full rubric).

There were certain discrepancies, however, between Ms. Glen's teaching practices

and the analytical rubric. The rubric she used did not reflect her ideational epistemology.

The traits of the rubric, in reflecting the structural features that the CCSS stress, tended to

focus on the structural aspects of argumentative writing. Ms. Glen was well aware of this

limitation, saying: "The struggle is understanding the prompt and finding evidence to

back it up. The easy part is the structure" (interview, 12/04/2017). Although her primary

concern was relevant to idea development, she focused on aligning the structural aspects

of argumentation with the rubric put in place by her school district. Ms. Glen continued:

"What I was looking for when I was grading was really only four things. I was looking

for structure with a thesis, textual evidence with citation, analysis, and then grammar,

spelling and punctuation" (interview, 12/04/2017). This phenomenon showed how

institutional forces may impact writing instruction and assessment.

Interestingly, Ms. Glen addressed this perceived gap by approaching the scoring

rubric in a way that involved her students in the application of the rubric (see Table 5.2

for a transcript). This is noteworthy because students are scarcely included in the

application of rubrics, even though they often receive a brief explanation about a rubric

ahead of a writing task (Becker, 2016).

Table 5.2. Conversations about the Rubric in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Speaker Message Unit Notes 101 Teacher What is a rubric? Initiating new topic

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102 Why are they valuable to you and me? 103 Ron It tells you how your project is going to be

graded. Presents ideas

104 Teacher Yes. Validates 105 The rubric is what I use and what you need

to aim for whenever you’re given any kind of project or paper to write.

Providing instruction

106 The things on a rubric are what are going to get you points.

Connecting grades

107 Alright, those are the skills I am looking for. Sharing a teacher’s view

108 So generally, because I am, the other reason, actually, added to that, for me as the grader, having a rubric makes it easy for me to read, find those skills, and mark them off on the rubric so I know if you have those skills or not.

Provides more information

109 Generally, a rubric comes like this. It’s usually, well there is different types. We could have a section for the intro, a section for the body paragraphs, a section for the conclusion.

Introducing the rubric

110 I like sections that talk about, well, first MLA citation. And understanding. Understanding of meaning.

Describing each trait

111 Do you know what you’re talking about? Checking student 112 And then there’s usually the mechanics. Describing each trait 113 This one, I’ve noticed, is usually lower

points because we have spell check these days.

Provides more information

114 it’s not maybe as important as some of the other areas.

Provides more information

115 The essay is going to be 50 points, so it’s a pretty big essay

Connecting grades

116 What I want to know is how would you distribute those points? How do you think you would give each one the meaning? What is the most important thing to you? Where would you put the bulk of those points?

Shifting floor

117 Yes? Indicating Mike 118 Mike Body. Responses 119 Teacher Body? And how much would you give the

body? Requesting elaboration

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120 Mike Um, 10. Responses 121 Teacher 10 points, why? Requesting elaboration 122 Mike Because it’s like, has all the info really. Responses 123 Teacher Right. I mean the body, you’re going to have

to have a topic sentence, right? You’ll have to have some kind of evidence.

Describing each trait

124 You’re going to have some kind of warrant to back it up. Some kind of analysis.

125 Where else would you put the points Shifts floor to students 126 or would everyone agree with that? 127 What would you think is the most

important?

128 Oliver and then Kate. Shifts floor to students 129 Oliver I would say actually 15 on body because I

feel like the body is more than 10 points because it’s bigger.

Claims Presents evidence

130 Kate I agree 15. Claims 131 Teacher So you’re saying 15. Revoicing 132 Kate I’m going to want a lot of points under

understanding and meaning. Claims

133 Teacher This one? Why? Requesting elaboration 134 Kate Because, like, that’s why we’re writing the

essay. Presents evidence

135 Teacher Right, I mean I personally, this I what I’m really looking for.

Validates Kate’s response

136 This is more organizational, you’ve been doing that for a while.

Presents evidence

137 You pretty much know what you’re required for those,

Describes the current status

138 but this tells that you really know the stuff. Presents evidence 139 So how many points do you think that is

worth? Shifts floor to Kate

140 Kate 20. Responses 141 Teacher The same as the body? Revoicing 142 Oliver 5, 5, 5, 5. Claims 143 Teacher Kate. Although Oliver

interrupted, the teacher focused on Kate’s responses

144 Kate 15 to 20. Responses 145 Teacher You’re going to go 15 or 20. We have 15

and 15 to 20.

146 John 15. Definitely not 20. Claims

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147 Teacher Hold on a second, I’ll come back to you, 148 How about the rest of you? 149 This is your rubric. Reminds student

position 150 Where do you think we should put the rest

of the points.

151 John, what do you think? Shifts floor to John 152 John Only 10 on the intro because that’s going

back to the thesis but a decent amount on the intro because that is where you’re hooking the reader.

Claims Presents evidence

153 Teacher So the intro you have to have what? The hook and?

Requesting elaboration

154 John Thesis Responses 155 Teacher Yeah. So you have the hook and your thesis.

You are saying you think you need a decent amount, so 10? Or, how many?

Revoicing Validates Reporting speech

156 John 10 Responses 157 Teacher 10 Revoicing 158 Oliver I say that the mechanics should only be

worth five since it’s easier to have good mechanics with spell check or Grammarly or stuff like that that do it for you.

Claims Presents evidence

159 Teacher Yeah Validates 160 So you don’t really, there’s nothing much in

there to really prove a skill. Reporting speech

161 Emily. 162 Emily I think conclusion, intro, and mechanics

should all be five because, it’s like, they’re not as important as understanding and body and those should be 10.

Claims Presents evidence

163 Teacher So intro, conclusion.. Revoicing 164 Emily And mechanics 165 Teacher And mechanics would be 5. Revoicing 166 Emily And MLA would be 10 and body,

understanding would be 10. Claims

167 Teacher What would be 10? Revoicing 168 Emily MLA, body, and understanding. 169 Teacher 10, 20, 30, 40, 45. Revoicing 170 Emily 15 on body then. 171 Teacher 15 on body. Revoicing 172 Emily Or 15 on understanding

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173 Teacher Alright, just doing Emily’s first and we’ll see what that looks like.

Validates

174 So, look good to you? Ok, who was the next person?

Shifts floor to students

175 Ethan I would keep everything but the first the same, and then make the conclusion 10 and the citations 5. Because if the intro is 10 the conclusion should be 10

Claims Presents evidence

176 Teacher Is this easy? Requesting elaboration 177 Ethan Um, not really. It would just citations. Put it

in the thing. Responses presents evidence

178 Teacher You can still gain points, too, if you get it. Requesting elaboration 179 Ethan I know, you can still put it in the Owl

Purdue thing and it turns out not great. Presents evidence

180 Teacher Um, Bethany, was it you? Shifts floor to Bethany 181 Bethany I was suggesting what Ethan said. Responses

Ms. Glen relinquished the responsibilities of upholding the rubric to the students.

Instead of delivering a teacher-oriented lecture about the rubric, Ms. Glen created an

environment where students were encouraged to exchange their thoughts concerning each

trait of the rubric. Not only did she want to see what her students would think about the

rubric (e.g., lines 101, 102, 111), but she also wanted to know how they would distribute

points to each of the traits (e.g., lines 116, 119, 121, 125).

The classroom conversation demonstrated both the perceptions of the teacher and

the students regarding the rubric. For example, when Ms. Glen introduced a trait within

the rubric, she explicitly revealed her personal view toward the mechanics section: "This

one [mechanics], I've noticed, is usually lower points because we have spell check these

days." According to her, in terms of writing assessment, the mechanics might not be as

important as other aspects of writing (e.g., lines 113, 114). One of her students, Kate,

appropriated it and claimed that she would give more points to the body than other parts,

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and that she would also distribute more points to the understanding section since

understanding was where they could demonstrate their ideas (e.g., lines 130, 132, 134).

Ms. Glen validated Kate's statement, emphasizing that she would like to give more credit

for idea development than structural aspects of writing (e.g., lines between 135 and 139).

This demonstrated Ms. Glen's perspective concerning the rubric, as well as her views on

teaching and learning argumentative writing. Then, Ms. Glen and her students continued

to share their perspectives regarding the rubric (e.g., lines between 140-181). The

students proposed several new rubrics using the same categories of traits but with

different distributions of points. Ms. Glen allowed the students, by a majority of votes, to

determine the preferred rubric. She then announced the selected rubric to be used (see

Appendix G for the full rubric).

Through the post-observation interview, Ms. Glen also provided her views to me

about what she does and does not consider to be important aspects of argumentative

writing.

It is the same structure for every essay they are going to do. Once you’ve got that

up, you just follow it. You just plug in your ideas. The ideas are the hard part.

Getting those ideas, that analysis down, I think that’s really difficult for me to

teach (interview, 12/04/2017).

In the following statement, Ms. Glen characterizes the nature of learning

argumentative writing as being akin to learning ways of generating and developing ideas.

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It’s important for students to understand that they’re not just going through a

process to write an essay. Really, it’s a thinking process. They don’t often

understand that. They just want to get it done, get the structure down, plug it in,

and how many points is that? Getting them to really think about what is

happening is tough to teach, I think (interview, 12/18/2017).

She narrated the challenge she faces when it comes to the teaching of

argumentative writing: her primary concern is idea development, rather than simply

producing initial ideas. Unfortunately, though, idea development is one of the most

difficult parts of writing, and further, it is difficult to teach: "I find the thinking, the

developing their ideas, not coming up with an idea, but developing that and writing about

it throughout your essay is difficult sometimes. That is difficult to teach in writing"

(12/18/2017).

In sum, Ms. Glen kept revealing an ideational epistemology; in spite of the

broader context of the rubric as promulgated by the school district and the school’s

emphasis on the structural components of argumentative writing. The instructional

conversation and the rubric Ms. Glen and her students discussed and selected revealed

that they shared views toward argumentative writing in the classroom as a learning

community. It is true that there were some radical limits on the rubric that the school

district set forth, since it had been designed with an initial focus on structural aspects of

argumentation; however, Ms. Glen provided her students with opportunities to discuss

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each trait, and their discussion ultimately manifested into ideational epistemology for

argumentative writing anyway.

Intertextual Traces Visible in Students' Essays

In an effort to display intertextual traces, I use this section of the chapter to

visually specify multiple intertextual traces within excerpts of focal students' essays. I

then discuss connections the students have made among the traces. All the essays are

from four focal students in each classroom, respectively. Displaying the intertextual

traces discernible in the students' written texts, I will now turn to explore findings from

my third research question: How are the teachers' epistemologies appropriated by their

9th grade students?

The analysis demonstrates how the focal students from the classrooms of two

teachers with different epistemologies appropriated argumentation and literature-related

argumentative writing practices differently. The focal students’ essays reflect the

instructional context as a response to the localized literary analysis and argumentation

practices the teachers with different epistemologies attempted to foster for their students.

Drawing on the methodological approaches by Newell et al. (2015) and Wynhoff Osen et

al. (2018), I analyzed the focal students’ argumentative essays. Analyzing the sentence

level as the unit of analysis, I focused on three areas: 1) argumentative moves of claim,

evidence, and warrant; 2) literary sub-moves; and 3) epistemological stances. A full

coded analysis of the focal students’ essays with analytic notes can be found in Appendix

H.

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Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Analysis confirmed that almost every sentence in the focal students' essays had

intertextual traces to key events that had occurred in Ms. Foss's classroom. As for the first

argumentative writing task, all focal students wrote their essays in response to the graphic

novel Yummy. The writing prompt Ms. Foss provided concerning Yummy is: Is Yummy a

bully, a victim, or both? Overall, the students struggled to have the requisite structural

components, because they had learned how to make arguments as if following a formula.

All twenty students in Ms. Foss’s class followed the formulaic template she gave them.

Daisy’s argumentative essay about Yummy (Figure 5.1) reflects Ms. Foss’s classroom

context by following the paragraph theme Ms. Foss attempted to impart to her students.

Figure 5.1. Daisy’s Final Essay as the First Argumentative Writing Assignment

In Greg Neri’s story “Yummy” Yummy was not a bully, he was the victim of many

things. One way that yummy was a victim was that he would get abused and hit by his

mom. Neri writes, “Ever since I knew him, when he was like 3, Yummy had scars and

burns all over himself. He used to show them off to us.’ This one was from when I got

whooped with with a ‘lectrical cord”’ (Neri 22). This example shows that when he was

hit with an electrical cord that he was a victim of neglect and abuse. He wouldn't get

treated right which made him feel like nobody cared about him and that he was

unwanted. Another way that Yummy was a victim was that most of the time he was

doing something wrong was because people in the gang would be pressuring him. Neri

writes “Yummy’s a good little shorty. He do what he's told. He wants to impress, so

you give him an assignment. ’Hey homie, go find me $50’ or ‘Go pop that dude that's

messing with our business’ See he's like our little pit bull puppy dog. But when he gets

big, that's when you gotta watch out” (Neri 53). This proves that Yummy is a victim

because the older people in the gang would pressure him into doing the wrong stuff

such as stealing and shooting someone. He would do it because he wanted to impress

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them and fit in. In conclusion, Yummy was a victim because he had a rough childhood

being a victim in a gang and having bad parents which made him do the wrong stuff

when he wanted to impress people or fit in.

Daisy uses the main character of Yummy to make the argument that Yummy is a

victim, not a bully, largely influenced by his environment. To support her argument

Daisy relied on two pieces of textual evidence—abusive mom and the gang putting

pressure.

Table 5.3. Analysis of Daisy’s First Writing Assignment

Sentences AM1 LM2 ES3 1.1 In Greg Neri’s story “Yummy” Yummy

was not a bully, he was the victim of many things.

Claim Structural

1.2 One way that yummy was a victim was that he would get abused and hit by his mom.

Sub-claim Meaning

1.3 Neri writes, “Ever since I knew him, when he was like 3, Yummy had scars and burns all over himself. He used to show them off to us.’ This one was from when I got whooped with with a ‘lectrical cord”’ (Neri 22).

Evidence Text Structural

1.4 This example shows that when he was hit with an electrical cord that he was a victim of neglect and abuse.

Warrant Retelling Structural

1.5 He wouldn't get treated right which made him feel like nobody cared about him and that he was unwanted.

Warrant Meaning Ideational

1.6 Another way that Yummy was a victim was that most of the time he was doing

Sub-claim Structural

1 Argumentative moves from Toulmin (1958/2003) and Williams and Colomb (2007) Claim, Evidence, Warrant 2 Literary submoves from VanDerHeide (2018) Retelling, Meaning, Text, Personal Experience 3 Epistemological stances from Newell et al. (2015) Structural, Ideational, Social Process

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something wrong was because people in the gang would be pressuring him.

1.7 Neri writes “Yummy’s a good little shorty. He do what he's told. He wants to impress, so you give him an assignment. ’Hey homie, go find me $50’ or ‘Go pop that dude that's messing with our business’ See he's like our little pit bull puppy dog. But when he gets big, that's when you gotta watch out” (Neri 53).

Evidence Text Structural

1.8 This proves that Yummy is a victim because the older people in the gang would pressure him into doing the wrong stuff such as stealing and shooting someone.

Warrant Meaning Structural

1.9 He would do it because he wanted to impress them and fit in.

Warrant Meaning Structural

1.10 In conclusion, Yummy was a victim because he had a rough childhood being a victim in a gang and having bad parents which made him do the wrong stuff when he wanted to impress people or fit in.

Claim Retelling Structural

Daisy begins her essay by making a claim in one sentence, "In Greg Neri's story

"Yummy" Yummy was not a bully, he was the victim of many things." (1.1). This one-

paragraph writing is full of structural traces. Daisy makes a claim using only one

sentence in the first sentence (1.1) according to Ms. Foss’s explicit instructions. Ms. Foss

explicitly explained the rules for argumentative writing in her classroom. According to

Ms. Foss, “the first sentence” should be the topic sentence as a major claim and should

also be written in “only one sentence.” Ms. Foss emphasized the location and the length

of the topic sentence repeatedly across multiple periods—the first, single sentence. One

thematic tracing also revealed in the first sentence. Whether Yummy was considered a

bully or victim traces back to a class session on September 8, wherein the class discussed

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the graphic novel Yummy and whether or not the character Yummy is a victim or a bully.

They continued to analyze this topic and write about it. During the post-observation

interview, Ms. Foss explained:

The discussion in class went well today. We had enough time to have the

students complete a free write about Yummy and whether or not he is a victim or

bully. I hadn’t planned on doing this today, but we discussed the questions more

quickly than I thought we would. I think the freewrite worked well today with

the discussion. It was good timing because the students had just read the graphic

novel and had been discussing it in small groups and as a whole class (interview,

09/08/2017).

Upon investigating this interview transcript, I note that 16 of 20 students chose

Yummy as their writing topic, including all four of the selected focal students. I

interpreted the situation as such: easier writing tasks were preferred, and Yummy was the

last short story they had read before the first argumentative writing assignment. Students

remembered the plot and theme of Yummy well, and additionally, they spent much more

time exchanging ideas and discussed themes in Yummy than they did with the other

stories (Figure 5.2). Although each focal student used somewhat different wording when

I asked how they had decided to choose this writing prompt during the interviews, they

had one thing in common: they liked the feeling of being prepared when beginning a

writing assignment.

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Figure 5.2. The Curricular Timeline in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Returning to Table 5.3, Daisy repeated Ms. Foss's information that Yummy was

abused and beaten by his mom (1.2). Ms. Foss introduced Yummy, shared background

information about him (09/06/2017), and explained that Yummy was severely abused

(09/08/2017). The second sentence, therefore, reveals how Daisy entextualized the idea

Ms. Foss shared into her own writing.

There are two subclaims (1.2, 1.6) and two pieces of textual evidence (1.3, 1.7).

The two pieces of textual evidence were direct quotes from the text. Not only Daisy, but

all the other students in Ms. Foss’s classroom picked evidence from the text in order to

support their claims. Ms. Foss directed students to use only direct quotes from the text as

evidence. This narrow scope in view of the evidence places literature-related

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argumentative writing as “the way to do it,” instead of allowing different perspectives or

exploration of ideas.

In sentences 1.4 and 1.5, Daisy works to connect her claim and evidence, by

recounting that Yummy’s scars and burns stem from being whipped with an electrical

cord. In these warrants, there are also structural traces from Ms. Foss’s explicit

instruction asking the students to “explain the evidence.” In this classroom community, as

Ms. Foss simplified ways of stating warrants, the role of warrant is an explanation of

what is going on in the story at the time of the textual evidence. She modeled how to use

warrants more than ten times and all the examples were more like retelling or giving

contextual information about a direct quote. In other words, warrants existed in this

classroom for readers to see why a writer chose a certain direct quote as supporting

evidence. Given the fact that a primary reader in this classroom community is Ms. Foss,

this simplified way of warranting may be meaningful and might function as a stepping

stone for more advanced level of argumentation. Yet, this might be a half-baked

temporary solution for teaching and learning of argumentation, bearing no close relation

to the realities of life. In fact, even experienced scholars confess that warrants can be

difficult to manage because we need to consider specific audience, different principles of

reasoning and ways of stating according to the field (Williams & Colomb, 2007). Ms.

Foss’s decision was directing the students to a static form of stating warrants, instead of

engaging them in considering the complicated process of stating, testing, and challenging

warrants.

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Another thematic trace lies in the second sub-claim of the essay in Table 5.3

where Daisy writes, "Another way that Yummy was a victim was that most of the time he

was doing something wrong was because people in the gang would be pressuring him"

(1.6). This reference to the gang members traces back to the whole classroom discussion

held on September 8. Ms. Foss explicitly encouraged students to write their reactions and

answers to questions from the Critical Reading Worksheet and then compare their

responses in small groups before sharing with the whole class. The worksheet asked

students to make their own claims and find supporting claims via textual evidence.

During the whole class discussion, Daisy raised her hand and shared her response to one

of the questions from the worksheet: "So that the gang pretty much influenced him to do

stuff and just didn't really care about his feelings at all." When Ms. Foss followed up on

Daisy’s ideas, she shifted the conversation and opened it to other students, asking them

what they thought about the matter. Thus, Daisy had to end her turn sharing with the

class. Nonetheless, within the next five responses made by two separate students and Ms.

Foss, several relevant phrases were presented: “he was definitely, though, influenced by

his parents and by the gang,”; “that was definitely a huge influence,”; and “I don't think

that he realized what he did because he was only 11 years old.” Although these are

seemingly unrelated phrases from those that Daisy had written, the three speakers shared

the same view towards Yummy, which Daisy extended as, “Yummy was a victim …

because people in the gang would be pressuring him.” Extending these views further,

Daisy also participated in a learning community by responding to this dialogue in a form

of writing, rather than speech.

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Figure 5.3. Tracings of Daisy’s Essay and Classroom Events

9/8 Yummy discussion Free-writing 9/14 “Tragedy in the Bathroom” activity 9/15 Basic elements of argumentation 9/20 Graphic organizer, Textual evidence 9/21 Color-coding strategy

Daisy’s essay In Greg Neri’s story “Yummy” Yummy was not a bully, he was the victim of many things. One way that yummy was a victim was that he would get abused and hit by his mom. Neri writes, “Ever since I knew him, when he was like 3, Yummy had scars and burns all over himself. He used to show them off to us.’ This one was from when I got whooped with with a ‘lectrical cord”’ (Neri 22). This example shows that when he was hit with an electrical cord that he was a victim of neglect and abuse. He wouldn't get treated right which made him feel like nobody cared about him and that he was unwanted. Another way that Yummy was a victim was that most of the time he was doing something wrong was because people in the gang would be pressuring him. Neri writes “Yummy’s a good little shorty. He do what he's told. He wants to impress, so you give him an assignment. ’Hey homie, go find me $50’ or ‘Go pop that dude that's messing with our business’ See he's like our little pit bull puppy dog. But when he gets big, that's when you gotta watch out” (Neri 53). This proves that Yummy is a victim because the older people in the gang would pressure him into doing the wrong stuff such as stealing and shooting someone. He would do it because he wanted to impress them and fit in. In conclusion, Yummy was a victim because he had a rough childhood being a victim in a gang and having bad parents which made him do the wrong stuff when he wanted to impress people or fit in.

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Figure 5.3 shows how the sentences Daisy had produced connected back to the

key instructional events. Closer inspection of the figure reveals that the arrows overlap

and intermingle with each other in multiple directions. These intersections signify the

complexity of the writing process within a classroom as a learning community; even one

sentence can indicate various connections and intertextual traces across time.

To make a long story short, structural traces are continuously displayed in all

focal students’ essays that align with Ms. Foss’s structural epistemology. For instance,

Daisy’s thesis statement (1.1) responds to Ms. Foss’s directions for the argumentative

writing assignment (on the assignment sheet, slides, worksheet, and in-class lecture):

“Your claim should be one sentence, and it should be very clear about what you are

trying to prove in this paragraph.” Daisy’s evidence also follows Ms. Foss’s directive on

her lecture and the writing assignment sheet, which reads: “You will only be using two

pieces of textual evidence in your paragraph.” In addition, Daisy follows the rules for

constructing textual evidence, as suggested by Ms. Foss (see Figure 4.11 in the previous

chapter for the detail). As discussed above, in this classroom as a learning community,

the textual evidence should be direct quotes. Furthermore, Ms. Foss explicitly asked her

students to use textual evidence in a certain sequence—an introduction to the textual

evidence, a citation of the evidence, and then an explanation about the textual evidence.

In Daisy’s essay in Figure 5.1, the blue, underlined sentences are introductions to the

textual evidence, the following yellow, highlighted sentences are citations of the

evidence, and the blue, highlighted sentences after the textual evidence are explanations

about the textual evidence. Daisy used only two pieces of textual evidence, exactly as

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Ms. Foss had explained. Daisy’s last sentence (1.10) also has a structural trace to Ms.

Foss’s previous verbal illustration of how potential concluding sentences students could

be made for this writing assignment. On September 27, Ms. Foss explained, “Your

concluding sentence should only be one sentence. I have seen a couple today that were

more than one sentence. Just keep it to one sentence.”

Further analysis revealed that 20 out of the 20 students made intertextual

connections to Ms. Foss’s rules of the paragraph. Each of the 20 students adopted the pre-

determined structure and used it as it was, without reordering the sequence of sentences

within a paragraph. Consequently, each of the 20 papers presents the same paragraph

structure, as shown below:

1. Claim sentence (green, highlighted)

2. First sub-claim; introduction to the first textual evidence (blue, underlined)

3. First textual evidence (yellow, highlighted)

4. Warrant; explanation of the first textual evidence (blue, highlighted)

5. Second sub-claim; introduction to the second textual evidence (blue,

underlined)

6. Second textual evidence (yellow, highlighted)

7. Warrant; explanation of the second textual evidence (blue, highlighted)

8. Concluding sentence (purple, highlighted)

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As shown in Figure 5.4, all four of the focal students wrote their essays according

to this order.

Figure 5.4. Focal Students’ First Argumentative Essays in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

Daisy’s essay In Greg Neri’s story “Yummy” Yummy was not a bully, he was the victim of many things. One way that yummy was a victim was that he would get abused and hit by his mom. Neri writes, “Ever since I knew him, when he was like 3, Yummy had scars and burns all over himself. He used to show them off to us.’ This one was from when I got whooped with with a ‘lectrical cord”’ (Neri 22). This example shows that when he was hit with an electrical cord that he was a victim of neglect and abuse. He wouldn't get treated right which made him feel like nobody cared about him and that he was unwanted. Another way that Yummy was a victim was that most of the time he was doing something wrong was because people in the gang would be pressuring him. Neri writes “Yummy’s a good little shorty. He do what he's told. He wants to impress, so you give him an assignment. ’Hey homie, go find me $50’ or ‘Go pop that dude that's messing with our business’ See he's like our little pit bull puppy dog. But when he gets big, that's when you gotta watch out” (Neri 53). This proves that Yummy is a victim because the older people in the gang would pressure him into doing the wrong stuff such as stealing and shooting someone. He would do it because he wanted to impress them and fit in. In conclusion, Yummy was a victim because he had a rough childhood being a victim in a gang and having bad parents which made him do the wrong stuff when he wanted to impress people or fit in. Daniel’s essay In Greg Neri’s graphic novel Yummy is a bully and a victim.Yummy did not have the best childhood. His mom did not take care of all the kids she had. “She neglected her kids and did bad things to them, so the police took them away”(Neri 22). This can be evidence because it makes Yummy a victim of abuse and a rough childhood. Yummy was always getting into trouble and would always hang out with the black disciples nation. He wanted to be part of it. “I wanna be a black disciple”(Neri 35). This makes Yummy look more like a bully because he is getting into bad stuff, doing bad things and hanging out with a gang. Yummy got into trouble with the cops slit he was in and out of the juvenile detention center a lot. “He got picked on a lot for having a teddy bear while he was in juvenile detention center” (Neri).This does not help Yummy with being a better kid it just makes him more a very and want to pick on someone else because he gets picked on. Therefore Yummy is a bully and a victim.

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Ivy’s essay In the graphic novel “Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty” by Gregory Neri, writes about a boy name Yummy who is shown as victim and bully. In the story Roger talks about Yummy’s childhood that when he was 3 yummy had and scars and burns all over himself. Roger says that Yummy used to show them off. Yummy says to Roger “‘This one was from when I got whooped with a electrical cord”’ (Neri 22). This shows that this is wrong making it look like it's right to hit others. Yummy showing off his scars and burns were evidence that he was mistreated and bullied by his mom, show us that he himself is a victim. As for a bully, in the novel Roger talks about how Yummy ran on the streets looking for trouble and he usually found it. Rogers says, “At first Yummy just did little things, like shoplifting. Later on he got into robbing houses” (Neri 26). This illustrates that Yummy is a bully. At first he would do little things but then started to get into bigger things, taking things that weren't his. Yummy did wrong things to others who didn't do anything wrong to him. Overall, in the graphic novel Yummy is a kid with a rough childhood and bad decisions that show him as a victim and a bully. Robin’s essay It the story “yummy: the last days of a southside short” by Gregory neri and Randy Duburke” the main character yummy is a bully. In a part of the story yummy was trying to impress his gang (the black disciples) by shooting one of the rival gang members but instead shot a accent 14-year old girl and killed her. Roger says, “Yummy was looking to impress” (duburke 41) and “he shot someone alright” (duburke 43) this piece of textual evidence is talking about when he shot the 14 year old girl when he was trying to shoot a gang member and prove that he is loyal and a tough shorty. Another way yummy is seen as a bully is when yummy chose the gang over family and chose to stay with the gang and continue to be a bully. One of the gang members says, “You done good yummy. Now let's get you outta here” (duburke 77) in this quote yummy chooses to stay with the gang over his grandma and decides to stay a bully. Yummy doesn't want to go with his grandma and wants to go with the gang which is leading him down the wrong path. On which he will stay a bully. Overall because yummys involvement in the gang and his background history yummy became a bully. So maybe if he grew up with more supportive family and someone to look out for him and make sure he's safe he wouldn't of became a bully.

Students in Ms. Foss’s classroom utilized a graphic organizer as a way to

facilitate their writing process by visualizing a paragraph structure. The students did not

have prior experience with using graphic organizers and color-coding strategies until they

were in the ninth grade classroom. One of the students named Robin shared his

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perspective by stating, “They [graphic organizers] helped me with it. They helped me get

going, and it was just easy flow from there” (interview, 12/07/2017). He also had a

positive comment on a color-coding strategy: “I think it just makes it easier to find out

what you are going to do next. Like what you are setting up and what is the next step in

writing the essay” (interview, 12/07/2017). Another focal student, Ivy, explained that

learning to use a pre-set structure was helpful: “It would give me an idea about how I

would write my essay. Like, the orders and stuff, and so when you are done writing the

textual evidence, like after- what comes after it. That helps” (interview, 12/07/2017).

Analysis of the second writing assignment—a literature-related argumentative

essay about Of Mice and Men—reconfirmed that students participated in the classroom

events as a learning community. Ms. Foss kept making an extra effort to help her students

master the color-coding and graphic organizer strategies so that they became more

familiar with the pre-determined structure. Regarding the teaching strategy, Ms. Foss

said, “Today was the day I had the students color-code a paragraph on their own. They

really struggled with it. Some of them did not know where to begin with the color

coding” (interview, 09/22/2017). Under the direction of Ms. Foss’s efforts, students

ultimately practiced color-coding and graphic organizer strategy for more time than was

initially planned. Ms. Foss noted, “A student in second period came up to me at the end

of the period and said he was still confused about the entire color coding paragraph

process, so I decided to have the students color-code another paragraph tomorrow”

(interview, 09/26/2017).

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Before the deadline for the second argumentative writing assignment, students

turned in their first body paragraphs to Ms. Foss. Ms. Foss’s intention was to check

whether they were on the right track or not. Ms. Foss provided feedback to the students’

first body paragraphs, and they revised their writing to adhere to the teacher’s feedback.

The students then worked on the other paragraphs and finished their writing. Although

the teacher left comments on their final essays, the students did not read or care about

them because of three conditions: Ms. Foss provided her feedback too late, she did not

give an additional opportunity for revision, and the students were primarily concerned

with their final grades, rather than the feedback. Given this background, my deeper

analysis focuses on Ms. Foss’s feedback for the focal students’ first body paragraphs,

because the students paid attention to that feedback, and Ms. Foss would predict it when

she was providing her feedback. Therefore, an analysis of the teacher’s feedbacks for the

students’ first paragraphs uncovers aspects of writing that Ms. Foss valued, privileged

ways of representing knowledge, as well as teacher epistemology. Table 5.4 below

illustrates the main focus of each piece of feedback Ms. Foss provided to the focal

students.

Table 5.4. Feedback Ms. Foss Provided to the Focal Students

Daisy Daniel Ivy Robin Ideational Aspects of Writing

Ideas 1 - - 1 Content - 1 - -

Structural Aspects of Writing

Organization 2 4 2 2 Grammar and Error 3 2 1 2 Color-Coding - 1 - -

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What stands out in the table is that structural aspects of writing are of highest

concern for Ms. Foss’s teaching of argumentative writing. Unsurprisingly, these results

and frequencies re-confirm Ms. Foss’s structural epistemology. Among the feedback Ms.

Foss provided, 19 out of the 22 suggestions were related to structural aspects of

argumentative writing. Only three pieces of feedback are about ideational aspects of

argumentation. Ms. Foss gave feedbacks in a form of written communication through

Canvas, an online platform, and explained her suggestions to students in a one-on-one

conference if they had difficulty understanding the suggestions.

My deeper analysis into how focal students (Daisy, Daniel, Ivy, and Robin) made

their revisions, incorporating the received feedback, is illustrated in Figure 5.5.

Although all focal students said they did revise their essays, as shown in Figure

5.5, the students did little substantive revising; they merely fixed structural issues such as

grammatical errors Ms. Foss had pointed out. The reason for this may have something to

do with Ms. Foss’s feedback. For example, Daisy did not change a single word, since the

feedback Ms. Foss provided was simply re-explanation of basic rules for good writing

rather than providing specific feedback how to improve the first draft (e.g., “the period

goes after the parenthesis, not before them”). As for Daniel, he capitalized characters’

names, added more information about textual evidence in the first sentence, changed the

concluding sentence to restate the claim according to Ms. Foss’s feedback. Ivy only

changed or added transition phrases. Robin seemed to pay little attention to the teacher’s

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Figure 5.5. Focal Students’ First Paragraphs in Ms. Foss’s Classroom

First draft Final draft Daisy’s essay

Daniel’s essay

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Ivy’s essay

Robin’s essay

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feedback for the first draft. Ms. Foss suggested several structural points—concluding

sentence and punctuation including capitalization and the period—to be addressed for

Robin’s essay. During the revision process, however, what Robin did was just to add a

transition word and to erase the author’s name in the first sentence when Ms. Foss

stressed the need through one-on-one conference. Ms. Foss’s structural epistemology was

pivotal in the students’ revisions. Ms. Foss strongly believes that once they can use

graphic organizers and color-coding strategy effectively, writing can be done at a time:

“My hope is that all this work before they begin writing will then help their writing to be

better. And then we won’t have to do revisions” (interview, 09/21/2017). In other words,

rather than viewing revision as an essential writing process, Ms. Foss believes, it would

be great to avoid the revising process as much as possible. From this view, revision

focuses on identifying and fixing problems, instead of thinking about effective

communication or reconsidering content, perspective or personal understanding.

Analysis of the other paragraphs is not included in this section since they show

exactly the same structure as I discussed above with Table 6.3: thesis statement, first sub-

claim, first textual evidence, warrant, second sub-claim, second textual evidence, warrant,

and concluding sentence (see Appendix H for the detailed analysis). Although the second

argumentative writing assignment asked students to write longer papers than the first

writing task, it looked similar to the reproduction of the standardized text using a

formulaic template.

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Ms. Glen’s Classroom

One significant characteristic of writing essays in Ms. Glen’s classroom is that

writing is viewed as discovery. In other words, the students' thinking and understanding

of what writers are trying to deliver changes and grows in the process of writing.

Analysis of student written products, through intertextual traces, confirmed that sentences

in the focal students’ essays are connected with the key events that occurred in Ms.

Glen’s classroom.

Table 5.5. Analysis of John’s First Argumentative Writing Assignment

Sentences AM ES 1.1 Hi, my name is Blaise Spence. Structural 1.2 I’m 22 years old and I’m NCAA swimming

champion from Duke. Evidence Structural

1.3 I’m training to be an Olympian, currently. Evidence Structural 1.4 After my swimming career’s over, I’m training

to become a physical therapist or trainer with my degree from Duke.

Evidence Structural

2.1 My education in sports medicine will be able to help others on the boat if they become sick or wounded.

Warrant

2.2 I’m also an eagle scout and I’ll be able to help with fire-making, food prep, and fishing when needed.

Evidence Ideational

3.1 I will increase our odds of survival if I’m chosen to stay on this boat.

Sub-claim

3.2 Not only will I bring my eagle scouts skills to the table, but I can swim the survivors to help if there’s any in sight.

Warrant Ideational

3.3 Along with that, if one of the people in the life boat falls out, I’ll be able to lift them back in.

Warrant Ideational

4.1 I’m a great candidate for a spot on this life boat. Claim 4.2 Over my 14 years as a boy scout, I have learned

how to build a perfect fire. Evidence Ideational

4.3 I will be able to create and tend to these fires throughout the day.

Evidence Ideational

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4.4 This will keep warmth for the passengers. Warrant 4.5 Also, I will be able to cook fish over the fire so

we can eat. Evidence

4.6 This will most likely be our only source of food, which will be extremely important.

Warrant

5.1 Next, I’ll be able to aid on fishing efforts a lot. Evidence Ideational 5.2 My dad was an accomplished noodler, which is

fishing with your hands. Evidence Ideational

5.3 When this time on earth was running out, my father and I went noodling a lot and I became good at it and will be able to catch several fish.

Warrant

6.1 Third, as a swimmer at Duke University, I am strong and I will be able to swim to any nearby islands, if they’re spotted, to get help.

Evidence

6.2 I learned to speak a small amount of French and Spanish when I was over at an international competition.

Evidence Ideational

6.3 So, when we land on an island, I can be able to communicate with some of the locals if they spoke any of these languages.

Warrant Ideational

7.1 Lastly, I work in the field of Sports Medicine. Evidence 7.2 With my learning from Duke, I should be able to

help those who are sick with medical supplies or life boat for you.

Warrant

7.3 Most likely, one of the people in the boat will be sea sick due to large and unpredictable waves.

Warrant

7.4 Speaking of big waves, the ocean is bound to knock a few people off the boat at one time or another.

Warrant

7.5 And I will lift them back in, because of my strong upper body strength from swimming.

Warrant

8.1 I think I’m a more than worthy candidate for a spot on this life boat with all the skills I bring to the table.

Claim

8.2 From fire building to my medical training to noodling to my strength and swimming ability, I will be the most positively impacted person on that life boat, and there’s not one reason why I shouldn’t be given a spot.

Claim

8.3 But when it comes down to it, it is all of your decisions to choose who is on the life boat and who is not.

Claim Structural

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8.4 So, with one last finally swinging chance, I say that I, Blaise Spence, should stay on this life boat for I will be an important part of the great journey of survival in front of us.

Claim Structural

8.5 Thank you so much for listening and I respect the decision either way.

Structural

Contrary to Ms. Foss’s classroom, thematic traces rather than structural traces are

apparent in the focal students’ essays in Ms. Glen’s classroom. Viewed holistically, John

selected Blaise Spence and argued that he is a great candidate for a spot on the lifeboat.

John made a claim that “I will increase our odds of survival if I’m chosen to stay on this

boat” (3.1). He offered evidence as he described necessary skills for the lifeboat situation:

“I have learned how to build a perfect fire” (4.2).; “I will be able to cook fish over fire so

we can eat” (4.5). Then he warranted evidence: “This will keep warmth for the

passengers” (4.4); “This will most likely be our only source of food, which will be

extremely important” (4.6.). He further supported his claim in the fifth paragraph by

sharing a personal experience of fishing with his father to imply and describe his fishing

skills demonstrating that he is good at not only cooking, but also catching fish.

In previous lessons, Ms. Glen led students in a discussion of fear, conflict, and

control revealed in the short story, A Sound of Thunder. The themes are closely connected

with the lifeboat situation, and Ms. Glen reminded her students the dangers of small

changes having large effects. John kept describing repeatedly how the skills he has will

be beneficial for a fearful situation like a lifeboat. John warranted his claim primarily

relying on logos—logical appeal. This is important because Ms. Glen introduced

Aristotle’s appeals, instead of a pre-set structure, as the basic principles for constructing

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the argument. The writing assignment did not force the students to use any specific form

of argument but asked students to figure out the most valid form for their argument.

Consequently, each student used different structures and ways of appealing to the

audience. One of the focal students, Kristen, for example, warrants the connection

between her claim and evidence by arguing that “Throwing me overboard not only kills a

part-time nurse, but also the lives I help at my job. It destroys the life of my unborn baby

that could have a huge future ahead of them.” Contrary to John, who relied on the ethical

(ethos) and logical appeals (logos), Kristen makes her argument by mainly drawing on

the emotional appeal (pathos).

Exploring multiple perspectives and ideas were explicitly mentioned in the

writing tasks Ms. Glen gave. Free writing, such as journal, letter, obituary, and short story

analysis, was explicitly one of major realms in Ms. Glen’s classroom as it was a recurrent

practice. The benefits of focusing on exploring ideas rather than a static form are

arguably apparent in building students’ abilities to think critically with an understanding

of rhetorical situations (Beach, Thein, & Webb, 2012).

When teaching and learning Hamadi, Ms. Glen and the students discussed the

effects of different point of views—whether an outside observer tells about events or a

character in the story is a narrator. This discussion is reflected in John’s essay. Whereas

some other students took the third-person point of view as the outside observer, John

chose the first-person point of view inside the imaginary lifeboat scenario. By using the

word “I,” John indicates his point of view, which makes his essay and speech sound

really personal to the other students as the audience. It was as if a character inside the

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imaginary scenario was talking directly to the other people in the boat. Taking the first-

person point of view as a writer is a way to incorporate ethos, one of the elements of

Aristotle’s appeals. John, using the first-person perspective, introduced himself, “Hi, my

name is Blaise Spence” (1.1). He then listed a career and achievements (1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.2,

5.1, 6.2, 7.1).

The Cask of Amontillado themes also emerged. There are the issues of the contrast

between freedom and death and the concept of mortality in this story. Again, in the

lifeboat situation, survival becomes less and less of a possibility as time goes by. John

focused on a survival situation throughout the whole paper, describing helpful skills. Ms.

Glen also mentioned that the themes and topics of the short stories they had read, along

with the free-writing topics, were relevant to this argumentative writing task concerning

the lifeboat situation. In particular, considering all themes and topics from the short

stories he had read, John tried to think about them in terms of argumentation with a belief

that everything entails argumentation:

I’ve always struggled with argumentative essays. I feel like it’s really important

because that’s something you’re going to do every day. You might not write a

paper but argue for your point and back it up. You can’t say something for no

reason and expect everyone believe you. You have to support it and back it up. I

think this is important (interview, 10/09/2017).

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Additionally, the lifeboat ethics issue was a topic of discussion in Ms. Glen’s

class although John did not provide any evidence or intertextual traces of the lifeboat

ethics or dilemma in his essay. Within the lifeboat situation, if one character is selected to

stay in the lifeboat by making an effective argument, it means that someone else should

leave the boat and would, most likely, not survive long. Such confinement makes the

students think more deeply about the feeling of being trapped (Table 5.6).

Table 5.6. Conversations about the Lifeboat in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

Speaker Message Unit Notes 101 Teacher So, anybody have any standout information

when you were taking notes that you remembered?

Initiating new topic

102 Rosie My question is..,How do we choose? Do we pick the best six, "first come, first served"? And what do we say to the people we exclude?

Presents lifeboat ethics

103 [muffled speech] 104 Teacher Too young to die. Revoicing 105 I’m sure we all think that. Validates Rosie’s

response 106 You know, even Elke van Pappen wasn’t

ready to die yet. Provides evidence

107 That pathos piece about wanting to live a longer life, definitely.

Intertextual connecting

108 Rosie Nobody was allowed to say they wanted to die, so…

Warrants

109 Teacher Right, they were not. They want to keep it positive.

Validates Rosie’s response

110 Rosie Survival is then possible when we have to be constantly on guard against (inaudible)

Elaborating on lifeboat ethics

111 Teacher That’s horrible. I’m sorry. Revoicing

Ms. Glen explicitly challenged her students to consider Aristotle’s appeals—

logos, ethos, and pathos—in constructing their argument for the audience. Furthermore,

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to develop the students’ understandings of audience, Ms. Glen asked them to deliver a

speech based on their argumentative writing. After all the students delivered their speech

based on their essay, Ms. Glen asked students whether or not they noticed something

(line 101). Rosie responded that how can we be so cruel (line 102). She raised an issue of

ethics and shared her ideas verbally (line 103). Ms. Glen restated and evaluated Rosie’s

response positively (lines 104, 105) and added another example to highlight the lifeboat

ethics (line 106). Ms. Glen explained how pathos is associated with Rosie’s response,

which traces back to earlier instructional conversations in which the Aristotle’s appeals

were discussed (line 107). Rosie took up the duality of man and human frailty (line 108,

110). It is significant that Ms. Glen and the students discussed the contrast between

freedom and death and the concept of mortality after reading the story, The Cask of

Amontillado. These earlier discussions and the lifeboat situation would be foundational

practices for the next instructional chain—teaching and learning about Lord of the Flies.

One class discussion on October 9, Ms. Glen explained to the students that every theme

and topic would emerge and be interconnected in the novel, Lord of the Flies. To assist

students in preparing to grapple with the novel, Ms. Glen led a class discussion using the

questions below, and students took the stances of whether they agreed or disagreed to

each statement.

1. When given a chance, people often single out and degrade another to improve

themselves.

2. Society is what holds everyone together and without these conditions, our

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ideals, values, and basics of right and wrong are lost.

3. The power of fear and control can overwhelm a person.

4. If humanity is to survive, innocence may have to be sacrificed.

5. When the institutions of law and other slip away or are ignored, human beings

revert to a more primitive part of their nature.

6. Whenever groups of people coexist, there will be a struggle for power.

7. It is better to examine the consequences of a decision before it is made, than to

discover them afterwards.

8. Children are capable of horrific behavior.

9. Everyone is capable of murder.

10. The reason most people hunt is that they need meat.

Figure 5.6 presents how the sentences of John, one of the focal students,

connected back to the key instructional events. As with the excerpt from Ms. Foss’s

classroom (Table 5.3), closer inspection of the figure signals that the arrows intermingle

and overlap with each other in various directions.

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Figure 5.6. Writing Excerpt for the First Writing Assignment in Ms. Glen’s Classroom

8/28 A Sound of Thunder discussion and journal writing 8/30 Hamadi Discussion and letter writing 9/5 Cask of Amontillado Imagery/short story analysis mini lesson 9/11 Leiningen vs. the Ants Setting mini lesson 9/25 Ethos, Pathos, Logos

John’s essay Hi, my name is Blaise Spence. I’m 22 years old and I’m NCAA swimming champion from Duke. I’m training to be an Olympian, currently. After my swimming career’s over, I’m training to become a physical therapist or trainer with my degree from Duke. My education in sports medicine will be able to help others on the boat if they become sick or wounded. I’m also an eagle scout and I’ll be able to help with fire-making, food prep, and fishing when needed. I will increase our odds of survival if I’m chosen to stay on this boat. Not only will I bring my eagle scouts skills to the table, but I can swim the survivors to help if there’s any in sight. Along with that, if one of the people in the life boat falls out, I’ll be able to lift them back in. I’m a great candidate for a spot on this life boat. Over my 14 years as a boy scout, I have learned how to build a perfect fire. I will be able to create and tend to these fires throughout the day. This will keep warmth for the passengers. Also, I will be able to cook fish over the fire so we can eat. This will most likely be our only source of food, which will be extremely important. Next, I’ll be able to aid on fishing efforts a lot. My dad was an accomplished noodler, which is fishing with your hands. When this time on earth was running out, my father and I went noodling a lot and I became good at it and will be able to catch several fish. Third, as a swimmer at Duke University, I am strong and I will be able to swim to any nearby islands, if they’re spotted, to get help. I learned to speak a small amount of French and Spanish when I was over at an international competition. So, when we land on an island, I can be able to communicate with some of the locals if they spoke any of these languages. Lastly, I work in the field of Sports Medicine. With my learning from Duke, I should be able to help those who are sick with medical supplies or life boat for you. Most likely, one of the people in the boat will be sea sick due to large and unpredictable waves. Speaking of big waves, I ocean is bound to knock a few people off the boat at one time or another. And I will lift them back in, because of my strong upper body strength from swimming. I think I’m a more than worthy candidate for a spot on this life boat with all the skills I bring to the table. From fire building to my medical training to noodling to my strength and swimming ability, I will be the most positively impacted person on that life boat, and there’s not one reason why I shouldn’t be given a spot. But when it comes down to it, it is all of your decisions to choose who is on the life boat and who is not. So, with one last finally swinging chance, I say that I, Blay Spence, should stay on this life boat for I will be an important part of the great journey of survival in front of us. Thank you so much for listening and I respect the decision either way.

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These multiple intersections represent how the writing process can be complicated

and intertwined with instructional events within a classroom as a learning community. It

is apparent from this figure that even one sentence can point to multiple connections as

well as intertextual traces over time.

Kristen, whom Ms. Glen considered one of the stronger writers, wrote her essay

(Figure 5.7) about Lord of the Flies based on her understanding of the novel.

Figure 5.7. Kristen’s Final Essay as the Second Argumentative Writing Assignment

Lord of the Flies Essay

In most novels, characters change from start to finish. Whether the

development is good or bad, writers include change to make the novel more

compelling. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the author portrays

many changes throughout the book in one of the main characters, Ralph. Ralph

drastically changes from a confident leader to a broken one. He even finds himself

killing one of his best friends, and losing all traits of civilization/leadership to Jack’s

tribe. In other words, because of the savagery Ralph was exposed to, it changed the

way he would normally act and he fell short to succeed his values.

To start off, Ralph began the novel being the popular leader that everyone

followed and obeyed. Although, as the book moved on, Ralph become the ‘boring’

leader and lost his leadership. First of all, on page 23, Ralph was chosen the leader

because the boys looked up to him, “‘All right who wants Jack for chief?’ With dreary

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obedience, the choir raised their hands. ‘Who wants me?’ Every choir outside the choir

except Piggy’s raised their hand immediately. Then, Piggy, too raised his hand

grudgingly into the air. Ralph counted. ‘I’m chief then’ (Golding, 23). Directly after

Ralph became leader, the boys immediately started listening to him and following the

rules. He directs people to find out if this is an island, demands the fore to be kept, the

conch shell to be like a ‘talking stick,’ and many other rules. In the beginning of the

book, these rules were followed. However, as Ralph attempted to stick with his values,

Jack's tribe seemed to bring down Ralph's leadership. For example, “‘The rules are all

we’ve got!’ But Jack was shouting against him. ‘Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong-

we hunt! If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down…’ At once, the platform was full of

excitement, scramblings, screams, and laughter (Golding, 91 and 92). Here, he starts to

lose his grasp on the boys. Even more, in chapter 7, Jack completely goes off by

himself, and continually recruits boys into his tribe. This is because the boys lost

interest in Ralph's rules and think the hunting is more fun/important than survival. So,

due to Ralph sticking with his goal of survival, many boys were pulled into Jack's

hunting group. Likewise, he started as the boy that everyone listened too, and ended as

a leader of few people, and by the end, a leader of no one.

Secondly, not only did Ralph become the ‘unpopular’ leader, but he also started

out being hopeful for survival, civilized, and calm. However, as Ralph and his rules

started to get ignored, Ralph found himself getting more aggressive and less hopeful.

In other words, throughout the novel, we see a change in Ralph because of the

experiences his hand on the island. To support this, in the beginning of the book, Ralph

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was always excited for assemblies, new rules, and parents being there. Although, when

people started to lack interest in Ralph, and rules were ignored, his mood changed

about survival. One example of this is on page 77, “They made way for him silently,

conscious of his grim mood and the fault of the fire.” Also, “He stopped, facing the

strip; and remembering that first enthusiastic exploration as though it were part of a

brighter childhood. He smiled jeeringly” (Golding, 76). These two examples explain

how Raph was a lot more optimistic in the beginning of the book. He then started to

fright when the boys wouldn't listen. Not only did his mood become less hopeful, but

when the conch broke, he lost all hope of civilization and become more aggressive.

Which leads into how Ralph came to be more aggressive at the end of the book. In the

beginning, he wasn't into hunting. Although, when he did hunt, his savage leaked

through. On page 113, Ralph keeps repeating what he did to the pig, “‘I hit him alright.

The spear stuck in. I wounded him.’” As well as, when Ralph found himself

participating in the killing of one of his closest friends. The book reads, “Piggy and

Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take place in this

demented but partly secure society” (Golding, 152). These text evidences show how

because of the savagery he's around every day (Jack and his tribe), he is influenced,

and changes to become more aggressive. To go even farther, at the end of the book,

when it was Ralph vs. the rest of the boys, his aggressiveness showed. So, wrapping

up, in the beginning of the book, Ralph was a hopeful and confident leader for survival.

As the story moved on, Ralph lost some of his innocence in the killing of Simon. This

is caused Ralph to become more aggressive due to him constantly being around

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savages. Finally, from start to finish, when people started to ignore him, he began to

lost his values of leadership and became less confident.

Thirdly, the big question is if these developments in Ralph was a good or bad

change. The answer is bad. This is backed up in the way that he became less confident,

people left his leadership, he became more aggressive, and become the ‘unpopular

leader.’ In other words, throughout the novel, Ralph never really improved, and

became in a way, a broken leader. A good example of how Ralph came to be is “‘We

can't keep a fire going. And they don't even care. And what's more… what's more, I

dont’ sometimes, supposing I got like the others- not caring, what ‘ud become of us?’”

(Golding, 138). This shows how Ralph began to give up, he lost his leadership-like

qualities, and became less hopeful. So, the development in Ralph is bad. One who was

optimistic, listened to, and obeyed in the beginning, came to a lost of interest to the

boys. He also developed aggressive traits.

All in all, over the course of the novel, Lord of the Flies, Golding changes the

way the reader views Ralph. In the beginning he was hopeful, influencing, and a great

leader. Towards the end, he found himself giving up as a leader and becoming more

aggressive. These developments in Ralph are important for the reader to recognize and

makes the story more captivating, because the reader wants to keep reading to see what

causes the main character to change. Lastly, this topic is important in life because it

teaches the reader that losing values and giving into society unattractive events (killing

of Simon) can hang negative effects on a personality.

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Kristen's essay reflects the instructional context as a response to the localized

literary analysis and argumentation practices Ms. Glen attempted to foster for her

students. According to her self-evaluation, the strengths of her essay were: “I have all the

content I need, and I expressed my thoughts and developed on it. It’s not just writing one

sentence on it, but I have evidence to back it up.” Kristen focused on demonstrating

understanding of the novel through her writing.

Introduction. Kristen selected the character of Ralph to structure her argument

that Ralph represents a negative change through the story. To buttress her argument,

Kristen drew on the juxtaposition of two changes over time: the changes of leadership

and situation. As described earlier in Chapter 4, Ms. Glen led the classroom discussion

about character changes and the question of whether or not an environment impacts these

changes. The students explored different ideas through class conversations, study guide

worksheets, and whole class discussions. Kristen also referenced internal and external

conflicts, topics that were foregrounded with one of the previous readings (A Sound of

Thunder). In this section, we can see how Kristen highlighted Ralph’s changes stemming

from internal and external conflicts, which influence his leadership.

Table 5.7. Analysis of Introduction of Kristen’s Essay

Sentences AM LM ES 1.1 In most novels, characters change from

start to finish. Warrant Personal Ideational

1.2 Whether the development is good or bad, writers include change to make the novel more compelling.

Warrant Personal Ideational

1.3 In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the author portrays many changes

Claim Meaning Structural

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throughout the book in one of the main characters, Ralph.

1.4 Ralph drastically changes from a confident leader to a broken one.

Claim Meaning Ideational

1.5 He even finds himself killing one of his best friends, and losing all traits of civilization/leadership to Jack’s tribe.

Evidence Retelling

1.6 In other words, because of the savagery Ralph was exposed to, it changed the way he would normally act and he fell short to succeed his values.

Claim Meaning Ideational

Each sentence of this paragraph contains intertextual traces. Kristen began her

introduction with a series of warrant and sub-claims until she proceeded to the main

claim in the fourth sentence of the introduction (1.4). She used a general feature of the

novel to start her essay by describing that a character often changes as the novel unfolds

(1.1). She used this line to back her another warrant (1.2) that authors usually include

character change in order to make the novel more interesting and marketable regardless

of whether the change is “good or bad.” Her warrant that the novel often includes

character changes as the novel is moving had both structural and thematic traces to a

class discussion and writing assignment worksheet. On October 26, the primary topic for

a class discussion was the changes of two main characters, Jack and Ralph. Ms. Glen

illustrated, “in most stories, characters change from the beginning of the story to the

end.” The writing prompt Kristen chose described the existence of a development of the

major characters and asked the students to write about “how they change from beginning

to end,” considering whether the change was “good” or a “bad.” The structure of Lord of

the Flies shows the main characters’ development and the determining of this change

being good or bad follows the guidelines and requirement of the writing assignment

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prompt closely. The third sentence of her introduction paragraph drew on her the first two

sentences and premise to further connect the argument she made through this essay (1.3).

Kristen then elaborated on her argument and stated a claim that Ralph is a character

showing apparent rapid changes (1.4). Kristen, then, moved to transition from the ideas

that a character changes as the novel unfolds to the writing prompt’s question of if a

character's change in Lord of the Flies is a good or a bad one. She forecasted her stance to

her audience by stating a concrete example (1.5) and the influence of environment on a

character (1.6). Structural and thematic traces were also widespread in the body

paragraphs.

Body paragraph one. Kristen’s first body paragraph focused on how Ralph leads

the kids after vying for leadership and loses power when Jack comes back to take the

lead. The study guide worksheets, Ms. Glen’s explicit instructions, and writing

assignment sheet indicated and asked that students could use various resources (e.g.,

novel, notes, study guide, and classroom discussion) on which they previously worked as

evidence to back up their ideas. Kristen foregrounded her interpretative claim for how

Ralph changes in the course of the novel, supporting her understanding with direct quotes

from the novel. She also presented her interpretative claim for why Ralph loses his

leadership. She found and used direct quotes from the book again for supporting her

ideas.

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Table 5.8. Analysis of Body Paragraph One of Kristen’s Essay

Sentences AM LM ES 2.1 To start off, Ralph began the novel being

the popular leader that everyone followed and obeyed.

Claim Meaning

2.2 Although, as the book moved on, Ralph become the ‘boring’ leader and lost his leadership.

Claim Meaning

2.3 First of all, on page 23, Ralph was chosen the leader because the boys looked up to him, “‘All right who wants Jack for chief?’

Evidence Retelling Text

2.4 With dreary obedience, the choir raised their hands.

Evidence Retelling Ideational

2.5 ‘Who wants me?’ Evidence Text 2.6 Every choir outside the choir except Piggy’s

raised their hand immediately. Evidence Retelling Ideational

2.7 Then, Piggy, too raised his hand grudgingly into the air.

Evidence Retelling Ideational

2.8 Ralph counted. ‘I’m chief then’ (Golding, 23).

Evidence Retelling Text

Structural Ideational

2.9 Directly after Ralph became leader, the boys immediately started listening to him and following the rules.

Evidence Meaning Ideational

2.10 He directs people to find out if this is an island, demands the fore to be kept, the conch shell to be like a ‘talking stick,’ and many other rules.

Evidence Meaning Ideational

2.11 In the beginning of the book, these rules were followed.

Evidence Retelling

2.12 However, as Ralph attempted to stick with his values, Jack’s tribe seemed to bring down Ralph’s leadership.

Claim Meaning Ideational

2.13 For example, “‘The rules are all we’ve got!’ Evidence Text 2.14 But Jack was shouting against him.

‘Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong- we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down…’

Evidence Retelling

2.15 At once, the platform was full of excitement, scramblings, screams, and laughter (Golding, 91 and 92).

Evidence Retelling Text

Structural

2.16 Here, he starts to lose his grasp on the boys. Claim Meaning Ideational

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2.17 Even more, in chapter 7, Jack completely goes off by himself, and continually recruits boys into his tribe.

Evidence Retelling

2.18 This is because the boys lost interest in Ralph’s rules and think the hunting is more fun/important than survival.

Evidence Meaning Ideational

2.19 So, due to Ralph sticking with his goal of survival, many boys were pulled into Jack’s hunting group.

Warrant Meaning Ideational

2.20 Likewise, he started as the boy that everyone listened too, and ended as a leader of few people, and by the end, a leader of no one.

Claim Meaning Ideational

Classroom discussions were an integral part of writing argumentative essays in

this classroom as a learning community. Students were able to navigate their ideas while

seeing potential ideas and conflicting perspectives. Kristen talked about how she used

ideas raised in the classroom discussion during her writing process.

She [Ms. Glen] let us use that [classroom discussion]. That made it easier to find

things when we needed to. Other students, they saw things differently than I did.

So I got more ideas from them because of the different perspectives (interview,

12/07/2017).

As Kristen stated, she relied on thematic intertextual traces to back up her

argument. Kristen’s focus, Ralph’s leadership, connected to a whole class discussion on

October 10 and 26. Kristen drew heavily on the discussion of Jack’s behaviors and

attitudes concerning leadership. During that whole class discussion Rex made the

argument that “He is jealous of Ralph because Ralph is the leader.” Rex explained how

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Jack treated the kids, stating, “He treats them pretty badly because he thinks he is the

best. He bosses the kids in the choir around. He likes to have all the power.” On October

26, the students discussed how Jack changed. Kairi claimed, “Jack and the hunters, at

some point, stopped caring about the others and began searching for power and what

makes them feel powerful.” Kristen was not involved in this class discussion but listened

to what other students said and wrote some notes. Kristen adopted and adapted the theme

and tensions between Jack and Ralph that emerged during the whole class discussion. She

then focused on Ralph and compared him with Jack although the discussion question

focuses more on Jack’s change than that of Ralph. Kristen found evidence from the text

to support her claim (2.3, 2.5, 2.8, 2.13, 2.14, 2.15).

A few class periods were devoted to identifying symbolisms in the novel. On

October 10 and 17, one of the topics discussed was the conch shell. As Ms. Glen

emphasized the importance of the conch shell in Lord of the Flies, she also provided one

of the argumentative writing prompts about the conch, which asked students to trace the

development of this symbol. The symbolic significance of the conch shell was

established when Ralph and Piggy discover it in the novel. In a whole class discussion,

Kent shared his view about the function of the conch shell, saying, “He blew the conch

and then all the kids started coming from the woods.” On October 27, Ms. Glen’s class

discussed the symbolism associated with the conch shell when it broke. Harry made the

argument that “it symbolizes order in the tribe almost. It was keeping them under control.

Once they break it, it is the end of the civilized world and the start of the savagery of the

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tribe.” Kristen borrowed the same interpretations in sentences 2.10 and 3.10 by adapting

language acquired during the whole class discussion.

Body paragraph two. In Kristen’s third paragraph (Table 5.9), she moved to

argue that Ralph is changed in a negative way and that he is getting more aggressive and

hopeless (3.1). This paragraph is traced back to a class discussion on October 17 about

Ralph and other characters. Leadership and Ralph as one of the main characters were

topics continuously addressed through worksheets and teacher-led discussions.

Table 5.9. Analysis of Body Paragraph Two of Kristen’s Essay

Sentences AM LM ES 3.1 Secondly, not only did Ralph become the

‘unpopular’ leader, but he also started out being hopeful for survival, civilized, and calm.

Claim Meaning Ideational

3.2 However, as Ralph and his rules started to get ignored, Ralph found himself getting more aggressive and less hopeful.

Claim Meaning

3.3 In other words, throughout the novel, we see a change in Ralph because of the experiences his hand on the island.

Claim Meaning

3.4 To support this, in the beginning of the book, Ralph was always excited for assemblies, new rules, and parents being there.

Evidence Retelling

3.5 Although, when people started to lack interest in Ralph, and rules were ignored, his mood changed about survival.

Evidence Retelling

3.6 One example of this is on page 77, “They made way for him silently, conscious of his grim mood and the fault of the fire.”

Evidence Text

3.7 Also, “He stopped, facing the strip; and remembering that first enthusiastic exploration as though it were part of a brighter childhood. He smiled jeeringly” (Golding, 76).

Evidence Text

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3.8 These two examples explain how Ralph was a lot more optimistic in the beginning of the book.

Warrant Meaning Ideational

3.9 He then started to fright when the boys wouldn't listen.

Claim Meaning Ideational

3.10 Not only did his mood become less hopeful, but when the conch broke, he lost all hope of civilization and become more aggressive.

Claim Meaning Ideational

3.11 Which leads into how Ralph came to be more aggressive at the end of the book.

Claim Meaning Ideational

3.12 In the beginning, he wasn't into hunting. Evidence Retelling 3.13 Although, when he did hunt, his savage

leaked through. Claim Meaning

3.14 On page 113, Ralph keeps repeating what he did to the pig, “‘I hit him alright. The spear stuck in. I wounded him.’”

Evidence Text

3.15 As well as, when Ralph found himself participating in the killing of one of his closest friends.

Evidence Retelling

3.16 The book reads, “Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take place in this demented but partly secure society” (Golding, 152).

Evidence Text

3.17 These text evidences show how because of the savagery he's around every day (Jack and his tribe), he is influenced, and changes to become more aggressive.

Warrant Meaning

3.18 To go even farther, at the end of the book, when it was Ralph vs. the rest of the boys, his aggressiveness showed.

Evidence Meaning

3.19 So, wrapping up, in the beginning of the book, Ralph was a hopeful and confident leader for survival.

Claim Meaning Ideational

3.20 As the story moved on, Ralph lost some of his innocence in the killing of Simon.

Claim Meaning

3.21 This is caused Ralph to become more aggressive due to him constantly being around savages.

Claim Meaning Ideational

3.22 Finally, from start to finish, when people started to ignore him, he began to lost his values of leadership and became less confident.

Claim Meaning Ideational

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Kristen supported her thesis (1.4) through sub-claim (3.1) and textual evidence

(3.6, 3.7) to argue that Ralph had a positive view towards survival at first. Kristen picked

up two pieces of textual evidence from different locations of the novel Lord of the Flies

(3.6, 3.7) to support her claim that Ralph’s mood changed in a negative way (3.3). She

compared how Ralph’s moods are different at the beginning (3.4) and changes as time

passes (3.5, 3.9, 3.10). Kristen also provided supporting evidence that Ralph’s behavior is

changed over time (3.12, 3.13, 3.15). Her interpretation was that Ralph is affected in

character by the environment (3.17, 3.18, 3.21). Kristen wove the textual evidence and

literary warrant so that she supported her central claim of the negative change of Ralph

stemming from the environment.

A thematic trace of the classroom events is repeated as Kristen adapted the

content to fit her argument, as she did for the prior paragraphs. A key source for Kristen

was the environmental influence on Ralph’s power and leadership due to the contextual

factor—the island—and the human nature—savagery inside all the boys. The contextual

factor and the human nature that warrant her evidence were rooted in a class discussion

on October 26 and 27. A Whole class discussion about Chapter 9 and 10 of the novel

illustrated how Ms. Glen’s students could warrant Jack’s decision to leave the group,

insisting that he himself could be a better leader, and why many of the other boys chose

to join Jack’s tribe. The role of civilization and the effect of savagery also occur in

Kristen’s notes and in her argumentative essay. Her argumentative essay provided

thematic traces for Kristen’s grasp of Ralph’s struggles in the island. In the essay Kristen

wrote, “how because of the savagery he's around every day (Jack and his tribe), he is

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influenced, and changes to become more aggressive” (3.17). She used that warrant to

support evidence of Ralph’s change while his position declines precipitously.

Body paragraph three. This paragraph is relatively shorter than the other two

body paragraphs. Kristen pointed out the time constraint as a reason for a rush to finish

her essay, “I would say that the hardest part for me was time. I had a lot of textual

evidence to write a ton of stuff out” (interview, 12/07/2017).

Table 5.10. Analysis of Body Paragraph Three of Kristen’s Essay

Sentences AM LM ES 4.1 Thirdly, the big question is if these

developments in Ralph was a good or bad change.

Claim Structural

4.2 The answer is bad. Claim Structural 4.3 This is backed up in the way that he became

less confident, people left his leadership, he became more aggressive, and become the ‘unpopular leader.’

Evidence Meaning

4.4 In other words, throughout the novel, Ralph never really improved, and became in a way, a broken leader.

Claim Meaning

4.5 A good example of how Ralph came to be is “‘We can't keep a fire going. And they don't even care. And what's more… what's more, I dont’ sometimes, supposing I got like the others- not caring, what ‘ud become of us?’” (Golding, 138).

Evidence Text

4.6 This shows how Ralph began to give up, he lost his leadership-like qualities, and became less hopeful.

Warrant Meaning

4.7 So, the development in Ralph is bad. Claim Meaning 4.8 One who was optimistic, listened to, and

obeyed in the beginning, came to a lost of interest to the boys. He also developed aggressive traits.

Claim Meaning

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The emerging feature revealed in this paragraph is a structural trace because she

constructed this paragraph only to answer one of the sub-questions within the writing

prompt. The prompt explicitly requested the students to analyze and answer whether the

change is “good” or “bad,” which forced students to take one side and support their

position with supporting evidence. Kristen read the prompt meticulously since she cared

much about her grade. She explained this stating, “If there are requirements and I am

missing stuff, I wouldn’t consider that very good. I just try and make sure that I have

everything I need and that it sounds good” (interview, 11/17/2017). It should be noted

that Ms. Glen and her students established a tacit consensus through a whole class

discussion that Jack and Ralph undergo transformation in the context of an unsafe

environment on October 26. They discussed evidence from the text based on a premise

that the characters’ changes were for the worse. Against this backdrop, the sub-question

of whether change is good or bad would be a simple question for Kristen to elaborate that

premise, not to write an interpretative argument as Ms. Glen intended. Accordingly, this

paragraph represents the importance of a specific approach and directions for students to

explore ideas.

Conclusion. Kristen’s conclusion (Table 5.11) summarized her argument by

twisting the language she used in the introduction paragraph and also moved from the

author’s perspective, “the author portrays many changes throughout the book” (1.3), to

the view of readers, “Golding changes the way the reader views Ralph” (5.1).

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Table 5.11. Analysis of Conclusion Paragraph of Kristen’s Essay

Sentences AM LM ES 5.1 All in all, over the course of the novel, Lord

of the Flies, Golding changes the way the reader views Ralph.

Claim Meaning Ideational

5.2 In the beginning he was hopeful, influencing, and a great leader.

Claim Meaning Structural

5.3 Towards the end, he found himself giving up as a leader and becoming more aggressive.

Claim Meaning Structural

5.4 These developments in Ralph are important for the reader to recognize and makes the story more captivating, because the reader wants to keep reading to see what causes the main character to change.

Claim Evidence

Meaning Ideational

5.5 Lastly, this topic is important in life because it teaches the reader that losing values and giving into society unattractive events (killing of Simon) can hang negative effects on a personality.

Claim Meaning Ideational

Consideration of reader view reflects Ms. Glen’s intention to foster students’

learning to consider various points of view. It confirms for Ms. Glen’s ideational

epistemology that her classroom community is a dynamic space, full of exchanging and

exploring ideas of individual students. In the final two sentences (5.4, 5.5), Kristen’s

reflection also manifested Ms. Glen’s ideational epistemology by demonstrating her

understanding of the value of the point of view of the audience (5.4), and connection

between literature and the world by allowing readers to think and rethink about

themselves, texts, and real life (5.5).

Different Views of Learning to Write

Every teacher has their own epistemologies for teaching and learning

argumentative writing. Both views—structural and ideational epistemologies—have their

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own distinct features, strengths, and weaknesses according to a certain context. Within

the classroom of Ms. Foss, as a teacher representing the structural epistemology, learning

about surface textual features of writing as a final product is privileged. In her classroom

as a learning community, the meaning of learning to write is that students study and learn

about a pre-set structure. The crux of this approach is very similar to a traditional five-

paragraph theme, although Ms. Foss employed graphic organizers and color-coding

strategies for scaffolding. Analysis of student essays and interviews reveals their material

evidence of focusing on structural aspects of writing, which aligns with Ms. Foss’s belief.

Another teacher, Ms. Glen, valued exploring ideas with ideational epistemology

for teaching and learning argumentative writing. She did not much care about the length

or structural aspects of writing, especially when compared with the ability to explore

ideas. In her classroom learning community, writing was used as a tool for discovering

and developing ideas. Two argumentative writing assignments were platforms for

developing and exploring ideas rather than following rules and a formula. All of the focal

students’ essays reveal thematic traces, and the students did not follow or use any pre-

determined structures for their writing tasks.

In the next chapter, I summarize and discuss the findings of my research project

and illustrate implications for future research.

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Chapter 6. Conclusion and Implications

In this dissertation, I used an ethnographic approach to conduct case studies of the

learning communities within two 9th grade classrooms. I studied two teacher

participants’ teaching philosophies, pedagogies, and initial curricular plans in order to

understand their different epistemologies regarding the teaching and learning of

literature-related argumentative writing. I also examined their teaching practices

reflecting on instructional conversations, lectures, and literature discussions. Finally, I

investigated the writing tasks, assessments, and the focal student participants’ writing in

order to grasp how students appropriate their teachers’ epistemologies. I argue that the

landscape of teaching and learning argumentative writing can fundamentally differ

according to different teacher epistemologies, even though the two teachers learned about

the same writing approach.

The research questions were driven by a well-established problem in writing

instruction today, as was discussed in the first chapter. Although there is a consensus

about the importance of teaching and learning argumentative writing, so far, there has

been minimal focus on the central roles different epistemologies play as they pertain to

teaching writing in ELA classrooms. Rather, many prior studies within the field of

writing instruction had a strong tendency to focus on pre- and post- assessments and

textual features of writing or individual cognitive processes of writing.

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The aim of the present research project is to explore three research questions. I

now summarize the findings presented in Chapters Four and Five in relation to these

inquiries.

Research Question 1: How did teachers talk about and plan curriculum with their

epistemologies?

Utilizing an interpretative analysis of interviews, initial curricular plans, and the

first several weeks of classroom observations, I found that there were differences in

underlying beliefs and conceptualizations about the teaching and learning of

argumentative writing. The major differences occurred in how these two teachers valued

certain aspects of writing, the learning environments the teachers orchestrated, and the

nature of their writing assessments. Both teachers learned a structural process approach

(Applebee, 1989; Smagornsky et al., 2010) to teach argumentative writing. This approach

emphasizes the students’ learning and application of the critical thinking and inquiry

processes. Two teachers for my research project subscribed to this approach and intended

to adopt and adapt it into their teaching practices.

Their teaching practices, however, were disparate. Ms. Foss viewed teaching

writing as a matter of delivering knowledge about structural aspects of argumentative

writing to her students, whereas Ms. Glen saw teaching writing in terms of inspiring the

intellectual activities required for her students to explore ideas. During the interviews

preceding the beginning of the new school year, Ms. Foss shared her goal that her

students gain knowledge about writing structure, whereas Ms. Glen articulated that she

wanted her students to establish good writing habits and to understand multiple

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perspectives. As a result of their different beliefs about the teaching and learning of

argumentative writing, the teachers’ initial curricular plans also looked different. While

Ms. Foss focused on teaching a pre-set structure, Ms. Glen emphasized generating and

developing ideas.

Research Question 2: How are the teachers’ epistemologies for teaching

argumentative writing made evident in their instructional reasoning and enactment of

instructional conversations during their instructional units?

The key instructional chains analyzed revealed how two teachers with different

epistemologies orchestrated their lessons for argumentative writing. The primary focus of

Ms. Foss’s instructions was to teach the paragraph-by-paragraph format. This pre-set

structure is a traditional form of the five-paragraph theme consisting of an introduction,

three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Ms. Foss designed scaffolding for her students

to learn how to use a formulaic structure to develop their arguments by using graphic

organizers and color-coding strategies. The students in Ms. Foss’s class spent a

substantial amount of time studying and practicing the use of the graphic organizers and

color-coding strategies. The role of writing in this learning community was to check the

students’ knowledge about a paragraph theme and to create texts using this pre-set

structure.

On the other hand, Ms. Glen did not teach the structural aspects of argumentative

writing like Ms. Foss. She focused on establishing writing habits through non-graded

writing tasks and various types of writing. In her classroom, there were no length or

structure limits imposed on writing assignments. Interestingly enough, some students

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who were already familiar with the five-paragraph theme writing they learned in middle

school asked questions about structural aspects of writing such as the allowed number of

sentences per paragraph. Ms. Glen repeatedly explained that her interest was in the

students’ idea development as opposed to their adherence to a static form. A

microethnographic approach showed that the discussions in Ms. Foss’s classroom mostly

addressed ways of using graphic organizers and color-coding strategies, or selecting

direct quotes that were relevant to the students’ claims. On the contrary, Ms. Glen’s

classroom discussions focused on literary interpretations from multiple perspectives.

One unanticipated finding was that overlapping epistemologies emerged from

time to time in both teachers’ instructional practices. This was not necessarily a

conceptual change of epistemologies, but both teachers occasionally provided

instructions that unaligned with their own dominant epistemologies. This rather

contradictory result may be due to the complexity of the nature of teaching and learning

practices within the school contexts. Despite her ideational epistemology, Ms. Glen had

no choice but to use the rubric developed by the school district. The analysis shows that

the rubric’s main focus critiques the structural aspects of writing. The case of Ms. Glen

demonstrates how institutional forces, such as educational policies or large-scale tests,

can influence writing instruction in a classroom setting. Therefore, I argue that teachers

can have overlapping epistemologies stemming from internal and/or external forces,

though they usually espouse a certain epistemology for teaching argumentative writing.

Ms. Foss, the other focal teacher, agreed with both the structural process approach

and the concept of writing as a social practice. Indeed, she introduced her students to

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opportunities for exchanging their ideas via discussions and for developing ideas through

free writing. These new attempts, however, soon disappeared without a trace. Ms. Foss

quickly returned to teacher-oriented lectures after beginning to feel the pressure to rush

through classes in order to teach all planned content. Thus, a true change in teacher

epistemology is likely to occur slowly and includes many difficulties and complications.

Research Question 3: How and when are the teachers’ epistemologies

appropriated by their 9th grade students?

The close analysis of the focal students’ argumentative essays revealed how

students in each classroom appropriated the teachers’ different epistemologies. It is safe

to say that the structures of the focal students’ essays in Ms. Foss’s classroom were

identical because all students followed the same format and structure provided by Ms.

Foss. The five-paragraph theme has historically been viewed as a deficit, but the students

acknowledged it as an effective writing strategy due to its clear steps which proved to be

easy to follow. With a pre-set form, students can organize their thoughts without

worrying about structure. In this way, they can create apparently logical and efficient

texts within a short time. The students gained confidence in writing as they became

familiar with a formula to achieve clarity, coherence, and unity.

In Ms. Glen’s classroom, students needed to rely on their own organizational

approaches to writing, as Ms. Glen did not provide a static template; however, she did

introduce ample opportunities for her students to discover features of good writing by

experimenting independently. As Kristen described in the previous chapter, the students

in Ms. Glen’s class focused on the unity of arguments and evidence during their writing

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processes, suggesting the centrality the role of ideas plays in this learning community.

Students constructed arguments using their own words in order to support the structure of

their argumentative essays. Kristen explained that Ms. Glen would “be looking to see we

have all the content we need and that we express our thoughts and develop on it.” In a

separate interview, Ken said, “it is about comprehension of the book, and you are talking

about a topic in the book you are writing about.”

According to Kristen, the starting point for writing argumentative essays in this

classroom was for students to review their discussions and others’ perspectives by

flipping study guide and discussion questions. From a careful analysis of data from

student essays and interviews, we can infer that “good” writing in Ms. Glen’s classroom

is writing that which demonstrates a strong interpretive claim and utilizes supporting

evidence developed through the recursive processes of generating, exploring, and refining

ideas. The weaker student writing heavily relies on retelling, reporting, and summarizing

the stories rather than constructing an interpretive understanding.

Theoretical Implications

Teacher Epistemology and Shifting Epistemologies

Every English language arts teacher has a dominant epistemology underscoring

his or her pedagogical practices. What we do not have is a theoretical model for

understanding teacher epistemologies and overlapping epistemologies for writing

instruction. In spite of the close link between teaching practices and epistemologies,

many writing methods courses for pre-service teachers as well as professional

development programs for in-service teachers have paid little attention to epistemologies

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as they pertain to the teaching and learning of argumentative writing. New activities and

methods—the central content of the majority of workshops and other professional

development offerings—can be appropriated by most teachers, but to different extents.

Changing teacher epistemologies shaping teaching practices is, however, much more

challenging (Applebee, 1986; Hillocks, 1999; Newell et al., 2014). The findings from this

study contribute to existing knowledge of teacher epistemologies by providing a

comparative analysis of the landscape of two 9th grade ELA classrooms. Despite

designing instruction to meet the same state standards, the two teachers communicated

vastly differently knowledge to their students about the same subject, topic, and area

within their learning community. Epistemological change in teachers is critical because

different teacher epistemologies lead to different instructional decisions toward writing

strategy, pedagogy, and assessment.

Newell et al. (2014) suggested that teachers with different epistemologies for

teaching and learning argumentative writing "require different forms of support" (p. 116).

Newell and his colleagues did not explicitly define or specify potential types of support

or programs, but differing visions for the teaching and learning of argumentative writing

through three argumentative epistemologies can be a foundational framework for further

research. Two teachers with different epistemologies in this study could represent an

empirical continuum in terms of replications and extensions of analytic procedures in the

study conducted by Newell et al. (2014). The teachers appropriated a structural process

approach differently because of their epistemological differences regarding the teaching

and learning of argumentative writing. Most of the instructional plans, conversations, and

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instructions were aligned with their dominant epistemologies. On the other hand, a

detailed analysis of their instructions, assessments, and conversations revealed more

complicated aspects of teacher epistemologies. A microethnographic approach revealed

that both teachers showed shifting epistemologies due to internal or external forces.

There is probably not a simple "one size fits all" epistemology for the effective

teaching and learning of argumentative writing. In particular, the emergent and complex

challenges in and outside the classroom teachers face in terms of diverse cultures, desired

educational outcomes, and social dynamics require teachers to exercise flexibility,

contemplation, and responsibility. We need to go beyond blaming a certain approach

when we experience shortcomings, and instead, we must attempt to expand our

understanding of learners and methods through critique, discussion, and reflection. Being

cognizant in acknowledging both the myriad of strategies available to student writers, as

well as the underlying assumptions and epistemological beliefs behind those strategies in

order to further both the pedagogy and research within the discipline.

Adopting a new epistemology changes one’s view toward writing instruction

fundamentally. When teachers adopt a new epistemology, they see every element of

writing instruction differently—learning goals, strategies, and assessments. Our

epistemological beliefs are not escapable through simple patience and increased efforts.

After all, it is not uncommon for individuals to be unable to recognize that this

framework even exists because epistemology is such an integral part of our lives. What

the two teachers in this study illustrate is that teacher epistemologies do not hold a static

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form, and the process of changing or shifting epistemologies would be a fruitful area for

further research.

Community of Practices

One of the strengths of the community of practices approach is that we can

observe the teaching and learning of argumentative writing in a complex social context,

rather than in a vacuum. The context situating the classroom as a learning community is a

major factor in determining ways of delivering, transferring, and creating knowledge.

However, this may also be viewed as a drawback since our society is becoming an

increasingly individualistic world. Schools in the United States rooted in Western

European influences tend to be individualistic (Slavin, 2006). Rothstein-Fisch and

Trumbull (2008) argued that learning and knowledge construction are individual

processes, albeit, ones which do occur within a social context, in schools in the United

States; this is especially clear in comparison to collectivistic cultures. Discussions and

relationships with other students are also important features of education in the United

States, but come second to individuality (Holins, 1996). Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbull go

on to argue that students increasingly learn individually in the United States.

Although collaborative learning is an emerging trend and one of the core aspects

of contemporary teaching and learning (e.g., Colwell & Hutchison, 2015; DeCosta,

Clifton, & Roen, 2010; Wiliam, 2013), the type of collaborative learning in prior studies

present different notions. Despite the suggestion its name implies, collaborative learning

often means an activity in which each student within a group is assigned a particular role

to work on individually. Learners work in small groups from time to time, but a detailed

204

analysis revealed that even in a cooperative group, the main purposes of the small group

work are assigning individual tasks or monitoring progress, rather than genuinely

working together (Rothstein-Fisch & Trumbull, 2008). Without prioritizing the space as a

genuine learning community, the reality is that students are learning alone although they

seem to cooperate on the surface. Learning to write within a community of practices

implies more than superficial contacts with a teacher and classmates, demanding instead

a burgeoning understanding of how to develop and explore concepts through complex

instructional conversations in an acceptable manner (Reid, 1998) as a part of a socio-

cultural apprenticeship (Rogoff, 1990).

Dimensions of Individual Differences

The previous research presumed that the teacher is the smallest irreducible unit.

From the physical views, this is true, pure and simple. Yet, whether the individual teacher

is viewed as an entity who is unable to be further broken down is worth exploring and

tackling. We often have conflicting preferences within ourselves. We can see this "self as

a collection of multiple self-aspects" (McConnell, 2011) in our daily lives. Sometimes

shifting preferences are due to incomplete knowledge - we plan to do something, but

change plans when receiving new information. Sometimes they are due to lack of

willpower - we are easily tempted to indulge in unhealthy foods or skip workouts after

making up our minds.

The issue of the multiple self-aspects demonstrates that individuals are not akin to

atoms. Obviously, the same can be said of teachers, as they can be divided up further into

a series of beliefs formed by experiences, knowledge, environmental factors, and formed

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preferences—which are sometimes conflicting. Individuals are not atoms, as they are

formed by others and societies (Chang, 2014). However, prior studies as of yet say little

about what it means for teachers to have conflicting preferences as part of the

instructional decisions.

Figure 6.1. Underlying Driving Factors for Teaching Practices

Figure 6.1 represents an iceberg metaphor for observable events (e.g., interviews,

instructional conversations, plans, and assessments) and unobservable influencing factors

(e.g., conflicting preferences, epistemologies, and bumbling, impressionable, and

imperfect natures). During the data collection and analysis, I found out that teachers’

epistemologies were aligned with their teaching practices in most classroom events, but

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some events still seemed to have nothing to do with their epistemologies. In the previous

section, I suggested the concept of overlapping epistemologies in order to illustrate these

phenomena. Although teachers’ epistemologies are the most important force in teaching

practices, other features of human beings might be underlying driving forces for teaching

practices in some conditions.

In other words, understanding teacher epistemology as underlying assumptions

and beliefs about the teaching and learning of writing, instructions and classroom

conversations are viewed as products of teacher epistemology and became the units of

analysis. In other words, visible manifestations—lesson plans, instructional

conversations, interviews, and assessments—are a mirror of teacher epistemology.

However, instructional decisions are also created through our bumbling attempts and

conflicting preferences, not only formed by a teacher's dominant epistemology. Many

studies posit that a teacher as a sovereign individual shapes instructional decisions (e.g.,

Lenski et al., 2016; Mokhtari, Rosemary, & Edwards, 2007; Moon & Park, 2016).

Several studies, by contrast, imply a different understanding of instructional decisions by

identifying invisible, underlying driving factors impacting instructional decisions of

teachers. In the study conducted by Johnson et al. (2003), a case study teacher, Leigh,

made a decision influenced by community expectations and colleagues' pressure. Martin

and Hand (2009) examined the factors affecting shifting teaching practices. Their

findings suggested that student voice transformed an experienced teacher's instructional

style from a traditional didactic to a more student-centered approach. Newell et al. (2018)

have found that Ms. Hill's epistemology began to shift when she learned about a new

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concept of literary argumentation by participating in a research project and a summer

workshop. All aspects of social, cultural, and human factors influence teacher's decisions.

Teacher's decisions are not only formed by their environment (Johnson et al., 2003), but

also deliberately shaped by new vision and knowledge (Newell et al., 2018) or influenced

by the input of other members within the learning community (Martin & Hand, 2009).

Contrary to popular assumptions, we are not nearly as rational as we may think.

The majority of modern people often overestimate their abilities to make decisions based

on complicated calculations and considerations of various possibilities. They also tend to

presume to be precisely aware of their preferences because people incorrectly conclude

that they have reached an unprecedented level of rationality in human history. The

problem is that our preferences are not only formed by social environments, but also

manipulated by people and other uncertainties (e.g., emotions or instincts). Many

teenagers want to wear Under Armour Curry shoes because Stephen Curry became the

new Michael Jordan. Watch collectors gaze at Omega Speedmaster, rapt in admiration,

fixating on a historical narrative that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used that model

when they took their first step on the Moon.

Many aspects of human life are illogical and complicated. It is an enduring issue

in novels. Stoner by John Williams shows how a chance factor can change a person. The

novel's main character, Stoner, was a farm boy who was supposed to continue working

on the farm after graduating high school. Upon mere chance, he entered the university to

study agriculture. Taking a required introductory course, he encountered a new world

through literature, and he was immediately fascinated. Stoner quit the agriculture

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program, studied literature, and became a professor. Many examples of people exhibiting

similar and perhaps irrational behaviors are found everywhere. In spite of our hopes to

remain composed and rational, we are too readily controlled by whims, at the mercy of

our emotions, feelings, and moods. Our answers and explanations during an interview are

heavily affected by an interviewer's way of framing and presenting the questions

(Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011). We often act intuitively and heuristically in many

decision-making processes. These areas and aspects of human beings, which influence

writing instruction as teacher epistemologies do, are difficult to be captured and

portrayed.

Along with epistemologies, instructional decisions are made by imperfect

individuals with limited knowledge, conflicting preferences, internal contradictions,

varied socialization processes, and other people’s influences. Further research should be

carried out to explore these multifaceted imperfect natures of flawed human beings in

order to gain insight into how these complex factors influence teaching and learning.

Pedagogical Implications

This dissertation makes several important contributions to the current literature

regarding how writing instruction supports students’ learning to write in a systematic,

steady, and thorough way. This research illustrates two types of argumentative

epistemologies. In Ms. Foss's class, writing a literature-related argumentative essay was

rooted in the five-paragraph theme emphasizing a strict rule-based form. This study

illustrated how students can use that format to create an argumentative essay with relative

ease and comfort, even bearing in mind the attacks on the five-paragraph theme over the

209

past few decades. In spite of its potential ill effects as demonstrated by previous

scholarship, it is perhaps important that this formulaic approach persists in many ELA

classrooms today: the historical root of the five-paragraph theme can be traced back to

hundreds years ago (Nunes, 2013), and my study has shown that some advantages of this

structured heuristic still remain for modern students.

I am neither condemning nor upholding the five-paragraph theme, but its deep

historical roots suggest that this approach is beneficial to some degree in the teaching and

learning of argumentative writing. Most criticisms of the five-paragraph theme pointed

out the outrageous abuses (e.g., Miller, 2010; Tremmel, 2011; Wesley, 2000) and its

defenders emphasized its benefits as an exercise and a stepping stone (e.g., Haluska,

2007; Seo, 2007; Smith, 2006). In the midst of recurrent discussions, what is missing is

the connection between the five-paragraph essay format and different writing approaches.

Considerably more work will need to be done to explore the nature and process of

adoption and adaptation of different writing pedagogies in real, complex classroom

settings.

This research also provides insights regarding teacher learning. Having the

opportunity to work with Ms. Foss for two years has allowed me to experience her

learning process, which was impressive, albeit slower than what I expected. To achieve

the lofty goal of shifting or changing a teacher’s dominant epistemology, recognizing the

complexity inherent in various situations, tasks, and student populations would be

helpful, as would an increased focus on teaching practices. A mere explanation about

theories and pedagogical ideas in isolation simply will not suffice. Approximations in

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myriad forms are required for teachers learning about new pedagogical approaches and/or

content knowledge. Time and space for teachers needed to grasp the complexity of

learning factors is a necessity for teacher educators if the goal is to transform their

teaching; such an endeavor involves much more than surface-level exposure to a desired

approach coupled with a simple opportunity to rehearse in front of others.

Approximations occur when teachers appropriate strategies and tools, developing their

own understanding of specific aspects of trajectories of approximations, as well as new

pedagogical knowledge, in order to refine those elements according to their classroom

contexts (Grossman et al., 2009). One question left unanswered is how to make a

complex process inside and across approximations visible within teacher education and

professional development. For example, in order for teachers to see multiple dimensions

of teaching practices, a better understanding of pedagogies of observation, enactment,

and reflection needs to be developed. Further research on the points of challenge,

dissonance, and tensions in teaching practices in particular classroom contexts could also

shed more light on teacher development and professional development programs.

Methodological Implications

Nowadays, ethnographic fieldwork comes to refer to "an integration of both first-

hand empirical investigation and the theoretical and comparative integration of social

organization and culture" (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 1). An ethnographic

approach is not simply a matter of observation, experience, and writing. Although we

continue to sharpen our skills in order to improve the quality of ethnographic research,

we, as researchers, cannot capture every single detail in the field. With a specific history

211

in British academia, the term, “ethnography,” originated in Western anthropology, where

ethnography was understood as a descriptive account of non-Western culture or

community. While many social anthropologists, such as Edmund Leach, Max Gluckman,

and Meyer Fortes, conducted ethnographic studies of African and Asian societies, I felt

as if I were marooned on an island named the United States. I wondered if that feeling is

what ethnography in the past century might feel like. In a global village, the United States

is far from an unknown world, but from my view as a complete outsider and stranger, my

high school ELA classroom observations were also similar to a journey into the unknown

in some ways.

Ethnography plays a complex role in my research project, considering my unique

position and educational background: I am a former language arts teacher from the Far

East. I was born and raised in Seoul. I have never been to the United States and never

expected to go before pursuing my doctoral degree. My distinct background represents

both fresh eyes and limited understanding. My understanding of teaching and learning of

writing in ELA classrooms is inextricably linked to my prior experience, historical, and

cultural-bound standpoints. For all these reasons, my arguments are inevitably

intertwined with social factors, and as such, they are limited, and partial. This is true for

any qualitative researcher, whether or not he or she is aware of researcher positionality,

because teaching and learning practices involve tacit attitudes, feelings, values, and

relationships that are not easily observable, and, as in my case, may present special

difficulties as they were observed from the perspective of a foreigner. An essential part of

an ethnographic approach today is reflexivity (Emerson et al., 2011; Hammersley &

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Atkinson, 2007; Heath & Street, 2008; Van Maanen, 2011). We, therefore, have to keep

learning new ways of being sensitive and responsive to various factors with an open mind

in order to advance our understanding of literacy education.

Concluding Thoughts

My exploration of two high school ELA classrooms over time both reveals old

news and offers something new. Applebee and Langer (2013) have described that many

students still learn how to write within traditional paradigms of teaching writing, such as

fill-in-the-blank forms and five-paragraph essays. My study reconfirmed this report by

presenting how a teacher with structural epistemology approached writing instruction.

Now heading towards the conclusion of my doctoral thesis, half-amused and half-

surprised, the collected data and my field notes encapsulated the complex and conflicting

teaching practices inherent in complex learning communities. Despite some unexpected

findings, this data actually illustrates writing instruction to be much better than may be

expected. To conclude, this dissertation does not report outcomes of specific case studies,

but rather builds some conceptual understandings realized from my ethnographic

investigation in two classrooms as learning communities.

213

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Appendix A. Example of Field Notes

General Note about this Session: Basic Elements of Argumentation Time Observation Notes Methodological/

Theoretical Notes 10:16 10:18 10:21 10:22 10:23 10:26 10:29 10:31

Today’s agenda 1) Argument terms 2) Tragedy in the Bathroom activity 3) Prompt for Thank you ma’am 4) Compile list of evidence from text 5) Vocab. Ms. Foss opens Argumentative writing introduction PPT slides. Ms. Foss: “What did you come up with hen you heard the word argument?” She read claim description in the slide. She read evidence and warrant pat within the slides. She read counterargument and logic. Ms. Foss: “What is the strongest evidence in the Tragedy in the Bathroom?” 1) The blanket covering the body 2) The location of the body 3) Toothbrush in his hand 4) The shoe prints Students will apply what they learned into Thank you ma’am they read during the first week of this school year.

She just read the descriptions in the slides. I am not sure her students grasp these terms.

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10:35 10:38 10:43 10:45 10:48 10:49 10:51 10:44 10:57 10:59

Prompt for five minute free writing. Did Roger change after he encounter with Mrs. Jones? - How did he change? - Is he better off for having met Ms. Jones? - What did Mrs. Jones do to change him? Students start their writing. Julie: “finish up the last thought.” Evidence of Roger change The boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank You, Ma’am.” (3) He could wake a dash for it down the hall (2) I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes (2) They will discuss this more on next Monday. Vocab. for this week. 1. definitive 2. denote 3. dialect 4. discern 5. eclectic Students who need to re-take vocab. quiz should come during jag period. -END OF SESSION-

This is prompt for checking students’ understanding of the story, rather than argumentative writing. Students’ tasks are to find textual evidence in the story to answer the third sub-question, and almost all students agreed the fact that Roger change after meeting with Mrs. Jones. 5 minutes are too short to write something meaningful.

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Appendix B. Interview Questions

Interview Protocol for Teachers 1. Tell me about what you wanted your students to take with them from the unit and the extent to which you feel you were successful/less successful. How do you know? 2. Tell me about how argumentative writing fits into the course as a whole. How often have you taught it this school year? How is this writing related to the readings you assign or other parts of your curriculum? 3. When you begin the school year, what do you assume that your students know about this writing? What would you like them to know as they begin the school year, and what would like them to know by the end of the school year? 4.What continuing growth would you like to see as this student continues to develop as a writer? 5. Tell me about your feelings regarding the teaching of writing. Do you like teaching it? Why? Do you feel it is important? Why? 6. Do students seem to like learning to do argumentative writing? How do you know? What do they find engaging? What do they find challenging/easy about learning to do writing? 7. Talk about how you think about the relationship between teaching literature and teaching writing. How did your approach change over the course of the semester? 8. Tell me about your most successful experience teaching writing. Why was it successful? 9. Describe your own writing activities for school and outside of school and how the writing you do influences (or not) how you teach writing. 10. How would you describe your approach to teaching argumentative writing? What instructional strategies do you view as critical to teaching argumentative writing?

239

11. When you respond to a student paper involving argumentative writing, what do you look for? What is your approach to responding to student papers? Why do you take this approach? 12. What are your general goals for teaching literature-related argumentative writing? (Prompt for teaching reasoning, considering other perspectives, learning from other people’s arguments, deep understanding of the topic, etc.) Source: Newell et al., 2015 Interview Protocol for Case Study Students 1. Here’s one of the essays / texts you wrote for your English class. Tell us/me about how you wrote this – what were you thinking about? 2. How did you go about writing it? 3. Did you make an outline first or did you just begin writing? 4. Let’s look at it very closely. What’s the first part that you actually wrote. Tell us about that part. 5. How would you evaluate this writing assignment? What makes it good? Not-so-good? 6. Do you consider yourself a good writer? Why? Do you like to write in school? What kinds of writing do you do in school? (Tell me more about that.) 7. What kinds of writing do you do outside of school? (Tell me more about that.) 8. Tell me about writing in English language arts. What kind of writing do you do in English language arts? Do you like to write in English language arts? (Tell me more about that.) 9. When you are discussing ideas and/or literature in your English language arts classroom, what does the teacher seems to focus on? Please give me an example. 10. When you or other students discuss ideas and/or literature with your teacher, do you ever disagree with one another? How do your teacher and the other students seem to feel about disagreements?

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11. When there are disagreements, how do they get handled? For example, does the teacher encourage the discussion? 12. In your English class, (insert teacher’s name here) is teaching about how do writing: Writing which presents an idea or attempts to persuade someone. If you were to describe how the teacher is teaching you about writing and how you are learning to do writing to someone who never visited your classroom, what would you say? 13. If you had to give advice to a new, incoming student at the beginning of the school year, about doing writing, what would you say? 14. If you had to give them advice about doing well in (insert teacher’s name here)’s class, what would you say? Source: Newell et al., 2015

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Appendix C. A Graphic Organizer Provided by Ms. Foss

242

Appendix D. Analytic Tables for Instructional Chains

Teacher Instructional Chain and Event Date and Time Page Section Ms. Foss

First Instructional Chain Argumentation Terms

9.15.2017 2:30-9:45

243

D.1

Graphic Organizer Introduction 9.20.2017 8:30-23:30

248 D.2

Color-Coding Introduction 9.21.2017 16:30-33:20

257 D.3

Second Instructional Chain Prompts and Essay Structure

10.30.2017 9:40-15:00

268

D.4

Claim Proposal 11.1.2017 9:45-13:15

274 D.5

Rubric 11.14.2017 9:00-16:30

279 D.6

Ms. Glen

First Instructional Chain Ethos, Pathos, Logos

9.25.2017 15:00-22:50

287

D.7

Lifeboat Writing 9.26.2017 3:40-10:05

291 D.8

Second Instructional Chain Discussion

10.26.2017 23:30-35:30

297

D.9

Studyguide Check 10.27.2017 3:50-14:40

306 D.10

Prompts and Writing 11.6.2017 1:00-6:30

312 D.11

243

D.1. Argumentation Terms

9.15.2017 minutes 2:30-9:45

Function Argumentative moves

Literary submoves Epistemological moves

Notes

Line Num

ber

Part icipant

Message Unit

Questioning

Explicit statement

Revoicing

Making a claim

Providing evidence

Providing warrant

Retelling

Stating meaning

Pointing to the text

Connecting to experience

S tructural

Ideational

Social process

101 Teacher The moment you think of argument what’s it make you think?

T Ms. Foss asks some questions, but also tells students.

102 What’s an argument? T 103 What are you talking about if you are thinking of

argument? T

104 Like if you have an argument with your best friend, well not like a specific argument with your best friend but you’re arguing one.

105 What? Who’s right or wrong? T 106 You’re talking about your opinion, you’re mad at

them

107 because you think you’re right and they’re wrong and they’re not seeing things your way.

108 That’s usually what we think of what’s an argument right?

T

109 But that’s not what argumentative writing is. T 110 Argumentative writing is something different. T

244

Function Argumentative moves

Literary submoves Epistemological moves

Notes

Line Num

ber

Part icipant

Message Unit

Questioning

Explicit statement

Revoicing

Making a claim

Providing evidence

Providing warrant

Retelling

Stating meaning

Pointing to the text

Connecting to experience

S tructural

I deational

Social process

111 If you’re only mean writing you’re trying to change that person’s opinion or point of view that would be persuasive writing

T

112 but argumentative writing is when discussing when you’re writing about a text like a short story or a normal like a nice play or novel like Romeo or Juliet, you’re not writing in a way to kind of win a fight about your side.

T

113 So you’re not giving your opinion. You’re not defending your position.

T

114 What you are doing is argumentative writing is about inquiring. It’s about asking questions or seeking information.

T T

115 you’re using argumentative writing trying to find out about something like the story or the play or about the text.

T T

116 Bobby Can I use the restroom? S 117 Teacher Um can you wait? Is that okay? T 118 Bobby yeah okay 119 Teacher Okay. Um, so argumentative writing it tells us more

or deeply understand think critically about the text. T T

120 so that’s why we practice doing with different texts T 121 because it helps get into the text deeper and kind of

understand it a little bit more. T T

245

Function Argumentative moves

Literary submoves Epistemological moves

Notes

Line Num

ber

Part icipant

Message Unit

Questioning

Explicit statement

Revoicing

Making a claim

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122 So we’re going to go over some terms that are called argumentative writing

Ms. Foss begins to read the slides. 123 just so we all have the same definitions so when we

talk about these terms we’re all talking about the same thing.

124 So the definition we’re going to be using for argument is the use of evidence and reason to discover some version of the truth.

125 So that’s what we are doing with Tragedy in the Bathroom.

126 We’re trying to figure out whether or not the wife was lying.

T

127 When we were using evidence, you know the picture, which actually is the picture to help us figure it out we used reason to help us talk through it and decide if she was lying like one example we had was the way the body was lying.

T T

128 What was he actually lying in front of? T 129 Mandy The sink S 130 Teacher The sink if he fell the shower he’d be laying near the?

Shower. T T

131 So we use kind of reason to figure out that you know if you fall you’re lying next to the sink when you were obviously by the sink when you fell.

T

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132 So that’s the definition we’re going to use for arguments.

T

133 Alright, the next word is ‘claim’ 134 and a claim is the statement that one believes is true

and what we’re going to do as a class a claim about whether or not that wife was lying.

T

135 We’re going to see what. 136 We’re going to see what everyone kind of thinks

that’s going to be our claim or our beliefs or truth.

137 Claims always require supporting evidence so that’s what we did yesterday

T Ms. Foss keeps reading Powerpoint slides.

138 we gathered all that evidence from the picture and we’re going to make a claim with that.

139 The evidence is facts or quotes, supported texts used to support and argument-as we gathered yesterday.

T

140 We also did warrant A student sneezes 141 - bless you-

142 and the definition for warrants is the reason for thinking deciding or doing something and for argumentative writing

T

143 a warrant is the statement that kind of explains the logical connection between the claim and each piece of supporting evidence.

T

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144 So like after we talked about the body and the claim by the sink, we explained that if you fall near the sink when you’re laying right near the sink and that was our warrant.

145 counter argument so that’s an argument that challenges or poses a specific claim or warrant so its somebody that’s making an argument that we think the opposite of.

T

146 and then logic, logic is a reason of widely accepted way of thinking about or understanding something.

T

147 We used logic yesterday when we talked about like the shoes do most people normally wear shoes in the shower? No.

T T

148 It didn’t make sense for there to be shoe prints coming out of the shower.

T

149 Alright so those are just a couple definitions that we’re going to use them for talking about argumentative writing

150 so now we’re going to apply those to Tragedy in the Bathroom.

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D.2. Graphic Organizer Introduction

9.20.2017 minutes 8:30-23:30

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101 Teacher What we’re going to do today is what you would now do with that information

102 and how you’re going to produce a paragraph based on the information that you have that you gathered yesterday.

T

103 This is just a notes page that explains basic paragraph structure,

T

104 and it specifically talks about how you’re going to write about literature.

105 The writing that we’re going to do this year when we’re writing about literature is going to be structured writing.

T

106 It kind of helps you learn the basics of paragraph structure

T

107 and it helps you learn the basic structure of the paragraph.

T

108 When you get older, you’ll start changing it. T 109 You’ll learn to add your own voice to it and being a

little bit more creative. T

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110 Right now, we need to work on writing strong paragraphs.

T

111 This is what these notes are going to help you do. T 112 The first part of any paragraph, and you guys learned

this when you started writing paragraphs, is the topic sentence.

T T

113 Since we’re doing argumentative writing its going to be the claim.

T

114 These notes are color-coded, T 115 so if you want to color-code these in Notability it’ll

make sense later on as we highlight the paragraph, T

116 but the topic sentence is always going to be green. T 117 If you want to go ahead and color code now, you can

start with that now. T

118 What the topic sentence does is it states the paragraph’s main idea.

T T

119 It tells you what that paragraph is going to be about. T 120 Alright, so that’s always going to be the beginning of

any paragraph. T

121 The next part, or the middle part of the paragraph, is going to have the supporting detail.

T

122 What supporting detail you have is going to bond what paragraph, what type of writing you’re doing and what you’re writing about.

T T

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123 The supporting detail can be textual evidence, examples, it can be explanations, or what we have that you guys wrote yesterday, warrants.

T

124 So that’s all part of what can be in your supporting details,

T

125 so that’s going to be in the main part of your paragraph.

T

126 Alright, then the very last part of any paragraph is going to be the concluding sentence, where you’re summarizing the whole paragraph.

T

127 The concluding sentence has two jobs that it has to do, it has to rephrase your topic sentence and it has to mention the paragraph’s most important details.

T T

128 Alright, so that’s going to be the basic structure for any type of paragraph you write.

T T

129 And the next part of the notes page is going to be really specific to the type of writing we’re going to do where we’re writing about a piece of literature.

T

130 Ron Can you slow down? S Students are busy writing down what Ms. Foss says.

131 I’m not done writing this down. 132 Teacher Yep. 133 Ron I’m not done writing that. 134 Teacher Ron, it’s okay, 135 I’ll put a key on Canvas later on today,

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136 so if you miss anything in class you can always go back and get it from the key, okay?

137 So, the next part that we’re going to talk about is something we’re going to call “fact sandwiches.”

T See Figure 4.11 for visual presentation. 138 The “fact sandwiches” are going to be part of that

blue, they’re going to be part of the supporting detail. T T

139 So, in the paragraphs that you guys are going to be writing, you’re going to have a topic sentence, two fact sandwiches, and a conclusion sentence.

T T

140 This part now that we’re going to talk about is going to be the middle part of our paragraph.

T

141 The first part of our “fact sandwich” is going to be the introduction to the evidence,

T T

142 and it’s going to be underlined blue if you’re color-coding it.

T

143 So, you’re going to set up the textual evidence, and you’re going to have a speech tag.

T

144 The speech tag tells you who is doing the speaking, if it’s dialogue, or that the author’s writing.

T

145 Alright, so then the next part of our sandwich: T 146 after you introduce your textual evidence, then you’re

going to have the textual evidence. T

147 So that is going to be yellow if you’re color-coding. T 148 So, the evidence can be a fact or a quote from the

text. T T

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149 It depends on what type of writing you’re doing. 150 What we’re doing right now it’s going to be quotes

from the text.

151 So that’s why yesterday I had you guys copy directly from the story you’re using.

152 Alright, then after our evidence, we’re going to have to have a citation.

T

153 That’s why I had you guys yesterday write down the page number that you found the quotes on.

154 Whenever you copy anything from another source, you need to cite it.

155 If you don’t, that is plagiarism. 156 For our citation, we will have the author’s last name

and the page number. T

157 It’s always important that you have a citation. 158 After our citation, the very last part of our sandwich

is going to be the explanation of the evidence, T

159 or, because we’re doing argumentative writing, the warrants.

160 That is going to be highlighted in blue, so you can put that in blue if you’re color coding.

T T

161 Alright, so that is all the different parts of our sandwich.

T

162 And like I said, you’ll have two fact sandwiches in the middle of your paragraph.

T

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163 And if you notice there’s a few boxes over on the right side.

T

164 These are clues to help you remember what information goes where.

T

165 So, the colors were very carefully chosen for the different parts of the paragraph.

T

166 The underlined blue is you. T 167 Any words that are going to be underlined in blue or

highlighted in blue, those are your words. T

168 You’re not copying them from anywhere. 169 This is your ideas. 170 So, when you’re introducing the textual evidence,

you’re going to be explaining what’s going on in the story at the time of the textual evidence.

T T

171 Yellow, little rhyme with that one, is the other fellow, yellow fellow.

T T

172 You copy your yellow from another source. T 173 Either a direct quote, like we did yesterday, copied it

word for word,

174 or sometimes we’ll paraphrase and put the information into our own words.

175 But yellow, the ideas present in the yellow while you’re writing, are someone else’s ideas or words.

T T

176 And that is why you have to have the red, the citation. T T

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177 Without red, you’re dead. 178 You have to give credit to the source that you’re

getting this information from.

179 They’re not your ideas, so you need to tell us where you get those ideas.

T

180 And the last blue is going to be you, and that is going to be the most important part of the paragraph:

T

181 the explanation of the evidence or the warrants. T 182 Alright, so does anyone have any questions, right

now, about the fact sandwiches? T Students did not

ask any questions. 183 Alright. We have some other notes now;

184 the next set of notes are about the warrant or explanation.

185 The highlighted blue answers the question how does the evidence, your yellow, answers the question of your topic sentence, the green.

T T

186 In other words, has does your yellow prove the green. T 187 You want to remember, you learned this in

elementary art class, yellow plus blue equals green, so that’s why the colors are the way that they are.

188 Alright, so the note down there at the bottom, you guys don’t have to write anything in,

189 but I want to make sure that we mention that. 190 So, this equation that yellow plus blue equals green

means that in order to have the best blue, or the best T

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explanation or warrant possible, you have to include green and yellow in that explanation.

191 When we’re color-coding the paragraph, this will make more sense, but you have to mention those things in your warrant.

T

192 The next set of notes are about our concluding sentence.

193 The concluding sentence rephrases your topic sentence.

T T

194 You’re reminding your reader what this entire paragraph was about.

T T

195 You’re also going to mention each of the fact sandwiches.

T T

196 You’re re-phrasing your topic sentence and mentioning your textual evidence,

T T

197 or those fact sandwiches you had in there. T T 198 The color for that is purple if you’re color-coding. T T 199 Alright, then our last set of notes are all about the in-

text citations. T

200 The example that you have there is from Of Mice and Men.

T

201 “George says, ‘We have a little house and a room to ourselves.’”

T

202 The parenthesis at the end says Steinbeck 58. T T

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203 That’s exactly how you guys are going to write your citations.

204 Within the parentheses, you have the author’s last name, not the first name,

T T

205 just the last name, and the page number. T T 206 You always put the period there on the outside. T T

257

D.3. Color-Coding Introduction

9.21.2017 minutes 16:30-33:20

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101 Teacher We are going to highlight a sample paragraph. 102 You’re going to need to go back into Canvas and go

back into the argumentative writing module. Teacher

modeling for students 103 You want to open the second to bottom item.

104 It’s called “Sample Paragraph: Thank you, Ma’am #1.”

105 Go ahead and open that up and put that into Notability.

106 And we’ll wait until every gets to that place. 107 Linsey This one? S 108 Teacher Yup, that’s the one. 109 Yup, put it in Notability. 110 Student [Inaudible] S 111 Teacher Yup, that’s the one, 112 go ahead and put that in Notability so you can color-

code it.

113 Alright, so do we all have this opened up?

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114 Alright, I want you to notice a couple of things right from the beginning.

115 This is going to be the final product that you guys are going to produce and turn into me for our final writing.

T

116 This is what you started yesterday, what you guys took your notes on, and this is what you’re going to turn in.

T

117 Your writing is going to look just like this. T 118 In high school we use MLA as how we format things. T 119 The heading on this page is MLA format. T 120 It will be your name, my name, the class name,

English 9, and the date the assignment is due. T

121 The date needs to look like the date first, the month, then the year,

T

122 so 27 September 2017. T 123 That’s how you format something in MLA. T 124 The other thing you need to do whenever you turn in

formal writing is it needs to be in Times New Roman, 12-point font.

T

125 Those are the MLA rules, and once a school says they use MLA it’s the same across the entire country.

T

126 In college you use MLA format. T 127 It’s a really good habit to start getting into right now.

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128 We’re going to write this in Google Docs, and the default font is going to be Arial and it’s going to be 11,

T

129 so you need to make sure you change it to Times New Roman 12.

T

130 The other thing about MLA format is you have this heading,

T

131 then you’re going to have a title, T 132 then you’re you start your paragraph. T 133 You don’t put a space between the heading, the title,

and the paragraph. T

134 It’s just one continuous chunk of writing. 135 Does anybody have any questions about the format? T Students did not

ask questions. 136 Alright, so what we’re going to do now is take everything we learned in those paragraph notes and apply it to a paragraph.

137 So, we’re going to go through and color-code it. 138 Like I mentioned when we were doing the notes, this

is very structured writing. T

139 That’s to help you guys learn how to write a well written paragraph.

T

140 Our first sentence there is: “In Langston Hughes’ short story, “Thank You, Ma’am,” Roger becomes a

T T

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better person because Mrs. Jones treats him with kindness.”

141 You want to highlight that green, T 142 that’s our topic sentence, or our claim. T 143 So that should be green. T 144 That’s telling your reader what this paragraph is

about. T

145 This paragraph is based on the information we did on Friday when we answered the prompt about “Thank you, Ma’am,” and we came up with evidence and warrants.

146 Alright, so our next sentence says, “After Mrs. Jones takes Roger to her apartment for dinner, she asks Roger why he was trying to steal her purse. Roger tells her the truth. Roger says,”

T T

147 so this is going to be underlined blue, not highlighted blue,

T

148 there’s two different kinds of blue. T 149 There’s underlined blue, and highlighted blue. T 150 You want to underline this. T 151 In the underlined blue, what you’re doing is

introducing the textual evidence. T T

152 You’re explaining what’s going on in the story at the time of the textual evidence.

T T

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153 You also have that speech tag there, T 154 so because the textual evidence is dialogue, you need

to say who is saying those words. T

155 Roger is the person speaking in our textual evidence, 156 so it says, “Roger says.” T 157 Our textual evidence is “I wanted a pair of blue suede

shoes.” T T

158 That is going to be highlighted yellow. T 159 Just like in our fact sandwich, it’s going to be yellow. T 160 And then, if you remember back to our notes, what

color was our citations? T

161 Dexter Red 162 Teacher Red. Hughes 2 is going to be red. T 163 That is our citation, The author’s last name and the

page number. T

164 You want to highlight what’s in the parenthesis as red.

T

165 Alright, the next sentence is, “When he was asked why he was stealing her purse, he could have lied and told her it was for something more important than blue suede shoes so that she would not be mad at him. He could have told her it was for food or medicine or rent money. However, Roger chooses to be a good person and not lie.”

T T

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166 That is going to be highlighted blue. T 167 That is our explanation or our warrant. 168 That’s what you guys did yesterday, after you found

your evidence you wrote your warrant.

169 This is our warrant for this piece of textual evidence. 170 Alright, so we mention in our notes page that for a

warrant to be effective, we need to mention both our textual evidence and the topic sentence.

T

171 This whole paragraph is about how Roger becomes a better person.

T

172 “Roger chooses to be a better person,” highlight or circle that in green because that refers back to our topic sentence.

T T

173 You also need to mention the textual evidence in your warrant.

T

174 I do that when I say, “blue suede shoes,” that is what our textual evidence is all about.

T T T

175 Somehow either highlight or circle that in yellow so that you identify that in the warrant you need to mention the textual evidence.

T

176 Alright, the other thing you need to do for this section of the paragraph is that was our first fact sandwich.

T

177 Somehow on your paragraph on Notability I want you to label that as fact sandwich number 1.

T

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178 Mary [whispers] Which one? S 179 Teacher From our underlined blue to our highlighted blue,

that’s going to be fact sandwich number 1. T

180 Make sure you somehow label that so you can recognize that that’s our first fact sandwich.

181 Alright, does everybody have that first fact sandwich labeled?

T

182 Alright, so now we’re going to move on to our second fact sandwich.

183 One thing we haven’t seen yet in this paragraph is that we haven’t had a whole lot of transition words.

T

184 We are going to highlight transition words orange. T 185 Whenever you move from one fact sandwich to the

other, you want to make sure you have a transition there so your reader knows you are going to another example.

T T

186 My transition here is “Later in the story.” T 187 That signals to my reader that I’m moving to a

different part in the story, that I’m going to my next example.

T

188 “Later in the story while Mrs. Jones is preparing dinner, she turns her back on Roger and does not watch him to see if he will run or to watch her purse.

T T

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This gives Roger an opportunity to show how he is changing. Hughes writes.”

189 This is going to be underlined blue. T 190 It is our introduction to the textual evidence. 191 I’m explaining what is going on in the story. T 192 I also have a speech tag there, “Hughes writes.” T 193 Alright, my next section says, “But the boy took care

to sit on the far side the room where he thought she could easily see him out of the corner of her eye, if she wanted to. He did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be mistrusted now.”

T T

194 What color is our textual evidence? T T 195 Robert Yellow S 196 Teacher Yellow. This is going to be yellow. T T 197 Highlight this textual evidence. T 198 Everything within the quotation marks should be

yellow, T

199 it’s copied directly from another source. 200 What color is the citation, Hughes 3? T T 201 Lily Red. S 202 Teacher Red, so our citation is going to be red. T 203 After yellow, you’re always going to have red, your

citation. T

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204 Alright, “This demonstrates,” is going to be another transition.

T T

205 “This demonstrates that Roger is becoming a better person because he has the opportunity to steal Mrs. Jones’s purse or run away when her back is turned. Instead, he doesn’t touch her purse and stays where she can see him so that she knows he is not doing anything wrong. Roger wants to show her that he can be trusted.”

T T

206 This is going to be highlighted blue, this is our warrant.

T

207 Highlight that part blue. T 208 Within that highlighted blue, or within that warrant,

we have to mention our textual evidence, our yellow, and our green, the topic sentence.

T T

209 I have, “becoming a better person,” that is would be what you want to highlight green.

T T T

210 That refers back to what this entire paragraph is about.

T

211 Then, “he doesn’t steal her purse or run away,” that would be your yellow.

T T T

212 That’s referring back to your textual evidence. 213 That is also the end of our second fact sandwich. T 214 We’re going to go ahead and label that fact sandwich. T

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215 All the way from “Later in the story,” as you kind of get cut off there, all the way to here, this is going to be fact sandwich number 2.

T T

216 That is our second fact sandwich for the paragraph. T 217 You have your topic sentence and then your two fact

sandwiches. T

218 Alright, does everyone have that second fact sandwich labeled?

T

219 Then, our last sentence is going to be our concluding sentence.

T

220 It starts with, “Overall,” which is a transition word, so that should be highlighted yellow.

T T

221 Highlight “Overall,” I mean orange, sorry. Highlight “Overall,” orange.

T T

222 “Overall, because Roger received kindness from the woman he attempts to rob, he chooses to tell the truth and not steal her purse when he has the opportunity, showing how this experience changes him and makes him a better person.”

T T

223 That is going to be highlighted purple. T 224 The concluding sentence is going to be highlighted

purple. T

225 Within the purple, we talked about this on the notes page, your concluding sentence has to do two things:

T

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226 It has to re-phrase your topic sentence and you have to mention each piece of textual evidence.

T

227 Re-phrasing our topic sentence would be “Makes him a better person,” that’s what this whole paragraph is about, how Roger is changing.

T T T

228 The two pieces of textual evidence we have is when he chooses to tell the truth, that was our first fact sandwich,

T

229 and our second fact sandwich is to not steal her purse when he has the opportunity.

T

230 That would be our second fact sandwich. T 231 Somehow you want to label those or highlight or

circle those in your concluding sentence. T

232 Alright, so that is the entire paragraph. 233 The paragraph that we just highlighted, that’s what

you guys are going to be submitting for your final assessment for this whole writing process.

T

234 We’re just going to be writing one paragraph, T 235 and your paragraph is going to look just like that. T

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D.4. Prompts and Essay Structure

10.30.2017 minutes 9:40-15:00

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Ideational

Social process

101 Teacher What we’re doing for this essay is we’re writing an argumentative essay.

102 It’s like the paragraphs we wrote in the first quarter except it’s going to be a little bit longer because it’s going to be an entire essay.

T

103 So, this is going to be an essay that makes an argument.

T

104 You’re going to have claims that support your argument.

T

105 You’re going to support those claims with textual evidence from the novel.

T T

106 So each of your paragraphs, your body paragraphs that you are going to have, are going to have 2 pieces of textual evidence from the novel.

T T

107 Your essay is going to be a response to the prompts. 108 There are 4 different prompts you can choose from. 109 For some of the prompts you can even choose the

character you’re going to write about.

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110 So the first prompt you have is: Name your character’s three most dominate characteristics. You’re going to make an argument to support your description of the character.

T

111 For this one you can write about George, Lenny, Candy, or Curly’s wife.

T

112 So, what you’re saying for this one is, you know, what are the three most important aspects of this character’s personality.

T

113 That’s the argument you are making: 114 what’s the most important part of their personality. T 115 The second one is: Do you think George was right or

wrong in killing Lenny? T

116 For this prompt, you are going to make a stance on whether he was right or wrong.

T

117 If you choose this one, you need to make sure you have three reasons.

T

118 Three reasons he was right or three reasons he was wrong because each of those reasons are going to become your body paragraphs.

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119 Third one is all about power: T 120 You’re going to pick a character you are going to

write about. T

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121 You’re going to name what your character’s rank on the ranch is as far as power.

T

122 So you’ll have a paragraph about where your character is in comparison to the other characters on the ranch.

T

123 What’s their source of power? T 124 And then, how do they use their power on the ranch? T 125 Again, you can use George, Lenny, Candy, or Curly’s

wife for this one. T

126 Number four is: Who is the loneliest character on the ranch? Why is this character the loneliest? And How does the character deal with their loneliness?

T

127 Again, you can choose George, Lenny, Candy, or Curly’s wife.

T

128 Amber Do we have to do all the prompts, or do we just choose one?

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129 Teacher Nope, we’re just going to choose one, and you don’t have to choose your prompt today.

130 You don’t actually have to choose your prompt until the beginning of class on Wednesday.

131 So, go ahead and close your iPads so we can focus on what we’re doing.

Classroom management

132 Thanks. Alright, so you can just think about it until Wednesday,

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133 and on Wednesday, what we’re going to do is a free-write to kind of get your ideas on paper so you can start thinking through your prompt.

T

134 You can definitely, you’ve already done our character sketch assignment,

135 so you already have a lot done on one character, so if you want, you can choose that character and use some of the work you’ve already done there, but you don’t have to.

136 You can write about any of the prompts you want and any of the characters.

137 So, this is the presentation on Canvas, so you can refer back to this as we’re working on our essays,

Powerpoint slides containing writing prompts 138 and as we’re working on our essays, it has more

information we will go over later.

139 So, does anyone have any questions? T 140 Alright. So, the next thing I want to go over real

quick, we did a notes page about paragraphs. T Ms. Foss begins

to explain her expectations

about paragraph structures.

141 When we were doing our argumentative writing paragraphs, I’m not going to have you guys retake these notes because we’ve already taken them,

T

142 but I wanted to go over them quickly before we go over the sample essay.

T

143 So, this is just the basic paragraph structure. T

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144 You’re always going to have to start your paragraph with a claim, or a topic sentence for the body paragraph.

T

145 It’s going to state your main idea. T 146 You’re going to have your evidence next. T 147 So, for this writing we’re going to have textual

evidence – direct quotes from the book – T

148 you’re going to have two per paragraph. T 149 And then your warrant. T 150 How does that textual evidence support your claim. T 151 Then you’re going to have a concluding sentence. T 152 Your concluding sentence is going to restate your

claim and mention both pieces of textual evidence. T

153 So, it’s the same basic format we wrote in quarter 1 T 154 It is what we are going to be doing again. 155 So, each paragraph is going to have 2 fact

sandwiches. T

156 So you’ll introduce your claim and then have 2 fact sandwiches.

T

157 So you’re going to introduce your textual evidence. T 158 Tell what is going on in the story at the time of your

textual evidence. T

159 Then you’re going to have a speech tag. T

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160 So, if it’s dialogue, you’re going to tell what character is speaking to the other character.

T

161 If it is not a character, then you’re going to have “Steinbeck writes.”

T

162 Then you’ll have evidence, which will be a quote from the text.

T

163 You’re going to need a citation. T 164 So, that’ll be Steinbeck and the page number. T 165 Then you’re going to have your warrant. T 166 Your warrant is going to explain how does this

textual evidence support my claim.

167 So that’s what you’re going to have and what we’re going to see in the essay we look at today.

T

274

D.5. Claim Proposal

11.1.2017 minutes 9:45-13:15

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101 Teacher So this is the first thing you want to do, your claim proposal.

T

102 What you want to do is the first thing you want to do is you want to write your prompt on there and that's just what you have up here just copy it down.

103 The next thing is going to be your thesis statement which is just your basic one sentence response to that prompt.

T

104 Keep it basic for right now. T 105 We can always change this later. T 106 Like when we go to write our introduction paragraph

we're going to look at thesis statement so you can totally change it at that point.

T

107 Then you're going to have your three claims. T 108 So your three claims are your reasons. T 109 So if you think George is right to kill Lenny, that

would be your thesis. Modeling

110 You know George was right to kill Lenny.

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111 So you three reasons why they are going to be your claims.

T

112 Now just because I have been looking at them all morning.

113 Some challenges I have seen people have is when their claims are too similar.

It seems natural considering

writing prompts 114 Make sure your claims are very different from each other.

115 so that way it'll give you different pieces of textual evidence to choose from.

T

116 Everybody give me your eyeballs up here. Classroom management 117 Stop what you're doing if you’re doing something

else so you can pay attention and hear what I'm saying.

118 So you want to make sure your claims are different. 119 Once you finish that you can have either me or Ms.

Darby sign it.

120 Then you can start working with your textual evidence packet.

T

121 And with this you're just gathering your textual evidence so you can kind of attack it two different ways.

T

122 you could do like one body paragraph at a time. T

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123 Find your textual evidence, write your warrant or you could go through and find all your textual evidence first

T

124 and that's definitely find first before you start warranting it.

T

125 That way you make sure you have your textual evidence because if you are going to change your prompt like if you realize you don’t have enough textual evidence to support what you want to say.

126 This is going to be the day to change before you start putting too much work into it.

127 So if you start writing and you realize this is tough I don't want to do this.

128 Come up and talk to me. 129 We'll change your prompt. 130 That's totally fine because this is what you are going

to need for your textual evidence.

131 You need to find 6 different pieces of textual evidence in the book so you cannot use the same piece of textual evidence twice.

T T

132 Each body paragraph is going to have two pieces of textual evidence so you can think of this as each page as the body paragraph.

T T

133 We have three pages, three body paragraphs. T T

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134 Now for each body paragraph you want to find textual evidence from two different chapters in the book.

T T

135 The group that will struggle with this is the prompt number two about if George was right to kill Lenny or not

T

136 because obviously that happens with one chapter so if you are writing about whether or not George was right or wrong to kill George or Lenny, some of your textual evidence it might have to come both of them from chapter 6.

T T

137 Make sure they are two very different pieces of textual evidence talking about two very different things.

T

138 That will be okay. 139 Anybody have any questions about what we're doing

now? T Students did not

ask questions. 140 Alright, so what I'll do is I'll just hang out here at my

desk as soon as you're done with your claim proposal have me check it off.

141 If you have questions come on up and ask a question. 142 This is the time to ask questions. 143 Make sure you like your prompt and you think you

can find the textual evidence with it