Rethinking Argumentative Writing: Moving Beyond Teaching Structure to Engage Students in Critical Conversations

Abstract:The issue of teaching form over content in writing instruction is one that scholars have been discussing for years. Historically, secondary educators in the U.S. have tended to emphasize teaching writing structure and made the ideational aspects of writing secondary to issues of form. Over the past 20 years, scholars from multiple disciplines such as rhetoric, education, and literacy have argued against the teaching of preset and replicable structures in favor of a more contextualized approach to writing. Despite the push for content over form by many scholars and teacher educators, an emphasis on form remains prevalent at the secondary level, especially when it comes to the teaching of argumentative writing. Given the persistence of the teaching of structure at the secondary level, an approach students bring with them to the post-secondary classroom, scholarly conversations would do well to consider the systemic issues that incentivize secondary teachers to privilege structure and form in their teaching because research has consistently found an emphasis on teaching structure insufficiently promotes students' growth in writing.