Debating in English is a vital part of second-language acquisition. Not only does it help students with their speaking skills, but it also is an excellent way to prepare them to write opinionated essays. This article explores how educators can use "place mats" to organize a debate that gives each student the chance to speak, and then how…

In this research, we developed and empirically tested a dialogic writing intervention, an integrated language approach in which grade 5/6 students learn how to write, talk about their writing with peers, and rewrite. The effectiveness of this intervention was experimentally tested in ten classes from eight schools, using a pretest-posttest control…

The six-sentence argument (6SA) is an exercise to train critical thinking skills. Faced with a decision situation, students argue for their preferred course of action using a logical structure of exactly six sentences. Through a guided peer review, students engage critically with other students' arguments and receive detailed feedback on their own…

The argumentative essay has endured as a popular form of university assessment, yet students still struggle to meet key intended learning outcomes, such as those associated with critical thinking. This paper presents the results of a study that examines the instruction provided by Australian essay writing guides to support students' development of…

Since July 2013, our research team has been working on a project that aims at re-introducing rhetorical exercises in Belgian secondary (high) schools and at studying their effects on the pupils. Our hypothesis is that the regular practice of rhetorical exercises, inspired by those practised in Antiquity, could stimulate skills like…

The literature on the topical organization of essays suggests that there are four possible types of progression from the topic of one clause to the topics of the following clauses. These are parallel, sequential, extended parallel, and extended sequential progressions. Essay writers' ability to create cohesion and coherence can be evaluated on the…

Adverbs require a great deal of effort to be mastered, and even the most advanced users of that language have difficulty in using them correctly (Narita & Sugiura, 2006; Peacock, 2010; Lei, 2012; Leedham & Cai, 2013). The purpose of this study is to find out to what extent relatively high proficiency level EFL learners use different types…

When it comes to academic work, students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have the required knowledge but struggle to get their thoughts down in writing. This is a practical guide to teaching and improving writing skills in students with ASD to meet academic writing standards and prepare for the increased expectations of higher education.…

The general aim of this study was to examine the relations among epistemological, reading and writing beliefs held by psychology undergraduates and the role played by these three types of belief in influencing the degree of perspectivism manifested in a written argumentation task based on reading two texts presenting conflicting perspectives on…

Automated scoring models for the "e-rater"® scoring engine were built and evaluated for the "GRE"® argument and issue-writing tasks. Prompt-specific, generic, and generic with prompt-specific intercept scoring models were built and evaluation statistics such as weighted kappas, Pearson correlations, standardized difference in…

Teaching mathematics in real-word contexts is a strategy to make math relevant for undergraduate students. However, very little research exists on students' methods of integrating contextual and mathematical knowledge through writing. This study uses an interdisciplinary writing assignment to investigate the relationship between students' written…

Advocates teaching both classical argumentation and Rogerian rhetoric back-to-back. Advocates assignments using both to highlight the role of audience, the importance of arrangement, the value of tone, the nature of the writer's "ethics," and the use of evidence. (MS)

Outlines a writing activity in which groups of three students collaborate to produce several written assignments in response to a case that fosters differing points of view. Suggests the activity teaches students to represent a unique viewpoint, negotiate differences among collaborators, and share information with teammates. (ARH)

Many teachers would like to counter what Deborah Tannen calls "The Argument Culture." They recognize that teaching students traditional principles of argument may perpetuate the kind of adversarial thinking that erupts all too often: in aggressive newspaper headlines, on confrontational television shows, in court rooms, and in school…

Describes the use of cases in technical writing and ancient exercises of impersonation and "suasoria." Discusses similarities between the two, and argues that the historical tradition both validates and broadens the uses of this modern methodology. (RS)