Argumentation in science is the process of coordinating theory and evidence to justify conclusions. This practice is at the heart of scientific journal writing and communication, but little is known regarding the argument quality of college science majors, the future scientists. Studies on written arguments at the college level have focused…

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of vocabulary in writing across three genres. Fifth graders (N = 105) wrote three compositions: story, persuasive, and informative. Each composition revolved around the topic of outer space to control for background knowledge. Written compositions were scored for holistic writing quality and…

This paper focuses on a pedagogical and instructional approach to engaging students in the classroom with the specific activity of a writing prompt, which utilizes a short video about current events and trends coupled with writing and discussion. This strategy allows active student learning in which the students engage, develop critical thinking…

GlobalEd 2 (GE2) is a set of technology-mediated, problem-based learning (PBL) simulations for middle-grade students, that capitalises on the multidisciplinary nature of the social sciences as an expanded curricular space for students to learn and apply scientific literacies and concepts, while simultaneously also enriching their understanding of…

This article investigates the particular mechanisms through which a role-play simulation impacts student perceptions of knowledge acquisition. Longitudinal data were mobilized in the form of quantitative and qualitative surveys to examine whether the simulation succeeded in increasing knowledge around both content and skills. It then delves deeper…

The paper aims both to foster and to assess "school scientific argumentation" among secondary science teachers during their pre-service education. For these purposes, the paper uses the meta-scientific construct of "theoretical model" (proposed by the so-called semantic view of scientific theories from contemporary philosophy of science) in three…

This article offers two approaches to the question of "invisible punctuation," theoretical and critical. The first is a taxonomy of modes of punctuational invisibility, identifying "denial, repression, habituation, error" and "absence." Each is briefly discussed and some relations with technologies of reading are considered. The second considers…

This study examines the manner in which learners' justifications for arguments are supported during collaborative task-solving in a virtual learning setting. In particular, it investigates the effects of a collaboration script and a content scheme on the learners' ability to provide adequate justifications for arguments pertaining to collaborative…

Taking into consideration the central role played by argumentation in children's culture, comparative studies regarding the relative contribution of peer talk and children-teacher talk to children's argumentative discourse at kindergarten are relatively scarce. In this study, the researchers gathered ethnographic data of natural peer interactions…

Informed by theory and research on attributions and narrative persuasion, we compared the effectiveness of narrative and nonnarrative messages in changing attributions of responsibility for causes and solutions related to obesity in the United States. We randomly assigned 500 adults to view one of three messages (narrative, evidence, and a hybrid…

The advent of networked environments into the classroom is changing classroom debates in many ways. This article addresses one key attribute of these environments, namely anonymity, to explore its consequences for co-present adolescents anonymous, by virtue of the computer system, to peers not to teachers. Three studies with 16-17 year-olds used a…

This essay explores Barack Obama's invocation of the Exodus during his 2008 presidential campaign. It argues Obama's turn to Exodus, his rare embodiment of Joshua, and his renewal of the American covenant nicely addressed major rhetorical problems that he faced. Of equal importance, his campaign oratory opens an important line of inquiry into the…

Our response to Hewson and Ogunniyi's paper focuses, on the one hand, on some of the underlying tensions associated with aligning indigenous knowledge systems with westernized science in South African science classrooms, as suggested by the new, post-apartheid, curriculum. On the other hand, the use of argumentation as a vehicle to accomplish the…

Recent randomized experiments have found that seemingly "small" social-psychological interventions in education--that is, brief exercises that target students' thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in and about school--can lead to large gains in student achievement and sharply reduce achievement gaps even months and years later. These…

This paper carries on a tentative interpersonal metafunction analysis of Barack Obama's victory speech from the interpersonal metafunction, which aims to help readers understand and evaluate the speech regarding its suitability, thus to provide some guidance for readers to make better speeches. This study has promising implications for speeches as…