How High School Students Learn to Write Literary Arguments through Social Interaction: An...

How High School Students Learn to Write Literary Arguments through Social Interaction: An ApprenticeshipDr. Jennifer VanDerHeideMichigan State University

Meet Ashley and Nick

Seniors in an Advanced Placement Literature and Composition course at a small suburban school

Nick: “I understand the poem, but sometimes I have trouble saying how the author makes it happen.”

Ashley: “If you actually back up your statements, it can be about anything really, which sounds easier, but it’s not. I don’t know, I take things more on a literal level, so it’s harder for me, poetry.”

The figurative language throughout the poem helps portray Collins’

attitude toward sonnets. In one of the first lines, the speaker says,

“only ten more left like rows of beans” (4). Sonnets are known to be

magnificent and interesting, yet the simile of “rows of beans”

portrays them as boring and homogenous. By comparing the next 10

lines of the sonnet to “rows of beans,” the reader now compares the

form of poetry to something that is very dull, connecting back to the

overrated idea.

Ashley’s argument is that Billy Collins’ poem “Sonnet” uses figurative language, tone, and allusion to reveal that sonnets are overrated.

The poem is abundant with imagery that helps to communicate the theme. Tactile

imagery is most prevalent because the feel of death is very important to Denby’s

argument. The speaker begins the poem by explaining his expectations. Prior to his

own experience with death, he had heard that “at the first clammy touch / You yell,

you wrestle with it, it kicks you / In the stomach, squeezes your eyes” (1-3). The

speaker first describes his expectations of death in order to provide the contrast from

which he bases his argument. These expectations allow him to communicate his

personal experiences and how they were so different from what he had “heard.” The

speaker describes “the afternoon it touched [him]” (5) as “a sweet thrill / Inside my

arms and back” (6-7). Here the speaker is describing positive tactile imagery,

describing a sweet, enjoyable feeling. This directly contrasts his expectations, which

were highlighted by tactile imagery describing pain. The description of a good feeling

along with the fact that the speaker is essentially disproving his expectations make

death seem alluring and attractive.

Nick’s argument is that Edwin Denby’s poem “I had heard it’s a fight” uses imagery, figurative language, and diction to argue that death has an attractive allure and mysteriousness that is hard to overcome.

Arguments about literature• Argumentative writing: Writing that takes an arguable stance

that is supported by evidence that connects to the claim in a principled way• Site for reading, writing, and thinking

• “When students frame an argument, locate the evidence that will support it, and choose the language that will carry it, they may be constructing both a written product and an intellectual representation of the story—a representation that may stay with them and become for them, finally, the basis for what is remembered and understood about the story over time” (Marshall, 1987, pg. 60).

Research on Argumentative Writing

• Students struggle to write arguments (Applebee & Langer, 2006; McCann, 1989)

• Interventions such as explicit instruction in argumentation and writing scaffolds have a positive effect on students’ achievement in argumentative writing (Yeh, 1998; Nussbaum & Schraw, 2007)

• What argument is and how the elements of arguments are understood and enacted are socially constructed (Lunsford, 2002; Newell, VanDerHeide, & Wynhoff Olsen, 2014)

Research Questions• What is argumentative writing about literature in this

classroom; what are the ways of reading and writing of this learning community?

• How do the teacher and students, through interaction, guide students’ increasing participation in these ways of reading and writing?

• How do individual students change in their participation in writing moves over time?

Theoretical Assumptions

• Reading and writing are forms of literacy, which are situated within particular contexts

• Learning is a process of changing participation in the [learning] community’s activities

• People participate in cultural contexts—or community—through action, primarily mediated by language, both in speaking and in writing

Socially situated ways of doing things with texts

(Heath, 1983; Street, 2005)

What counts as argument varies across contexts

(Newell, VanDerHeide, & Wynhoff Olsen, 2014)Not a cognitive outcome;

learning takes place within social interaction (Rogoff,

1990; Vygotsky, 1978)Participation takes place through mediated action

(Wertsch, 1985)

An utterance is always a response in a social, cultural, historical context (Bakhtin,

1986)

Move: Action in speaking or writing, simultaneously

situated in social situation and individual cognition

(draws from Graff & Birkenstein, 2009)

Method

Interactional Ethnography and Case Studies

• Data Collection and Organization• Choosing and Transcribing Focal Discourse and Writing Events• Searching for Patterns Across Events and Artifacts• Discourse Analysis of Discourse Events• Contextualized Analysis of Writing Events

Rogoff’s three analytic planes for studying sociocultural activity

Moves

Ways of Reading and WritingMove

Retelling: Providing a summary or paraphrase of main points or events

Stating Meaning: Stating a theme explicitly or indexing a previously named theme

Identifying Device: Identify poetic device in a poem explicitly or referencing a previous naming

Pointing to Text: At least one word is directly quoted

Explaining Effect of Device: Explains particular effect of named device on poem

Making a Claim: States an arguable stance

Providing Evidence: Gives support for arguable stance

Providing Commentary: “Commenting on” evidence in a way that works toward showing the reasoning that links evidence to claim

Nick: Analyze, I guess, the meaning of the poem but also how the poet says the meaning, like how the meaning is evident through the devices the author uses

Ashley: Find the deeper meaning of the poem, not just on the literal level but

on the poetic, what it’s really saying

Teacher: Ms. Howard“I come from a new critical background because that is what AP Lit is all about, and I think it is about understanding, just as physics is about understanding how the world works, English Literature is about understanding how stories work and why we tell stories, and the tools that authors use to tell those stories.”

“I want to get them to a level of analysis where they’re able to develop their own ideas about literature, they’re able to support them with evidence, and that then they can also explain how that evidence supports their argument with what I call commentary, where they uh show that interpretive connection.”

The figurative language throughout the

poem helps portray Collins’ attitude

toward sonnets. In one of the first lines,

the speaker says, “only ten more left like

rows of beans” (4). Sonnets are known to

be magnificent and interesting, yet the

simile of rows of beans” portrays them as

boring and homogenous. By comparing

the next 10 lines of the sonnet to “rows of

beans,” the reader now compares the form

of poetry to something that is very dull,

connecting back to the overrated idea.

Move

Retelling: Providing a summary or paraphrase of main points or events

Stating Meaning: Stating a theme explicitly or indexing a previously named themeIdentifying Device: Identify poetic device in a poem explicitly or referencing a previous namingPointing to Text: At least one word is directly quoted

Explaining Effect of Device: Explains particular effect of named device on poemMaking a Claim: States an arguable stance

Providing Evidence: Gives support for arguable stance

Providing Commentary: “Commenting on” evidence in a way that works toward showing the reasoning that links evidence to claim

Teacher asks questions to prompt movesT: All right, so, just on a purely literal level, what is the speaker talking about in this in this poem? What's going on here?

S1: His father

T: What about his father (laughing), yes

S1: He's a tyrant

T: Okay S1: Like the speaker doesn't really recognize the hard work their dad does Ashley: I wrote about how people express their love in different ways and some people will misinterpret it and it's love either way they just express something differentT: Yeah, yeah, good

Questions prompt retelling

T: So the next stanza:“I wait and hear the cold splintering breaking when the rooms were warm he called and slowly I would rise and dress fearing the chronic angers of that house” I'm going to pause there. What do you see here?S3: It's kind of like auditory in that first line, like the cold splintering breaking you would think of that as like a fire crackling I think like kind of like turns it around, instead of the fire crackling it's the coldT: So how does that correspond with some of the emotional content of this poem. How does it kind of help you create an emotional tone?S4: I think that people think of coldness as kind of like distance between people and usually that would kind of melt away or fade away as people get closer but instead it's splintering and breaking so even though they're closer they're

Question prompts identification of devices and pointing to the text

Question prompts explanation of the particular effect of the device on the

poem

T: So how to sum up, how would you say the imagery in this poem as a whole reinforces what this poem is doing? How does the imagery work for the poem's purpose? What are some ways we can pull together the things you guys have said?S: Well I think the physical descriptions really parallel what emotions they are feeling, the emotional relationship T: Great, so the tactile imagery of the cold air in particular, a great parallel there. What else? What about the auditory imagery?Ashley: I think you can parallel the feel of the house kind ofT: How so?Ashley: Um well they describe the cold is cold splintering breaking and then they said chronic anger to the house so kind of like a distantT: and a harshness to itAshley: yeah

Questions to prompt commentary and

effect of poetic device on meaning

Nick: So you think it's saying like the unbroken glory is the fact that men died in battle or something?A: I don't know, I'm just like thinking of things, like the glory, radiance and peace of the men have left in their wakeS: So, um what is imagery do to the poem?A: It doesn't do anythinglaughing Nick: I guess it just I don't know how to word this but just like tells us what the, it seems like I guess in the second stanza that the speaker doesn't think that death is a bad, a negative cause like they say when this guy dies he leaves like all this like S: radiance and Nick: the imagery communicates his ideas they're not like normal ideas, through this imagery you can see what heS: so he so the dying isn't like that badNick: yeahS: and the imagery shows that it's kind of an odd thoughtNick: yeah

1. Read poem aloud more than once2. Paraphrase for literal level3. Interpret poem on deeper, figurative level. What is purpose? How does meaning grow and shift?4. Annotate poem for imagery5. Discuss role of imagery in poemVivid experience? Convey emotion? Suggest ideas? What is role of predominant forms of imagery? How does it match meaning or experience of poem7. How does imagery correspond to shifts?8. Significance of particular instances of imagery

Student questions prompt moves

Question prompts Nick to explain the effect of the

device on the poem and to provide commentary

The poem is abundant with imagery that helps to communicate the theme. Tactile

imagery is most prevalent because the feel of death is very important to Denby’s

argument. The speaker begins the poem by explaining his expectations. Prior to his

own experience with death, he had heard that “at the first clammy touch / You yell,

you wrestle with it, it kicks you / In the stomach, squeezes your eyes” (1-3). The

speaker first describes his expectations of death in order to provide the contrast from

which he bases his argument. These expectations allow him to communicate his

personal experiences and how they were so different from what he had “heard.” The

speaker describes “the afternoon it touched [him]” (5) as “a sweet thrill / Inside my

arms and back” (6-7). Here the speaker is describing positive tactile imagery,

describing a sweet, enjoyable feeling. This directly contrasts his expectations, which

were highlighted by tactile imagery describing pain. The description of a good feeling

along with the fact that the speaker is essentially disproving his expectations make

death seem alluring and attractive.

Questions and moves• Early in the semester, students did not always respond with

the moves the teacher prompted with her questions• Later in the semester, students would respond with the move

before the particular move was prompted• Example: Teacher asks students to identify instances of poetic

devices in a poem, and students responded by identifying the device and talking about its effect on the poem’s meaning

• Later in the semester, students did not need teacher scaffolding to ask each other questions that prompted moves

Research Questions• What is the nature of the apprenticeship in the ways of

reading and writing of this learning community? • How do the teacher and students, through interaction, guide

students’ increasing participation in these ways of reading and writing?


General trends of student appropriation of moves over time• Students made more moves over time that were consistent

with the valued moves of the classroom• Students were working on different moves at different times in

the semester• When they were working on a particular move, they appeared

to “lose” other moves that they had used previously, but typically picked up lost moves on the next writing assignment

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Nick's Argumentative Moves Over Time

ClaimEvidenceCommentary

Essay #

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Ashley's Argumentative Moves Over Time

ClaimEvidenceCommentary

Essay #

• What is argumentative writing about literature in this classroom; what are the ways of reading and writing of this learning community?



Apprenticeship in writing arguments about literature• Teacher and students co-constructed an understanding of

what it means to write arguments about literature and worked together to help all students transform in their ways of reading and writing

• The apprenticeship was not just about learning “moves;” the moves just made visible their changing participation

• Students grew in their participation in the discipline of literary analysis and argument as it was situated in this particular classroom

Implications• Classroom talk as writing instruction• Research to investigate effectiveness of interactions on student

writing• Training for teachers in how to support students’ writing through

talk• School contexts that support time for classroom talk and ample

time to learn to write• High-stakes standardized tests of argumentative writing• Are they measuring what students are learning in particular

classrooms?• Do they account for variability in when and how students learn to

write?

Thank [email protected]

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