The first lesson in the preparing to read stage

In the first lesson in the Preparing to Read stage, I informed students that the focus of the next set of lessons in the curriculum unit centered on the question, “Should amnesty be granted to undocumented immigrants?” would now shift to the careful study of the way that an author can use language as a tool to create an academically-valued persuasive argument essay either for or against amnesty.

I explained that to create an academically-valued persuasive argument essay, an author had to create three kinds of meanings at the same time. I presented students with a visual organizer entitled “Writing Academically-Valued Persuasive Essays” (see Appendix Q) that I designed in order to introduce students to these three types of meanings (e.g., ideational,

and Knowledge, Projection of an Authoritative Stance, and Construction of a Well-Organized text (Schleppegrell, 2006).

Another purpose of this organizer was to briefly lay out the “route” that would be followed to help students learn to successfully write persuasive argument essays on their own and to assure students that they could do so. The third purpose of this organizer was to provide a framework for students to engage in a discussion about the social purpose of the persuasive argument essay.

The social purpose of a genre is grounded in the notion that genres are socially recognized ways of using language (Hyland, 2002; Martin, 2009; Christie, 2012). That is, a successful text in any given genre will “display the writer’s awareness of its context and the readers which form part of that context” (Hyland, 2002, p. 114).

As an introduction to this first lesson in the Preparing to Read stage, I explained that in order to prepare for college all high school students needed to know why the persuasive argument essay is an important school genre (Christie, 2012; Schleppegrell, 2004) and how to write successfully in this genre using an academic writing style. I elaborated that writing in an academic style meant using language in a different way from the way that language is used in speaking. I reiterated that to write an academically-valued persuasive argument essay an author needed to be able to create, or build, the three different kinds of meanings for the reader at the same time.

As I distributed the “Writing Academically-Valued Persuasive Essays” visual organizer, I named these meanings as showing knowledge about the topic, using an academic tone and style (e.g., familiar terms to these students) to convince or persuade readers to accept the author’s point of view, and writing an organized text. I pointedly stated that what would be different

about the upcoming writing lessons from the ones students were accustomed to was that instead of just expecting students to make these three meanings, these lessons would focus on learning, practicing, and using the exact language tools that successful authors use to write academic-style persuasive argument essays.

At the top of the “Writing Academically-Valued Persuasive Essays” organizer, I focused students’ attention on the chart delineating the types of meanings on the left side and how authors develop these types of meaning on the right side. I verbally walked students through this chart.

For instance, I explained that students could think about the first type of meaning an author builds in a persuasive argument essay as the Presentation of Knowledge and Content about the topic and that presenting knowledge and content could be thought about as Realizing Purpose. In other words, in order to persuade or convince a reader about something, the author has to show that he or she knows what he or she is talking about.

I reiterated that the persuasive argument essays that students would eventually write would be either for or against amnesty for undocumented immigrants and that they would use the knowledge that they had gained from reading in the building background lessons to write these essays. This notion of supporting students to use what they learn through reading in writing is a central tenet of the Reading to Learn framework (Rose & Martin, 2012).

I referred students to the right side of the chart to read the bulleted list of what writers do to realize purpose, or to present knowledge about their topic. This list included:

 State thesis strongly and clearly.

 Present arguments to be developed.

In commonsense terms, I explained that a thesis statement was similar to a topic sentence that presents a main idea in a paragraph and that the arguments to be developed were the reasons that the writer was for or against amnesty. I further explained that the counter-argument was “what people on the other side from the author had to say about amnesty” and that refuting the counter- argument meant stating why that argument was wrong. Finally, I noted that defining key terms simply meant making sure that the reader understood what words such as amnesty and undocumented immigrants meant.

Next, I focused students’ attention on the way that the writer of an academically-valued persuasive argument essay can accomplish the second type of meaning, Projection of an Authoritative Stance, or Meeting Audience Expectations. I asked students what the word authoritative meant, and one student answered, “Like you are the ruler, like you are in charge.” I affirmed that response indicating that an authority or a person in authority is in charge and can be a ruler and that the adjective authoritative was connected to that meaning but in this context meant “writing in an academic way that demonstrates authority.”

I emphasized that writing in an authoritative way allowed the author to be convincing and persuasive in this genre in a way that is valued academically in high school and college (Schellepgrell, 2006). I further elaborated that writing in an authoritative way required paying very close attention to the way that expressing ourselves when we talk was quite different than expressing ourselves when we write in an academic way. I added, “We already know that you are all very good at writing the way that you talk,” and the students laughed as they recognized the truth in this statement.

I referred students to the bulleted list on the right side of the chart that outlined the way that an author projects an authoritative stance in a persuasive argument essay:

 Present stance with authority but impersonally.

 Convey evaluation and judgment of the topic.

 Include others’ voices that support or challenge the main argument. (Adapted from Schleppegrell, 2006).

To emphasize the distinction between everyday speech and academic writing, I focused students’ attention on the word impersonally and asked them what it meant. One student responded, “Not personal.” I affirmed this response and elaborated that although persuasive argument essays can be written in a personal style, in this unit about amnesty students would learn to write a persuasive argument essay either for or against amnesty in an academic, impersonal, authoritative style.

I emphasized this point further by stating that in the United States school system, students generally learn how to write persuasive texts in a personal tone using words such as, I think, I believe, and Next, I will explain . . . as well as pronouns such as, I, you, me, and my in the fifth grade. However, by high school, students heading for college needed to have the ability to write an argument about a topic in an academic, authoritative, impersonal way (Macken-Horarik, et al., 2011; Christie, 2012). I reiterated that over the next few weeks, students would learn to write in that manner.

To continue the introduction to “Projection of Authoritative Stance: Meeting Audience Expectations,” I asked students to attend to the words evaluation and judgment in the second bulleted item. I posed the question, “What does it mean when you evaluate or judge a topic?” and a student answered, “It means like you say what you think about it, you give your opinion about it,” and another student added, “You say if something is good or bad.”

undocumented immigrants very clear to the reader. I reiterated that students would also learn specifically which language tools work, or function, to show evaluation or judgment about amnesty in an authoritative, academic way. “In other words,” I added, “You’re not going to write, ‘So, let me tell you why amnesty is really, really bad!” and students laughed again.

To conclude the introduction on “Projection of an Authoritative Stance,” I referred students to the third bulleted item and stated that it was important to provide support, or evidence, for an argument by including what other proponents of amnesty thought and said about the author’s argument. I reminded students that they had begun to learn about the importance of using evidence to support an author’s claims when they read “Ad Power” in the regular textbook.

I added that it was equally important to express a counter argument that challenged the author’s argument in order to be able to counter or refute that argument (Schleppegrell, 2006). I explained that refuting the counter argument would serve to strengthen the author’s stance, or position, by providing evidence that the author’s position was correct and that the reader should accept it. I reiterated that an author can use language as a tool to project or invite in other’s voices to either support why his or her own argument is right or demonstrate why the opposite argument is wrong.

Finally, I reminded students that I had briefly introduced the concept of projection in the building field lessons through explaining that an author can use mental or verbal processes, or verbs of thinking and saying, such as believe, consider, argue, or claim, to include other’s voices in a persuasive argument essay. I noted that using projection as a language tool to include other’s voices enables an author to communicate with the reader in the role of knowledge giver (Rose & Martin, 2012).

To introduce the third type of meaning, Construction of a Well-Organized Text, or Building Coherence, I focused students’ attention on the chart again. I asked if anyone knew what the word coherence meant, but no one knew this word. I explained that coherence meant “very clear writing,” that is that coherent writing is clear to the reader because it connects ideas smoothly in a sensible, logical way.

I elaborated that when an author writes coherently, he or she states ideas clearly and logically and that there are specific ways that authors can use language as a tool to be coherent, to write coherently, and to build coherence. To build students’ Knowledge About Language (KAL), I wrote these words for students to read as I emphasized them orally and then identified them as an adjective, an adverb, and a noun whose meanings were related as they were all different forms of the same word.

To explain the way that authors build coherence in a persuasive argument essay, I directed students’ attention to the bulleted list on the right side of the chart:

 Arguments clearly state in introduction.

 Arguments developed in separate paragraphs.

 Logical “chain of reasoning” links arguments together.

 Conclusion restates arguments (Adapted from Schleppegrell, 2006).

Using commonsense terms, I stated that students could think about this third type of meaning as taking all the arguments and evidence that they wanted to include in their essay, thinking about how to state the arguments authoritatively and impersonally, and then organizing, or building, the essay step by step in a logical way. In turn, this authoritative, logical, and organize style of writing may lead the reader to conclude, “Wow! This author has persuaded me! I’m convinced!”

they were familiar with how to organize their writing in a different genre, Response to Literature. I elaborated that when they wrote a Response to Literature after reading novels or stories, they began with an introduction that stated an important theme in the novel or story. Next, they selected evidence from the text that supported this interpretation of the theme and developed these ideas in paragraphs, ending by writing a conclusion that restated the theme.

At that point, one student, a senior, joked, “Yeah, but, sometimes our Responses to Literature are not so good, you say for us to do this, but we don’t do.” This time, I smiled and replied, “That’s true, but that’s the point I tried to make earlier. In these lessons, I want to teach you how to write in a different way. I am not just going to tell you what the author of a persuasive argument essay does to write a good essay. Instead, I’m going to teach you exactly how the author uses specific language tools to be a successful writer in this genre.”

I explained that to create this third kind of meaning, or a well-organized text, the author of an academic-style persuasive argument essay stated the arguments to be developed in the essay, or the reasons of his or her position, in the first paragraph, or introduction, after the thesis statement. Next, the author developed each of these arguments, or reasons, in a separate paragraph and linked the ideas within each paragraph and from paragraph to paragraph.

I noted that in connecting ideas within paragraphs and between paragraphs, the author’s goal was to create a chain of reasoning (Schleppegrell, 2006) which logically linked together all of his or her arguments so that the reader was not confused. I used the representation of the links in a necklace to illustrate this idea by drawing a “chain” of circles connected together while explaining that all of the links in the chain worked together to form the necklace and make it strong, just as linking all of the arguments together in a persuasive argument essay help the author create a strong, coherent essay.

Lastly, I stated that a final step the author of a persuasive argument essay took to build coherence or create a well-organized essay was to write a concluding paragraph that restate the arguments again and connected back to the thesis statement. I elaborated that students were familiar with this idea from writing Responses to Literature about books and stories in which they ended their writing with a conclusion that restated or reemphasized the theme that they had stated in the introduction.

This initial introduction to the three types of meaning in a persuasive argument essay and the way that authors use language to develop each of these meanings took longer than anticipated. Sensing that students might be tired of being mainly passive listeners, I concluded this first lesson in the Preparing to Read stage. I thanked the students for patiently allowing me to walk them through this introduction to the three types of meaning in a persuasive argument essay and the steps that successful authors employed to create these meanings in an academic way.

I previewed the focus of the next lesson as “revealing the mystery” of the specific language tools that authors use to create these meanings as well as to discuss the social purpose of this genre. In other words, we would discuss who writes persuasive argument essays and why they do so.