Teaching How to Write Argumentative Texts at Primary School

Abstract

This chapter describes a classroom intervention working with 16 pupils in 5th grade Primary Education (11 year olds). The objective was to ascertain whether written argumentative abilities could actually be improved through teaching, to investigate what this improvement consisted of and to analyse the relationship between production and comprehension of this type of text. Two classes were involved: one was the experimental class and the other, of the same educational level and from the same school, served as the control class. The pedagogic intervention was carried out over several one-hour sessions. Different procedures were used: direct instruction, modelling, participative learning and microinstruction, basically. The pupils were also given a series of six help-cards, which showed them the steps they had to take as they progressed towards autonomous text writing. Both a pre-test and a post-test were carried out, and these included a test of text production and another of comprehension, both based on an argumentative text. Statistical analyses relating to the production test reveal a significant difference between the experimental class and the control class in the post-test, and also between the pre-test and the post-test of the experimental class. From a qualitative point of view, the principal achievement of this group was the construction of counterarguments, which were totally lacking in the control group. However, although the results concerning the relationship between production and comprehension were significant, they are not so clear. Some of the implications of these results are looked at in greater detail in the discussion.