Teaching text structure : Effects on high school students' argumentative essays

Abstract

The present study examined effects of teaching high school students the structure of argumentative essays. After high school juniors (N = 59) wrote argumentative essays, the students in the experimental group (n = 29) were given information about the text structure of argumentative essays and a model essay. After that, essays written by the experimental group students were longer, included more essay elements, and showed greater improvement in the quality of the contents than the control group's essays did. Moreover, these effects were maintained when the students wrote argumentative essays again 1 month later. After the students in the control group were given the intervention, the same effects were observed. The present results showed that after high school students were taught text structure, their argumentative essays improved both quantitatively and qualitatively.