The Social Construction of Warranting Evidence in Two Classrooms

What is it about?

This article compares how two different high school English language arts teachers taught their students to warrant evidence during an argumentative writing unit. One teacher (Ms. Houston) emphasized the ideas present in the texts they studied She focused on achieving consensus with her students regarding the "correct" interpretation of these texts. The other teacher (Mr. Clark) emphasized how arguments emerge from rhetorical situations. He focused on helping students understand how the shape of an argument should be determined by what a given audience would find convincing at a particular time.

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Why is it important?

Our findings show that knowledge of argumentation and argumentative writing is socially constructed. If we only study students' written texts, we do not gain a full picture of how students learn to write. We also need to study the talk surrounding writing instruction. Because there is not a single way to engage in argument, a student's understanding of what argumentative writing is grows out of the instructional conversations surrounding argument. Quality writing instruction does not only require particular features such as claim, data, and warrant. It also requires consideration of what makes those features work or not work for a particular audience.

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