Classroom Talk as Writing Instruction for Learning to Make Writing Moves in Literary Arguments

Although teaching argumentative writing in schools is often about teaching argumentative forms, this instructional approach limits students’ flexibility and choice as writers, readers, and meaning makers. An alternative method, rooted in tenets of genre theory, offers a different approach. Rather than treating argument as a static form, genre theory assumes that genres (including argumentative genres) are situated, typified ways that people make moves through writing to accomplish goals through language. Taking a genre theory and sociocultural, discourse lens, this article explores how a teacher in an Advanced Placement Literature course approached the teaching of argumentative writing. Through a moves analysis of focal student essays and a discourse analysis of classroom talk, the study asks two questions: (1) How does the teacher, through classroom talk, support students in making moves of literary argument? (2) How do students make these moves in speaking and writing? Findings identify argumentative moves and submoves that students made in their argumentative essays. The teacher supported students’ learning by explicitly pointing to these moves in model essays, posing questions that prompted students to make the same moves in classroom talk, and revoicing student responses in more disciplinary ways. Through small‐ and large‐group discussions, students learned to make moves that they later made in essays. In identifying classroom talk moves that serve argumentative writing instruction in literary studies, these findings have implications for classroom‐based argument writing instruction, for literacy teacher preparation and professional development, and for future research on approaches to teaching literature and writing.