Abstract: According to the genre-based approach to writing, modeling of a ‘target’- genre consists of a useful tool for teaching and learning in language arts. The current study makes a part of a broader research concerning teaching experimental strategies for fostering argumentative writing to 25 eleven years-old pupils of a Greek elementary school (case research). The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of an original structural model, “the train of argumentation”, as a methodological tool in the context of a socially constructed classroom, to the pupils’ argumentative writing. The proposed model was influenced by Toulminand who used the “journey metaphor” of argumentation for providing pupils with the necessary knowledge about structural exigencies of the argumentative genre. Statistical analysis of data proved: a) a significant augmentation of argumentative text structure awareness, and b) a significant increase in the use of connective devices inserted in the pupils’ written argumentative texts.
Keywords: genre, argumentative writing, metaphor, model, literacy, elementary school, rhetoric, structure.
Rhetoric and Communications E-journal, Issue 19, October 2015, rhetoric.bg/, journal.rhetoric.bg, ISSN 1314-4464