The effects of content and audience awareness goals for revision on the persuasive essays of fifth- and eighth-grade students

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of revising goals focused on content and audience awareness on the persuasive writing of fifth- and eighth-grade students. Students were randomly assigned to three different goal conditions: a general goal; a goal to improve content; and a goal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Reading & writing Vol. 21; no. 1-2; pp. 131 - 151
Main Authors: Midgette, Ekaterina, Haria, Priti, MacArthur, Charles
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.02.2008
Springer
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Age Differences
Argumentation
Audience
Audience Awareness
Audiences
Drafts
Editing
Education
Elementary education
Essays
Gender Differences
Goal setting
Grade 5
Grade 8
Groups
Information Content
Language and Literature
Linguistics
Literacy
Middle school students
Neurology
Objectives
Persuasion
Persuasive Discourse
Psycholinguistics
Revision (Written Composition)
Sex Differences
Social Sciences
Students
Writing Processes
Written Language Instruction
Writing
Argument
Revision
Goals
Audience
ISSN:0922-4777, 1573-0905
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of revising goals focused on content and audience awareness on the persuasive writing of fifth- and eighth-grade students. Students were randomly assigned to three different goal conditions: a general goal; a goal to improve content; and a goal to improve content and communication with an audience. Final drafts of essays were scored for elements of persuasive discourse relevant to content and audience and for overall persuasiveness. Students in the audience goal group were more likely than both other groups to consider opposing positions and rebut them. Students in both the content and audience goal groups wrote essays that were more persuasive than essays by students in the general goal group. The results also indicate that eighth-grade students wrote more persuasively than fifth-grade students and that girls wrote more persuasively than boys.
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ISSN:0922-4777
1573-0905
DOI:10.1007/s11145-007-9067-9