Using Online Role-plays for Teaching Argumentative

Writing in Science

Richard Beach

Text complexity: Argumentative writing

Cognitivist and social practice perspectives (Newell, Beach, Smith, & VanDerHeide, RRQ)

“Writers are never separate from the rhetorical situation in which they write. They do not study the situation as something apart from them and then create in a vacuum a text that will change the situation; instead, they fully engage in the situation and respond to it.” (Marilyn Cooper)

Textual, ideational, and social perspectives (Bloome, Newell, et al.)

Formulating arguments using online role-play/games

• Select an issue• Formulate a primary argument• Choose roles and conduct research• Post arguments on a blog or online

forum• Step out of roles and reflect

Collaborative arguments: (May, English Journal)

• Formulate alternative arguments

• Test out different argumentso"House": determine alternative diagnoses

• Find common ground to develop solutions

Creating an online role-play: Students:• Select an issue• Formulate a primary argument

• Choose roles and conduct research

• Post arguments on a blog or online forum

• Step out of roles and reflect

Online role-play/game resource sites• Letters to the Next President • The Persuasive Games site• Democracy• A Force More Powerful • Peacemaker • The iCivics Project• Evoke• Debatepedia• Debatemapper site

Through online role-play, students learn to:

construct a persona

employ rhetorical appeals

support their position with reasons

identify and refute counter-arguments

revise or modify one’s own positions

Advantages of online versus face-to-face role-play:

participate over an extended time period

incorporate use of images and video

access to all students’ posts and comments

review posts to reflect on and cite quotes

draw on role-play material for use in their own writing

Selecting an issue

Selecting an issue with possible opposing positions versus a “one-sided” issue

Question: What contentious issues could you use that would engage students?

Use of a story or narrative

Provides a context and characters

Creates a conflict/dilemma to address

First Fleet 18th century convict farm settlement in Australia: Convicts just steal food

literaryworlds.org

Censorship: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

http://schooledthewriteway.blogspot.com/http://wallfloweronline.blogspot.com/http://charactershighschool.pbworks.com/The PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Association) of Maui High School is looking for feedback on the following book titles available to students through the school library and/or taught by the English department. Several parents and guardians have contacted school administrators about the questionable content and educational merit of these and other books.

Issue: Blocking websites in schools

Tension: Access to sites for learning

Legal protection of students from porn/problematic sites

Social bookmarking: Diigo.com

• Set up Groups based on classes• Students share bookmarks to the class• Students tag bookmarks• Students annotate online texts/sites using

sticky notes

Use of Diigo: Online role-play• Sharing sites related to the topic of violence and video games• Supporting evidence: Links and sticky note comments

 

Using Diigo sticky notes to reflect on a role-play

http://grou.ps/cwhybrid2010t1/talks/5160010/4

Use of Diigo: Online role-play• Sharing sites related to the topic of violence and video games• Supporting evidence: Links and sticky note comments

Email from Diigo group

Platforms

Forums with threaded discussions

Profile creation

Ning: Ban “unhealthy” food

Grou.ps

 

Using a Ning as the platform for online role-play:

Threaded discussion allows students easily follow discussion

Students use their role to create an arguments and use hyperlinks

Students use the bio pages and comments sections to personally connect to other characters.

Bubbl.us mapping to identify roles and relationships between roles

2008 study -- perspective takingEmoGirl: Critique of schoolInternet policies

I think the internet usage policies are ridiculous. The policies are almost  impossible to find. I spent half an hour trying to find them and I'm a young, computer savvy person. 

Use of “forwarding” other’s post material (Harris, 2006)

As a student at the high school, I respectfully disagree with the argument that students feel suppressed by the rules and guidelines. And do you have any proof to back up your statement about possible security measures that may occur in the future?

How can you model the use of argumentative writing strategies?

Formulating positions

Constructing believable ethos

Providing relevant support/evidence

Seeking audience identification

Formulating counter-arguments

Students evaluated themselves by using the rubric below (see handout for rubric)

Students step out of roles and reflect on:• Use of arguments• Comfort in role• Targeted audiences/alliances

• Who has power?oReasons: strategies

• Sense of potential change

. Students wrote a paper from their own point of view addressing a problem with Internet access

Reading the rhetorical landscape/social hierarchiesRecognizing shifts in positionsPerspective-taking to gain identification with other rolesCritically interpreting stances and discoursesConstructing intertextual links

Reading strategies in online role-play

Critical discourse analysis (Gee, Fairclough, Rogers)

Discourses as ways of knowing/thinking constituting identities

Legal, scientific, political, psychological, feminist, business, etc.

Ideological stances

Students “double-voicing” discourses

Discourses: Con student access

Students will access problematic/porn sites that will adversely influence them (“Strict father” cultural model” (Lakoff))

Students are not mature enough to select appropriate sites (Developmental discourse)

“Strict Father” cultural model: Charles Hammerstein III

The issue with sites like YouTube is that it is a helpful site when used correctly, but the ratio of students who would use it to the students who would abuse it would greatly favor the later of the two. R-rated sites are not ok because they usually contain information and content that may be considered offensive. The internet policies are very clear, if your grandmother would not appreciate it, then you probably shouldn't be doing those kind of things at school.

Identifying tensions between policies and practices

Today I was attempting to do some research for our next Youth Against War and Racism meeting and I came upon a school Block when I was looking for Abu Ghraib, and SURPRISE! It’s Blocked. It’s blocked for Obscene/Tasteless content. Do you know what I find Obscene and Tasteless? The idea that a school has a right to hide things from students. Are we communists that we are going to restrict what our students can know?

Identifying tensions/contradictions: policies and practices

We can’t get onto Nazi websites, but Mein Kampft is on display in the library. I can understand that you can’t go on websites, but we can read this book, but we can’t go to a website that might have historical facts.

Achieving change

• District tech staff lifted the blocks on sites

• Allowed teachers access to YouTube • Enhanced sense of student

agency

Student’s reflection

• I think it was a valuable learning experience because we actually got to argue back and forth with other people.  If this had just been a writing assignment, it would have only been one-sided.  You can use persuasive arguments in a paper but you can’t have a back and forth conversation on it.  I really felt like it helped me get into someone else’s shoes and think like someone different from myself.

Summary: Students:

Exposed to multiple audiences and arguments on the Ning

Sense of shared concern/need for change

Aware of counter-arguments to refute

Identified contradictions in systemsPolicies versus practices

Used the role-play as “prewriting” for essay

Employed collaborative argument to achieve change

Topic: Identification of “unhealthy” food

Issue: Should “unhealthy” food be banned from grocery stores or schools

Pro: Yes: should be bannedObesity/diabeties a “national epidemic”

Foods can be identified as “unhealthy”

Con: No: should not be bannedDifficult to distinguish “healthy/unhealthy”

Negative economic consequences

Criteria for “unhealthy” food

> 35% from calories

> 10% calories from fat

> 25% calories from total sugar

High sodium >480 mg a serving

Low fiber <1.25 g a serving

Results

Over half (57%) of the study products were high sugar, and 53% were low in fiber.

Cereals were not only high in sugar (93%), but over half (60%) were low in fiber.

Over one-third (36%) of prepared foods and meals were high in sodium,

Nearly one-quarter (24%) were high in saturated fat, and nearly one-third (28%) were low in fiber.

http://lawrenceonlineroleplay.ning.com/

1. Adopt a role consistent with that stance: farmer, parent, grocery store owner, nutritionist, food manufacturer, fast-food restaurant owner, scientist, teacher, school lunchroom operator, student, etc.2. Review some of the documents in the Blog section or search online for evidence to support your position.3. Post a Reply message to this discussion thread arguing for your position.  Begin by identifying your role, for example, Fast-food restaurant owner:…… 4. Respond to other messages with counter-arguments