Fostering Reflectivity in the Argumentive Thinking of Students With Different Learning Histories

Instruction for students with persistent writing difficulties typically focuses on remediating basic skills. In this article, we describe an instructional intervention conducted to: (a) characterize the processes of argument construction of students identified as either normally achieving or learning disabled and (b) investigate the extent to which reflectivity in argumentive thinking may be enhanced for all students — despite different learning histories — through the provision of a collaborative, metacognitively scaffolded instructional environment. Thinking‐aloud protocol data and argument‐type expository texts were collected from 16 NA and 15 LD adolescents prior to and subsequent to instruction. Students in the Situated Strategies for Reflective Inquiry (SRI) group were taught specific strategies for reflecting on the adequacy of knowledge articulated through the generation of arguments. Students in the Explicit Structural Knowledge (ESK) group were provided with instruction in the structural elements of sound and valid arguments. Results indicate that SRI students’ argument construction at posttesting was characterized by significantly more reflective composing strategies than observed at pretesting. We discuss these results in terms of their pedagogic implications and suggest that it is possible to foster reflectivity during argumentation by providing students with thinking tools embedded in learning environments that provide cognitive supports for effortful problem solving. We argue that optimal pedagogical initiatives in this domain will consist primarily of supports that predispose students to construe writing tasks as providing valuable opportunities for active engagements in knowledge re / construction.