back it up. Before she began the argumentative writing project with her class, Rebecca had contacted her local newspaper to suggest they have a contest for her students. The newspaper editor initially agreed to publish one essay that he would pick from Rebecca’s students’ submissions, though after reading all of the submissions, he published five of the students’ essays, which were about preventing school shootings, enforcing stricter gun control, and student protesting during the school day. Publishing the essays in the local newspaper gave students a purpose and authentic audience for their work. Overall, Rebecca found her C3WP approach to teaching to be successful in encouraging her students to write more, and she saw growth in the students’ writing as a result.
Ingrid
Ingrid, a high school English teacher with over 10 years of teaching experience, came into C3WP with a philosophy of teaching writing that included having the students write every day, allowing choice in their writing, and using mentor texts. In the C3WP professional development she attended, Ingrid appreciated how each teacher taught a demonstration lesson for the other teacher participants that showed how they taught (or would teach) the C3WP mini-unit in their 6-12 classrooms.
Ingrid used C3WP to inspire the mini-units she taught on writing claims and providing evidence. She explained, “[C3WP] gave me a lot of different ways to look at breaking down teaching a claim and breaking down [teaching] evidence. I tried in the past to [teach these concepts] in broad strokes.” Ingrid found that C3WP gave her “a better way to focus in on the little details of argument writing.” She especially appreciated C3WP’s concept of the nuanced claim. Ingrid explained, “What I liked about C3WP was [the concept of] the nuanced claim. I hadn’t used that language or thought about that before. I always wanted kids to have the more specific, precise claim, but [C3WP’s concept of the nuanced claim] became a different way of looking at it.” Ingrid used the C3WP terminology to work toward an understanding of establishing nuanced rather than binary arguments with her students (Olsen, 2018, p. 93).
Ingrid also “loved all of the text sets” provided in the C3WP instructional materials. The text sets are sets of articles that represent multiple perspectives on a topic that go beyond pro and con to provide a more nuanced representation of each topic. Teachers are encouraged to draw from the text sets already provided in C3WP and to find their own text sets related to their students’ interests. (Friedrich, et al., 2018). Ingrid explained that the text sets “were such great resources” because “it takes so much time to put together a text set yourself.” She also sometimes added to the existing C3WP text sets or created her own text sets by pulling articles from Newsela and EBSCOhost.
At the beginning of the year, Ingrid had wanted to see where the students’ writing was before she began C3WP instruction. In the pre-assessment, she noticed, “the writing was just all over the board and a lot of it was very much stream of consciousness.” After C3WP instruction, Ingrid noticed “clear thinking in [the students’] writing, […] really strong organization and structure, and […] direct quotes for evidence and just all those things that we look for in good writing. It was a huge, huge improvement from what they did at the beginning of the year.”
Conclusions
Participating in the C3WP professional development impacted the secondary teachers’ argument writing teaching practices. They implemented new argument writing mini units and teaching approaches and saw growth in their students’ argument writing skills. This aligns with the experiences of teachers who participated in C3WP professional development at Writing Project sites across the country. SRI International conducted multiple randomized studies with control groups that demonstrated statistically significant positive impacts of C3WP on student writing (Arshan, Park, & Gallagher, 2018; Gallagher, Woodworth, & Arshan, 2015).
Although Rebecca and Ingrid teach different subjects, both attended the same C3WP professional development, and both saw improvements in their students’ argument writing. The National Writing Project emphasizes the C3WP resources are intended to generate ideas for curriculum and instruction—they are not designed to serve as a strict curricular script (Friedrich, et al., 2018). The flexibility teachers have in deciding how to implement C3WP argument writing is evident in the different ways Ingrid and Rebecca approached teaching argument writing with their students. Ingrid found success focusing on teaching mini-units on the concepts of the nuanced claim and providing evidence, and Rebecca established positive classroom writing routines by using the “Writing into the Day” framework. Ingrid integrated argument writing into her existing curriculum while Rebecca focused on a new project—providing an authentic audience by giving students an opportunity to publish their argument writing in the local newspaper. C3WP offers teachers opportunities to enhance their teaching of argument writing in ways that work in their individual classrooms. Having access to the C3WP resources, the opportunity to experience the demonstration lessons, and support from other educators attending the C3WP professional development helped teachers implement new approaches to teaching argument writing. Additionally, the ongoing nature of the C3WP professional development helped to support the teachers throughout the year.
If you are interested in transforming the way you teach argument writing, consider contacting a local Writing Project site to see if they are offering C3WP argument writing professional development.
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