Narrative as a Springboard for Expository and Persuasive Writing: James Moffett Revisited

Abstract

In middle school, the focus of writing instruction shifts away from narrative writing to more academic writing. In the process, many students become less engaged as they respond to inauthentic prompts; additionally, their writing becomes stilted and formulaic. This article addresses the role narrative writing plays by acting as a springboard to the more privileged modes of exposition and argumentation. Leaning on James Moffett's, "I, You, and It" theory, the author presents the instructional practice of spiraling writing experiences to support the development of middle school writers. Embedded within a unit on teen violence, students' writing is scaffolded as they move through a purposeful progression of informal to formal, personal to impersonal, and lower to higher abstraction.