The Analysis of Schematic Structure in Students’ Argumentative Essays

Abstract

Argumentative essay is an important component in English writing for students in China. The present study investigated the schematic structure of a higher vocational college students’ argumentative writings and its pedagogical implementation in teaching and learning English writing in China context. This study utilized a descriptive qualitative approach to analyze fifteen English argumentative essays of students from a higher vocational college in Anhui, China. The schematic structure was analyzed based on Lee’s (2006) model under Systemic Functional Linguistics. The findings showed that when writing argumentative essays, higher vocational college students in China centered on giving ‘Thesis’, ‘Arguments’ and ‘Reinforcement’ stages. Some essays including high-graded essays did not present the ‘Identification’ stage and many essays ignored the ‘Recommendation’ stage. For the ‘Arguments’ stage, middle-graded and low-graded essays did not exhibit the ‘Point’ and ‘Elaboration’ steps clearly. As many students failed to write reasonable and persuasive argumentative essays, the pedagogical implication is that teachers should help students be conscious of the schematic structure of different writing genres, and give students more opportunities to practice writing.