The Influence of Reading Texts on L2 Reading-to-Write Argumentative Writing.

Jingjing Qin,Yingliang Liu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.655601

Jingjing Qin, Yingliang Liu

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.655601

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Abstract

Reading-to-write is an essential skill in academic writing, and reading-writing tasks have been widely adopted in standardized English tests. Much more recent literature on integrated reading-writing tasks has focused on writers’ use of source texts or the validity of integrated writing assessment, while little is known about whether the nature of the types of reading texts has any bearing on integrated reading-writing tasks. This study examines whether the types of reading texts (i.e., similar views or opposing views on a debatable issue) have any influence on second language (L2) students’ argumentative writing in terms of the use of argument elements and its overall quality. Fifty-four Chinese second-year university students majoring in English language teaching were asked to write an argumentative essay after reading texts with either similar views or opposing views. Results show that students reading texts with opposing viewpoints presented more data and higher overall quality of argumentative essays than students reading texts with similar viewpoints, although the latter group presented more counterargument data. Pedagogical implications on teaching argumentative writing are discussed.

Highlights

Reading-to-write tasks have been a common assessment tool in standardized English tests, such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), and the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) (Weigle and Parker, 2012)
To address the first research question on the argument elements used in the argumentative papers, all 51 essays were coded following the adapted Toulmin’s (1958, 2003) argument elements, including claim, data, counter-argument claim, counter-argument data, rebuttal claim and rebuttal data
The hypothesis of the study is that students who have read texts with opposing views would include more data and counterargument data in their argumentative essays than those having read texts with similar views because the former group was exposed to both sides of the view and more data to support either side

Summary

Introduction

Reading-to-write tasks have been a common assessment tool in standardized English tests, such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), and the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) (Weigle and Parker, 2012). Writing from multiple sources poses additional challenges in that writers need to choose the appropriate organizational structure in order to integrate information from different sources (Wiley and Voss, 1999; Mateo et al, 2011) Given their prevalence in academic contexts, the complexity of reading-to-write tasks has attracted much research interest both in L1 and L2 contexts. Related studies on writing from sources in the discipline of history have shown that students are more likely to develop complex historical reasoning when presented with multiple documents, in particular when the multiple documents present oppositional information (Rouet et al, 1996, 1997) It follows that the combination of multiple source texts prior to assigning an argumentative writing task on the same topic would be expected to prompt learners’ more active processing mechanisms in a learning

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