English Language Arts and Reading.6.8.E.iii

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The student is expected to

analyze characteristics and structures of argumentative text by:

 

identifying the intended audience or reader; and

multiple genres TEKS talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts.

Provide students with several single-paragraph excerpts of argumentative texts and task them with identifying the intended audience for each. The paragraphs should contain enough information that students, with minimal inferring, can reasonably be expected to determine for what audience the author is writing.

Possible Questions:

  • Are there any words in the text that indicate the author’s intended audience?
  • What people or groups might be interested in the topic of the text?
  • What is the author’s claim? Who might support/oppose that claim?
     

Further Explanation

This assessment requires students to identify the group for whom the author’s message is intended. In order to do this, students must first determine the author’s purpose.

a text written to demonstrate to an audience that a certain position or idea is valid and that others are not The writer appeals to reason, develops, defends, or debates the topic, connecting a series of statements in an orderly way so they lead to a logical conclusion.
Students should be able to examine specific components of an argumentative text and make determinations about how and/or why the components were used. Students should know that argumentative texts have unique characteristics such as a claim, an intended audience, and the use of facts in support—or refutation—of an argument. Students should also understand that argumentative texts tend to be structured based on the structure of the claim. For instance, if the claim is that one course of action might be better than another, an advantage/disadvantage structure might be used.
Students are expected to identify the group meant to receive an author’s message. Authors may have various motivations for what they decide to write. They may want to inform readers about something, explain something, persuade them to do something, or simply entertain them. It is also possible that the author intends to do any number of these things within the same text. Students should think about who would be interested in the topic being presented and be aware that the intended audience could be a single person, a group of people, or the general public.

Research

Wagemans, J. H. M. (2011). The assessment of argumentation from expert opinion. Argumentation, 25, 329–330. doi 10.1007/s10503-011-9225-8

Summary: This article introduces a tool that can be used to format an argument from a position of expertise and experience. The tool allows students to learn how to analyze opposing positions, and develop questions from a critical perspective. The tool fosters reading comprehension and writing skills.