Valued rhetorical choices in high scoring primary and secondary school persuasive texts: Findings from my PhD

In 2011 I began writing a PhD that integrated principles of SFL and classical rhetoric to explicate valued rhetorical choices in the highest scoring persuasive texts written by Tasmanian primary and secondary school students for the 2011 NAPLAN test. Research into rhetorical choices in educational settings has been skewed to the upper secondary and tertiary domains (e.g., Coffin, 2004; Humphrey, 2008; Swain, 2010), mirroring the kinds of choices valued in other fields such as the media (e.g., Iedema, Feez, & White, 1994;) and politics (e.g., Miller, 2002, 2004). While educational linguists like Frances Christie and Beverly Derewianka have outlined the sorts of language choices primary students can make to write a range of texts, how these young people can make rhetorical choices to persuade others represents a considerable gap in the literature. This is despite a requirement of the Australian Curriculum: English to teach persuasive texts to Australian students from as early as Year 1. Fuelled by a high-stakes national testing program, the pressure to support the production of high-quality arguments is high in Australia, and knowledge about valued rhetorical choices in the primary and secondary years would provide educators with clarity and direction to achieve this. In this short session I will outline findings from my thesis that will hopefully assist teachers to prepare students for the rhetorical demands of the NAPLAN test and more authentic persuasive writing experiences.