ABSTRACT
A common approach to providing feedback for student writing in many English language arts classrooms is the “process” approach to writing instruction. In brief, this approach treats writing as if it were a simple and straightforward process of developing an idea, writing a draft, receiving feedback, and rewriting a final version. In the case of Dialogic Literary Argumentation, frequent feedback on student writing is especially important. Teachers need to give students feedback from the beginning on how students are imagining their audience and on what is being communicated to that audience. How one imagines one’s audience within a context of Dialogic Literary Argumentation differs from how one imagines one’s audience in a context of traditional argumentation. Writing within a context of Dialogic Literary Argumentation is premised on engagement in good faith dialogue and arguing-to-learn; conversations in which students build on each other’s ideas generating new ideas out of an engaged dialectic.
