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Emerging Rhetorical Knowledge for Writing: The Effect
of Audience Presence on Five- Through Nine-Year-Olds' Speech
Author: Eliza Beth Littleton
Degree: Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Carnegie Mellon University, 1995
Can young children be informative, descriptive, and
persuasive for an audience they cannot see or hear?
Researchers interested in the nature and development of
writing abilities have speculated that composing
language for an absent audience is a significant
challenge in writing (Olson, 1977; King & Rentel,
1979; Kroll, 1981; Ong, 1982; Tannen, 1985). Presumably,
the challenge lies in the fact that writers, unlike
conversational partners, do not get immediate feedback
(e.g., questions, expressions of interest) from their
intended audiences, nor do they share immediate contexts
and perspectives. In their influential theory of
composing abilities, Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987)
assert that children cannot think about the needs of an
absent audience and use that information to devise
appropriate changes in their language. The researchers
hypothesize that, as a default, children behave as if
the absent audience can be available for feedback, and
they write almost what they would say in a
conversational turn. Unfortunately, the researchers
never test their claim about the effect of audience-
presence on children's rhetorical behavior. They
theorize that only adults are able to think about the
needs of the absent audience and choose appropriate
language. From classical rhetorical theory and
instruction to cognitive theories of writing, scholars
assume that children are not able to generate discourse
sensitive to an audience's needs. This study
investigates whether children can adapt their speech for
the absent audience, who requires more verbal
information and explanation than does a present
audience. Ten children between ages five and nine taught
absent and present peers five magic tricks through
dictated and face-to-face instructions. Children's
informative, descriptive, and persuasive speech was
compared for absent and present peers, and effects of
age, practice, and trick complexity were assessed. When
dictating their instructions for an absent peer,
children used more descriptive words and phrases, talked
about more steps, and listed the materials needed for
the tricks. However, children were less likely to remark
about their absent peer's attitudes or explain steps in
the tricks for absent peers. These results reveal skills
for writing that elementary school teachers can scaffold
in young children.
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