Register Framework: An Effective Mode for Assessing Argumentative Writing

摘要

In light of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper uses the field-tenor-mode framework as an analytic tool to help students produce and analyze argumentative writing. The text to be analyzed was selected from the book A Writer's Reference with 2016 MLA Update authored by the founder of WAC Writing Program of the Education Institute in Harvard University. It's typical and referential for the purpose of this paper. The discourse markers in the text were highlighted and analyzed to address two issues: how to achieve the consistency of field, tenor and mode in an argumentative essay, and what implications does the register consistency have for the discourse coherence of the whole essay. This SFL-informed literacy instruction is not just to provide students a useful tool for writing a powerful argumentative essay, but it also expands on the existing literature as a pedagogical guideline, a checklist for peer review and a rubric for assessment.