Emerging Stance and Engagement in L1 Argumentative Writing in Grades 5 and 8

Abstract

This study examines how young writers use stance and engagement—key constructs in shaping disciplinary voice—in L1 argumentative writing. A corpus of 118 student texts from grades 5 (age 10-11) and 8 (age 13-14) was analyzed using a framework that combined theory- and data-driven categories. Descriptive and comparative analyses revealed that grade 5 students used significantly more hedges, counters, invoked attitude, reformulation markers, and self-mentions, while grade 8 students employed more direct quotations and questions, suggesting a shift toward less explicit self-positioning and more content-focused argumentation in grade 8. A qualitative look at two texts illustrates how stance and engagement are realized in context, showing nuances—such as hedging combined with self-mentions in grade 5, and content-focused counters and rhetorical questions in grade 8—that are not fully captured by the quantitative measures. This highlights how writing task, genre, and instructional context shape the expression of disciplinary voice alongside general grade-level tendencies. The results are discussed in the context of general writing development theories as well as theories of voice and disciplinary writing.