Examining the Effects of Gender and Second Language Proficiency on Hispanic Writers' Persuasive Discourse

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the degree to which persuasive responses are present in Hispanic second language writers and to categorize these responses by level of language proficiency and gender. Thirty seven elementary school students were asked to write an essay in response to a standard prompt designed to elicit persuasive writing. Using an adaptation of Weiss & Sachs' (1991) classification system of persuasive responses, originally developed for oral tasks, students written discourse was examined. The findings seem to indicate that students exit ESL classes without having achieved a higher level of expertise in the use of persuasive discourse. In addition, essays written by Hispanic females show a greater degree of elaboration and a clearer attempt to express the writer's point of view than those written by male Hispanic students, regardless of proficiency level. Teachers must incorporate writing beyond the linguistic level of a text to include students' discourse-level competence.