The ARGUE Mnemonic: A Strategy to Improve Argumentative Essay Writing with Students who have Visual Impairments

Abstract

Writing can be a challenging task for many students. This study offered 10 ninth-grade students (8 females, 2 males) with visual impairments located in the Western United States the opportunity to learn a mnemonic strategy for argumentative-essay writing called ARGUE: Analyze data; Review keywords and create sentences; Generate a plan; Use your thoughts to say an oral draft; and Express your ideas in typed text. Action research methods were employed in the study from April through May over twenty-one 65-minute sessions. All students argumentative essay writing skills increased in content and quality by the end of the intervention’s timeline, except for one. Another student had an increase for content but not quality. Three participants had the highest end-of-intervention gains. They also had the largest gains in number of words written. From the results of repeated measures t-tests, there was a significant difference in the scores for content in baseline and application conditions. All student participants felt others would benefit from using ARGUE and that the mnemonic was effective as is. Limitations and future research are also discussed.