Contextes de production et justification écrite d'un point de vue par des enfants âgés de 10 à 13 ans

Abstract

This study investigates both qualitative and quantitative production of sentences produced by 113 writers between 10 to 13 year of age for justifying points of views. Eight different production contexts were constructed from the modalities of three factors (familiarity with the topic, acceptance of the to be defended thesis and consensual opinion), such as they appear for example in sentences like "eating candies is good because..." or "going on a trip is not good, because...". The results clearly showed than from ten years of age children were able to justify whichever point of view and its opposite by referring to specific information which are largely shared. However, the number and the nature of the arguments varied as a function of contexts. Children write more arguments when they have to defend a view which conform a consensual opinion, whereas they diversify their arguments by supporting points of views which do not conform a consensual perspective. The lack of practice with the activity constitutes in both cases a favorable condition. Within the framework of developing aids for school training and argumentative writing, our findings show that it is possible to use with non expert writers either context which favor quantitative production or contexts which bring to a qualitative diversification of arguments.