‘A quest gone too far’: Rhetorical citizenship in secondary students’ L2 English writing

In contrast to studies of academic writing, research on secondary students’ L2 writing has tended to emphasize formal characteristics. Highlighting instead meaning-making in L2 English writing, this study aims to explore secondary student writers’ enactment of rhetorical citizenship, that is, the discursive constitution of membership in a community. The focal data consist of 34 argumentative essays, which are contextualized by ethnographic data (e.g., fieldnotes, classroom recordings, interviews) from two English classes at a Norwegian upper secondary school. Combining metaphor and discourse analysis, the study investigates rhetorical functions of metaphors and rhetorical framing of societal issues. Findings show, firstly, that students use metaphors to emphasize distinctions between actors and heighten the stakes of arguments. Secondly, students tend to map societal problems onto countries other than their own, in ways that mirror classroom discourse, while their personal positioning shapes the force of argumentation about issues that have received less attention in class. We discuss implications for L2 English writing education, including the importance of learning to both express opinions and engage substantively with the perspectives of others, within a critical self-reflexive frame. The study contributes to reframing L2 English writing as emergent democratic participation.