Beyond textual evidence: making literary warrants visible in classroom discussions of <i>The Great Gatsby</i>

When students discuss literature in classrooms, they learn not just what to think about texts, but how to think about them, which evidence counts, why it matters, and what makes an interpretation persuasive. These unspoken principles, what Toulmin calls warrants, operate largely invisibly in literature discussions, yet help shape what students write about texts. This article examines how implicit literary warrants shape classroom discussions and student learning when a teacher attempts to shift from traditional close reading to dialogic literary argumentation. Through micro- ethnographic analysis of three key discussions during a The Great Gatsby unit, I reveal tensions between disciplinary conventions (ubiquity, paradox, appearance/reality) and locally constructed criteria focused on class, status, and power. My central argument is that these implicit warranting practices function as a mechanism linking classroom talk to student writing: students internalise the interpretive logic of discussions and reproduce it in essays, often overriding what writing prompts explicitly request. The study contributes practical strategies for making argumentative practices explicit, particularly regarding how classroom talk shapes student writing. I conclude with implications for curriculum design and professional development that support teachers in developing more dialogic approaches to literary study.