Learning to write persuasive essays: preliminary resultso n the effectiveness of an Intelligent Tutorial System with high school students

Writing competence is relevant for academic and professional reasons; notwithstanding it is often not well developed. Persuasive essays, in particular, are important for cognitive development and social interaction. How could the ability to write persuasively be enhanced? One approach is to teach writing strategies. Recently a team at the University of Memphis proposed a multimedia intelligent tutoring system the W-Pal designed to provide useful strategies to write persuasive essays. The goals of our research involve: (a) to explore the effectiveness of the W-Pal system for Italian students from high school who are learning English as a Second Language; (b) to compare the effectiveness of the training based on W-Pal with a training based on traditional teaching system. Preliminary results show the potential effectiveness of the W-Pal System but also the need for longer periods of training.