The skills of 8 grade students about argumentative text writing and the views of students and teachers related to these skills

The aim of this research is to evaluate the ability of the eighth grade students to write argumentative texts. The research population is designed according to the mixed model, and formed by the students enrolled in the 8th grade of 13 middle schools in the district center of Rize province in 2013-2014 Academic Year. 322 students from this population were sampled using stratified sampling method. In the research, students were first asked to write a text by selecting one of the topics in the Argumentative Text Writing Form. Student texts were graded using "Analytical Scale for Argumentative Text Writing" and "Consistency Scale for Argumentative Text Writing." Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, and one-way analysis of variance were used in the analysis of the obtained data by using SPSS 23.0 package software. Following this step, content analysis was used to interpret the data obtained by interviewing students and teachers about writing argumentative texts. According to research findings, it is understood that the students' success in writing the argumentative texts is at "medium" level, and the text consistency is at "inconsistent" level. It was found that there is a significant correlation between students' analytical and consistency scores of these argumentative texts. It was also found that students were successful in "argumentation" and "conclusion", while they were unsuccessful in forming the "data". Students are most likely to use "sampling" and "explaining" most, and "evidencing" and "using quantitative data" least, in developing their ideas through their texts. In the study, the participants were found to have a significant difference in the achievement of writing argumentative texts according to their gender, maternal and paternal educational background, monthly income of the family, and the presence of a library in their homes. It has been understood that students have a positive attitude towards writing argumentative texts, but have experienced various difficulties in producing texts. It has been also determined that the teachers do not know the structure of the argumentative texts adequately either. Key Words: Writing skill, text, argumentative text, coherence.