Teaching and Learning Argumentative Writing in High School English Language Arts Classrooms

"Focused on teaching and learning argumentative writing in grades 9-12, this book offers a new perspective, a set of principled practices, and case studies of excellent teaching to guide educators in using research-based knowledge to foster thoughtful writing and analytic thinking in high school classrooms. The case studies illustrate teaching and learning argumentative writing as the construction of knowledge and new understandings about experiences, ideas, and texts. Six themes key to teaching argumentative writing as a thoughtful, multi-leveled practice for deep learning and expression are presented. Rather than embracing simplistic notions of effective argumentative writing that are sometimes presented as test-preparation skills, the authors offer analternative to prescriptions and pre-set forms. This book challenges teachers to provide students with deep understanding of rhetorical contexts and ways of addressing the demands of argumentative writing without reducing it to a formula. Teaching and Learning Argumentative Writing in High School is an important contribution to helping teachers, teacher educators, educational researchers, and researchers of writing, composition and literacy know how to build the strategies and knowledge students need to achieve these goals"--

George E. Newell is Professor, College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, USA.

David Bloome is Distinguished Professor of Teaching and Learning and director of the Center for Video Ethnography and Discourse Analysis, College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, USA.

Alan Hirvela is Professor, Department of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, USA.

Tzu-Jung Lin is Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Studies, The Ohio State University, USA.

Jennifer VanDerHeide is Assistant Professor, Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University, USA

Allison Wynhoff Olsen is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Montana State University, USA

Eileen Buescher, Brent Goff, MinYoung Kim, SangHee Ryu, and Larkin Weyand are doctoral students at The Ohio State University, USA.