"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 an alternative 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 English Language Arts Classrooms 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"--