Various instructional approaches have been laid out for conceptualizing argumentation talk and writing in English classrooms. One prominent, and historically durable, approach is formalist--teachers slot the teaching of argument into a form-based approach, usually using the 5-paragraph theme. This model too often fails to persuade students of the…

For some teachers, the increasing attention to digital and multimodal composing in English and Language Arts classrooms has brought into sharp relief the profession's investment in print as the primary means of expression. Although new forms of communication that combine words, still and moving images, and animation have begun to dominate digital…