This book examines the theory and practice of argument in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Several of its chapters offer theoretical discussion of the forms and functions of argument within social, philosophical, historical and rhetorical contexts.

This article is an introduction to two other articles in this issue, Catherine Maxwell’s ‘Teaching 19th-century aesthetic prose’ and Kirsteen Anderson’s ‘The whole learner: the role of imagination in developing disciplinary learning’. It highlights the significance of the courses described in Maxwell’s and Anderson’s accounts by discussing how the writing tasks that they engage students in contribute to the development of disciplinary understanding, and how, whilst eschewing reliance on the conventional schooled essay, they enable students to develop writing that is (...) essayistic. It points to the potential that reinvisaging disciplinary writing has for curriculum and assessment design. (shrink)