Report in argument's clothing: An ecological perspective on writing instruction in a seventh-grade classroom.

As the teaching of argumentative and persuasive writing returns to the clas sroom, so does the question of how to do so effectively. Process writing re forms over the past 30 years have sought to change the ways writing is taug ht from drill and practice in grammar exercises to a focus more on continuo us writing and revision. Arguing from an ecological perspective on writing development, however, we show that such changes may not be enough. Based on a 9-week observation (videotapes) of a middle-school language arts-social studies block class, and on teacher interviews, writing conferences, and 6 students' writing portfolios, we claim that competing demands in modern cla ssrooms can lead to environments that sabotage the teaching of argument. Th e students in this class, in a unit that included writing an argumentative research paper, wrote "hybrid" texts-argumentative theses followed but not always supported by lists of facts. In trying to explain these texts, we re alized that the epistemology fostered by classroom talk and other activitie s was inimical to the complex rhetoric the teacher was trying to develop in encouraging students to write arguments.