One of a number of reports of a study of the range of written tasks that can be completed successfully by 14- to 16-year-old students, this booklet suggests that argument is an important means of learning and an inevitable and proper concern of English teachers. The discussion rejects the characteristic forms of argument questions found on most traditional essay examinations and, therefore, taught in most composition classrooms. It proposes instead that English teachers teach students to handle ideas in general terms by leading them through four stages of argument development: (1) the ruminative or reflective essay in which the writer is given the opportunity to mull over a human issue or field of enquiry without the demand to formulate a final position on it; (2) the advocacy essay in which the writer wishes to recommend a decision or present a point of view; (3) the essay that argues through an issue or justifies a decision in which the writer takes account of opposing viewpoints and counters or concedes them in a rational manner; and (4) the essay that attempts an overview in which the writer tries to organize and represent the range of arguments available on all sides of an issue or decision. (AEA)