Smart Writing empowers language arts teachers to move beyond abstract ideals of rigor and sophistication by teaching concrete, assessable rhetorical moves that foster deeper, more intellectually complex student writing.

Writing teachers of all grade levels have been called upon to increase their students’ cognitive power. Outcomes across institutions, districts, and states emphasize the need for richness, depth, complexity, rigor, sophistication, or critical thinking in student writing. Yet that quality—no matter how it gets characterized—remains a challenge for both teachers and students. How can teachers most effectively explain, model, and assess such an evasive quality? Smart Writing: Demonstrable and Measurable Skills for More Sophisticated Writing offers a path forward. It details a range of powerful strategies that students can apply directly. The specifics offered here are not vague descriptors. They are moves that get worked out in written passages. They can be adopted and shaped according to assignment, topic, and each writer’s comfort level.

The goal in each chapter is to eradicate the mysteries of sophisticated writing—to offer samples, activities, and prompts that make student projects richer. In this sense, Smart Writing is not a book for those teaching only gifted, advanced, or highly prepared students. It’s for all teachers trying desperately to help students with something that seems now universally valued.