Too OFTEN STUDENT WRITING fits Samuel Johnson's scathing definition of the essay: "A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition." Teachers may be able to show students a better way by showing them how to write historical arguments, for it is hard to write an effective argument without expressing higher order thinking skills in an orderly composition. Yet though teachers sometimes ask for written argument, the results are often disappointing; simply telling students to argue seldom enables them to do so. How, exactly, are students to compose these arguments? How, exactly, are they to put them in writing? What is needed is an approach to historical argumentation that can be explicitly taught, performed and evaluated.' This paper suggests a method of essay instruction serving this approach. Here are six things an essay that argues should do. It should: