Despite the importance of academic writing in higher education, proper attention has not been drawn to English language teaching (ELT) in China; as a result, Chinese students who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) generally have difficulty in constructing successful academic texts. While a growing number of Chinese students choose to pursue their higher education in Western countries, their incompetence in academic writing poses problems for their educational performance and academic attainments. This qualitative research aims to explore the causal factors by analyzing Chinese ELT textbook officially assigned for senior high education in an effort to examine how the textbook has helped English learners to develop their academic writing skills. The result revealed that the textbook had contributed very little to developing learners' academic writing ability and consequently failed to guide students in their development of certain effective strategies; hence, the research suggests that academic writing teaching should be added to the curriculum and the author argues that the textbook in question should be upgraded.