Lists eight ways to develop a topic for a composition. (DF)

Presents a brainstorming aid for students whose technical writing assignments focus on real problems they must discover on their own. (SRT)

Presents a relatively simple set of graphic methods that students can use to sort and organize information that traditional methods of outlining and organizing do not handle well. (JL)

To develop a theory of invention that would include both generation and selection of material for written composition, the four major current theories of invention were considered. Since only one--prewriting--included a selection component and was limited in several ways, a psychotherapeutic theory--focusing--was adapted to the composing process…

Offers a nonverbal prewriting strategy, writer-based sketches, intended to help students turn their thoughts into words. (MS)

Describes five prewriting activities for courses that emphasize writing and deemphasize discussion of literature. The activities focus on organization and theme statement so that students think about every possible subject, theme, and approach. (HTH)

Professional speakers often use simple mental recipes to organize impromptu talks. The author taught these recipes to his high school composition students and used a timed trial format to give them practice in rapidly outlining their thoughts on a given topic. Thirteen of these recipes are provided. (SJL)

Writing strategies encourage beginning writers to collect, explore, and focus ideas. This paper presents a rationale for fusing the word processor with the writing process and offers a series of pre-writing strategies, such as brainstorming, clustering and chunk writing, to help learning-disabled writers begin writing. (Author/PB)

Generating writing ideas is often a serious obstacle for students. Some classroom techniques to help them out of this dilemma include word associating and self-questioning. Students can also construct a matrix chart with the subheadings from their information resources. Once ideas are generated, they can be arranged in appropriate presentation…

Describes a method for teaching students to connect their ideas causally or logically in their writing by talking about the ideas before beginning to write. (HTH)

Research suggests that good writers differ from poor writers. Teachers who develop prewriting exercises, emphasize multiple draft assignments, help the student think about revision, and evaluate the product can help undergraduates write and think more clearly. (Author/AM)

Describes different types of prewriting activities such as "brainwriting," visual synectics, and relational algorithms. (JL)

Describes a remedial writing class in which students learned organizational skills by cutting up and rearranging their own freewriting on a particular topic. (JL)

Freewriting can be more than merely a prewriting heuristic that provides preparation for more advanced kinds of writing. A class at Jefferson Davis State Junior College (Alabama) attempts to promote the lack of pressure as well as the freedom and spontaneity that freewriting allows to a traditional composition course. In this class, freewritings…

Points out the value of responding to students' first drafts of papers, outlines a three-step approach for doing so, and gives five examples of such an approach. (JL)