The primary goal for teachers of English composition is to help students achieve a competent oral and written style compatible with their own environment, age, sex, and socioeconomic background. To help students express their thoughts and perceptions clearly and logically, teachers should (1) exhibit a positive attitude toward writing; (2) provide a variety of stimuli for written and oral expression, such as photographs, movies, student narration , works of art, or current social problems; (3) accompany the stimuli with problems devised to generate creative thinking; (4) give students every opportunity to participate in oral and written language experiences through discussion in the classroom; and (5) utilize oral discourse as a means to improve written composition. The key factor in improving student writing is oral discussion. In an experiment with 112 ninth-graders divided into two groups, those who took part in oral language activities showed improvement in written composition over those who did not at the .01 level of significance. (MP)