Reading and writing teachers can use visual compositions--a grouping of pictures, photos, or slides suggesting a unified story or theme--to help students understand style and organization in writing. Students who are categorized as language deficient, have difficulty with invention, or are influenced in language learning by visual/spatial input are likely to benefit most from visual stories. During the first visual presentation, students should be asked to write a thematic sentence expressing a central meaning and providing a point of view for their developing theme. During the second viewing, students should write individual sentences based on each picture. Once students understand the relationship between a particular organizational structure and their own writing, they can read assignments organized in a similar way. The reading selection will be easier to visualize since students can now compare it to a concrete referent in their experience. The visual composition arrangements provide both concrete experiences to stimulate student writing and a nonverbal means of teaching the internal structure of discourse. (An outline illustrating how seven visual composition arrangements can influence the writing and understanding of corresponding styles in written language is included.) (HTH)