An approach to promote student editing of their own compositions, to be used in intermediate English as a second language classes, is discussed. Although editing or monitoring may not improve the communicative accuracy of a written message, it may give the message a more native-like quality. Monitoring works best on morphemes which are acquired late but which are easy to conceptualize, such as the third person singular "s" on simple present tense verbs. Learning language rules is distinct from learning the language itself; the rules do not always have to be presented before acquisition. Krashen (1978) has described the monitor under-user, who appears to be uninfluenced by most error correction, and the monitor over-user, who relies strongly on conscious linguistic knowledge. It is suggested that before teachers can expect students to apply a rule to their writing, they must ascertain that the students know how to apply it correctly in a discrete-point task. Then, it is necessary to bring the rule out into the students' consciousness (and, perhaps, convince them of the importance of applying the rule to their own writing). The teacher can elicit the rule by asking the student to state the rule and write it down for future reference, and by stating the rule directly. Editing of compositions by students at the end of a writing session may make the actual writing process easier for the student. The editing time could be divided into two sessions, the first for improving communicative accuracy and the second for improving grammatical accuracy. This approach is an applied version of Krashen's Monitor Model. (SW)