This practicum was designed to use directed writing strategies to teach writing skills to middle grades language arts students who frequently failed to make average or above scores in essay writing assignments. The program included three specific strategies. The first strategy was to teach higher-order thinking and metacognitive strategies related to the writing process by modeling writing techniques and directed writing activities. The second strategy was to use cooperative learning in small groups while working on writing assignments. The third strategy was to teach word processing and writing skills by using computers. The goal and expectations were for students to improve their writing skills so that they would attain higher grades. An analysis of the data revealed that students did improve their writing skills, but not significantly. Students also improved their knowledge of word processing by using the computer. (Contains 75 references and a table of data. Appendixes contain the informal survey instrument, essay pretest and posttest, essay pretest and posttest results, and the grammar pretest and posttest.) (Author/RS)