Presents a procedural model for use as a prewriting strategy to help students "decenter" or distance themselves from their writing and avoid the generalities that characterize egocentric writing. The model provides opposing viewpoints in a student's analysis of problems or issues. (HTH)

Adapts Edward de Bono's "Intermediate Impossible" strategy--for considering ideas that normally would be discarded as stepping-stones to new ideas--for use as a prewriting activity to enhance creative problem solving. (HTH)

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)

Offers a series of exercises designed to facilitate both discovery of content and its development into a written draft. (FL)

Explains how journal writing, taught with some direction, can guide students' writing and provide them with a sense of self-discovery. (HOD)

Describes assignments that integrate ideas from student journals into expository and deliberate essays. (HOD)

Suggests that students can improve the quality of their persuasive essays when the issue is first argued in the classroom. Discusses invention techniques and methods for students to conduct their own research surveys for support of their theses. (HTH)