Professional speakers often use simple mental recipes to organize impromptu talks. The author taught these recipes to his high school composition students and used a timed trial format to give them practice in rapidly outlining their thoughts on a given topic. Thirteen of these recipes are provided. (SJL)

The prewriting strategies of guided imagery, brainstorming, clustering, freewriting, and oral activities, are described. It is suggested that teachers utilize these strategies to help students become competent in each stage of the writing process. Ten writing resources are listed. (MBR)

Proposes use of criteria-based scales, which prescribe levels of writing performance for a particular mode of discourse, as a way to teach and test student writing skills. Pre- and posttesting, teaching for the test utilizing the criteria-based scale, and why this method is successful are also discussed. (MBR)