An 11-step process may be used by freshman composition students to help them write effective prose in a series of clear steps. The steps are: (1) select a topic (for the first assignment, usually a place about which students have strong feelings and vivid remembrances), (2) individually brainstorm the topic, (3) categorize the details that have emerged, (4) narrow the topic, (5) brainstorm the narrowed topic, (6) sort out the new set of details into subsets, (7) provide more information about scantily described details and then make the descriptions as specific as possible, (8) decide on a point of view about the narrowed topic, (9) select an order (preferably a climactic order) for the subsets into which the details have been arranged, (10) make the order clear through the use of transitions, and (11) write the first draft nonstop without worrying about "pettyfogging" details. This same process can be used for writing critical literary essays. To discourage inflated prose and to relieve writer's block, teachers may use letters--which students actually mail to chosen correspondents--as the form for writing. Finally, to provide constructive editing for the volume of papers students should write, teachers may have students evaluate each other's papers and may simplify their own copyediting procedures. (GT)