Effective informational writing assignments show students that creativity and imagination are essential to the generation of new ideas in all content areas. A collection of these assignments has been arranged into five categories of increasing complexity based on the following criteria: whether the point of view is assigned as self-selected; whether the imagined audience for the text is informal or formal; whether the imagined point of view is that of a real or anonymous historical person; whether students are asked to assume one or more than one point of view; and whether students are asked to reorganize information in a new way. These assignments encourage an integration of facts and ideas from various perspectives, give students the opportunity to write for different purposes and audiences in the content areas, permit historical and scientific information to be presented in a non-expository form, and encourage students to think about the feelings and attitudes of others. (Numerous samples of student writing are included.) (MM)