Three academically deficient and behavior disordered male students, 9 to 13 years of age, participated in a treatment program to improve their written composition skills. A multiple-baseline across-subjects design was used to analyze the effects of three treatment procedures on the number and variety of adjectives per T-unit (minimal terminable unit) written by the students. Treatment 1 was simple instructions, descriptive praise, and points for use of adjectives; Treatment 2 added sentence-combining instructional materials; and Treatment 3 added descriptive praise and points for use of different adjectives. Treatment 1 alone was sufficient to systematically increase the number and variety of adjectives per T-unit. Furthermore, the mean number of all words per T-unit increased by 4 to 5 grade levels for two students, bringing them above grade level. Evaluations of story quality showed marked improvement for all three students. (21 references) (Author/DB)