A study of student perceptions of the goals of composition classes and essential rules for successful academic compositions was conducted as a pilot for the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) writing project, which will collect data on instructional practices and other aspects of written composition. Students from three United States high schools and a comparable Australian school were asked to write a letter of advice to a younger student on how to write a composition on community improvement. A content analysis was performed on the letters, individual pieces of advice and their topics were listed, and a classification scheme was constructed based on the topics. The advice came under four major categories: (1) task demands, (2) reader impact, (3) writer demands, and (4) composition demands. The results indicated that the average number of pieces of advice per letter was higher for the advanced classes than for the intermediate or the introductory classes. Most of the advice and hints given by the advanced classes were about the composition itself, and task advice was mentioned least often. Surprisingly, there was little advice devoted to unity and coherence, especially in the U.S. schools. While there were many differences between schools across subcategories, when the U.S. classes were all combined and compared to the Australian class, there were striking similarities. (Extensive tables of the results and sample letters are included.) (HTH)