Generating writing ideas is often a serious obstacle for students. Some classroom techniques to help them out of this dilemma include word associating and self-questioning. Students can also construct a matrix chart with the subheadings from their information resources. Once ideas are generated, they can be arranged in appropriate presentation order. If students have generated many words, the related ideas can be clustered into large circled groups and then ordered within those clusters. If few words have been generated, they may be put in order with arrows or numbers. Students may also write each idea on a card, then physically reorder or "shuffle" them to test different arrangements. Students' ability to arrange is facilitated by knowledge of specific arrangement plans (spatial ordering for description, chronological ordering for storytelling, and order of importance for news stories of persuasion). To provide students with more practice time for writing, teachers can reallocate a portion of the time devoted to reading. Other techniques for increasing writing practice without increasing the paper load include freewriting, journal writing, sentence combining, and peer critiquing. (HTH)