In an attempt to serve underprepared students--students who are beginners in writing, reading, and logical thinking skills--the English department at Keene State College in New Hampshire has been evolving a developmental English composition course designed to enable these students to participate effectively in their subsequent general education courses. Research in cognitive psychology, psycholinguistic reading theory, and rhetoric led to the assumptions that intellectual strategies needed in critical thinking and problem solving can be taught, that writing is one of the best ways to develop these strategies, that prereading and prewriting activities can improve reading and writing processes, and that language skills are best developed in realistic problem solving situations. As the pilot course progressed, problem solving emerged as the most important element, and giving the students short oral problems requiring a minimum of reading and writing skills was recognized as the most effective way to develop these skills. In the present version of the course, the sequencing of skill acquisition is based on the idea that problem solving is at the core and that reasoning, reading, and writing are processes needed to solve the problem. In the future, the designers of the course will seek problem solving exercises based on daily life and increased interaction with the general education faculty. (JL)