Writing textbooks are changing to reflect the curricular shift from an emphasis on product to an emphasis on process. The product approach focused mainly on surface features and used an instructional strategy of testing writing rather than teaching it. The process approach focuses on what effective writers do as they move through the stages of prewriting, organizing, drafting, and revising. Newer texts are still divided into composition and grammar sections, but the order and emphasis are reversed. The composition section comes first and is more comprehensive, while grammar instruction is an adjunct to writing instruction, not isolated information taught for its own sake. Older texts progress from words to sentences to paragraphs to longer papers, while newer texts help the teacher teach the whole composition. Information is presented according to the categories of expressive, informative, persuasive, and imaginative writing, and each lesson in each chapter takes the students step-by-step through the four stages of the writing process. Students write constantly in journals, but teachers need grade only finished products. Another trend, the replacement of teachers' manuals with full teachers' editions, provides comprehensive, easily employed teaching aids. Finally, new curricula and new texts lead to a new, more vital and productive classroom atmosphere. (JL)