Secondary school and college students can learn how to shape thought through shaping language by using tagmemic heuristics. To approach writing as a thinking process, students apply three heuristics: one for identifying and stating problems, one for exploring problems, and one for evaluating hypotheses or solutions. Guided by a series of exercises, students first perceive inconsistencies between accepted truths, or between personal beliefs and actual experiences; they then articulate the conflicts and formulate questions arising from the problematic situations. After using checklists to help clarify their language in these questions, the students investigate the problems further, generating information and ideas through use of a tagmemic grid, by brainstorming, or by listing evidence from texts. From this exploration, students formulate possible answers to questions and perform a series of exercises designed to help them establish criteria for evaluating their hypotheses. While having difficulty applying the skills developed during tagmemic exercises to real writing situations, students appear to produce more inventive, thoughtful papers after completing these heuristics. (Exercises to help students formulate problems, checklists and criteria for evaluating problems and hypotheses, and a sample of students' work with "The Scarlet Letter" are included.) (MM)