To do academic work, basic writers must know how to use the forms that express mature thinking. Accustomed to the demands of speech, basic writers often rely on unspecified context to relate ideas, thus failing to establish the connections evident in well-developed thought. While able to use certain cohesive ties such as repetitions, demonstratives, and associated terms, basic writers are less skillful with such manipulative ties as developing a comparison or contrast through contrastive conjuncts. In other words, they are less able to form their thoughts into extended rhetorical patterns. To help them learn to use the forms that express complex relationships, teachers might first direct students to sharpen their vague communicative purpose, then focus on the mental processes required for the specific purpose, and provide a structured sequence of exercises to develop and practice those processes. At the same time, teachers could provide instruction on the grammar and punctuation used in those rhetorical forms. To help students create consumer reports, for example, teachers might provide instruction in the comparison-contrast framework. Exercises that familiarize students with this mode include asking students to identify similarities or differences among a list of items, sentence combining exercises based on original observations of comparison, and work with synonyms. (A list of ways to develop ideas with words is included.) (MM)