Group activities in the classroom can be a useful way to explore various standard rhetorical patterns. For descriptive writing, students can select and write about unsigned collages made by classmates. The writer can try to find a unifying theme that characterizes the artist's personality. A narrative component can be added to descriptive writing by dividing the class into three groups and by having each group work independently to create a setting, a cast of characters, and action. The three disjointed contributions can then be merged through chalkboard arbitration into a single dramatic scene. A third activity, which results in description, dialogue, and anecdote, involves an interview with a person whose one-line description the class has found most intriguing. Finally, to introduce argument, students can be divided into three or four groups and assigned a common topic. A "secretary" can write down fellow class members' evidence in support and in refutation of the argument. Almost invariably, the resulting essays will be more sophisticated than they would have been without benefit of the authors' committee experience. (HTH)