Integrating up-to-date composition theory with pedagogical research in critical thinking and inquiry, this book presents a flexible organizational structure to accommodate a range of freshman composition course designs and to engage students intellectually in problem-centered writing activities to prepare them for academic tasks across the curriculum. The book emphasizes problem posing and inquiry, and writing as a rhetorical act. Chapters in the book are: (1) Posing Problems: The Demands of College Writing; (2) Pursuing Problems: Exploratory Writing and Talking; (3) Solving Content Problems: Thesis and Support; (4) Solving Rhetorical Problems: Purpose, Audience, and Genre; (5) Seeing Rhetorically: The Writer as Observer; (6) Reading Rhetorically: The Writer as Strong Reader; (7) Writing an Autobiographical Narrative; (8) Writing an Exploratory Essay; (9) Writing an Informative (and Surprising) Essay; (10) Analyzing Images; (11) Analyzing Numerical Data; (12) Analyzing a Short Story; (13) Investigating Questions about Cause and Consequence; (14) Writing a Classical Argument; (15) Making an Evaluation; (16) Proposing a Solution; (17) Writing as a Problem-Solving Process; (18) Composing Closed-Form Prose; (19) Revising Closed-Form Prose; (20) Creating Open Forms; (21) Working in Groups to Pose and Solve Problems; (22) Focusing a Problem and Finding Sources; (23) Using and Citing Sources; (24) Electronic Writing and Research; and (25) Essay Examinations: Writing Polished Prose in a Hurry. A guide to editing (consisting of six handbooks) is attached. (RS)