Protocol analyses in research on writing reveal that throughout the composing process talented writers direct a tremendous amount of mental effort toward integrating and pursuing complex goals such as developing and following overriding themes, elaborating main points, clarifying content for a particular audience, and integrating genre features. Novice writers, on the other hand, regardless of age or knowledge base, have a much more local writing process in which they focus primarily on their next thought. Their writing protocols suggest that they tend to take cues from the last sentence written to produce the next one. Moreover, they spend minimal effort on setting the overriding goals that characterize better writers. This article will detail these contrasting processes of expert and novice writers. It also will present an instructional unit that is designed not only to help typical writers shift to the more complex model but also to nurture the abilities of the more talented student writers.