The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether asking third grade students in one school district in the Metro Detroit area to draw a picture of a narrative story idea before writing about it would improve the points earned on the Michigan standardized writing assessment (MEAP test). One half, or four out of eight, of the district's third-grade teachers agreed to be part of this study. Each teacher had approximately 26 students in her class. Two of the teachers asked their students to write a personal narrative after drawing a picture about what they were thinking. Two other teachers used the same time frame, one writing class period, to have their students simply write, without adding in the drawing component. What was determined, based on two independent readers grading the papers using the MEAP writing rubric as well as a Prentice Hall rubric, which breaks the components of the first down into specific categories, was that the two groups did not score significantly different. This quantitative study found that although there were slight differences between the groups, the percentages were relatively close. From this study alone, one cannot make a distinct determination as to whether drawing before writing would help these third-grade students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]