Offering a fresh perspective on making writing meaningful in every classroom, this guide seeks to help the teacher and the parent encourage the student writer as a thinker, not merely as a producer of a paragraph. The guide offers guidance as well as many practical activities that will help students to: organize the mind; play with ideas; find satisfaction in drafting and revising; and share papers that have gone through a process of discovery. It is divided into the following eight chapters: (1) "The Emphasis on Discovery"; (2) "Examining the Familiar"; (3) "Two Ways of Looking at People"; (4) "The Audience Responds"; (5) "Examining Events"; (6) "Defining Words"; (7) "Controlling Tone"; and (8) "Grading Themes." The guide's conclusion emphasizes that the writing process should become an opportunity to develop a personal thinking process, a growth mechanism that will stimulate participants to become more astute observers and more competent learners than when they started. (NKA)