A study investigated whether 10-grade English students would write more descriptively when their thinking was stimulated through viewing images, or hearing music, or both. Subjects, 49 students in 2 intact classrooms in a middle-class, suburban high school in the Jurupa School District, were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups that administered visual stimuli in the form of color slides, auditory stimuli in the form of classical music, both visual and auditory stimuli, or no stimuli. All groups listened to an oral reading of a short story and then wrote a description of the story setting. Experimental groups were administered treatments during the prewriting stage while the control group began prewriting with no auditory or visual stimuli. Essays were scored and compared to results of a pre-treatment measure of writing ability. Results indicated that the use of auditory stimuli, when administered simultaneously with visual stimuli, was effective in improving students' descriptive writing in comparison to the control group. However, results did not show that access to visual stimuli alone or to auditory stimuli alone was any more effective than receiving no sensory stimuli at all during prewriting. In addition, results showed no significant difference between the effects of auditory stimuli used alone and visual stimuli used alone. (Two tables of data are included; 30 references are attached.) (RS)