NANCY SOMMERS: When I think about the composing process, well, actually I think about composing processes, because I never want to assume that the process I use, or that there is one composing process.

ERIC TASLIM: First, you have your outline, draft, peer review and editing, and then your final draft. And then after that, you still have to revise it. And then you have one more final draft.

NANCY SOMMERS: I want to make sure that students find the process that is most comfortable to them or that seems most natural to them. So outlining, for instance. There are some students for whom outlining is a very important technique and strategy.

ALEX RANKIN: When I outline, everything's more organized. I could write down a sentence and write down another sentence and write down another sentence, and I'll realize what I was getting at when I go back to sentence up to.

NANCY SOMMERS: For many students, techniques such as brainstorming, free writing, anything that just allows a student, a writer to be able to have a lot of ideas and to see these ideas without the pressure of putting it into sentences and paragraphs.

ALEX RANKIN: It comes more easier when it's like that. I can see that and I'm not necessarily working on one topic sentence. I'm not focused on just one thing. And then I could go back to it. It's kind of giving myself a break from one sentence and working on the other one.

NANCY SOMMERS: Sometimes, you're going to be stuck. You're writing a draft, and you're stuck, and you don't know what to do. Put the draft aside, and then do some brainstorming or some free writing. I always want to say to students, it isn't this linear kind of process, in which first you do your brainstorming, then you write your draft, then you revise, that all these techniques can be used, and these methods can be used, at various points, and especially points at which you get stuck.