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The freshman composition course at Mayville State College (North Dakota) progresses from basic grammar to sentence combining to the development of expository writing skills based on the principles of generative rhetoric. The course begins with a brief review of grammar, emphasizing the phrase, clause, and sentence, and then moves on to the process of sentence combining. The next phase of the course introduces generative rhetoric, including the cumulative sentence, the general idea stated in the base clause, and the more specific details developed in the phrases and clauses of the lower levels, either coordinately or subordinately. Once students have grasped this idea, they begin to work with constructions that authors commonly use, including the noun phrase, the absolute, and the verbal phrase. Constant writing assignments serve to strengthen the skills they have learned. Once they have mastered sentence construction, they then apply the same principles of construction to the development of paragraphs. They learn to take a single word or idea, add several coordinate or subordinate ideas to produce a good sentence, and then to expand this sentence into a paragraph. After learning to write a good paragraph, they are taught how to apply the skills to answering essay test questions from other disciplines. The course concludes with an introduction to reading fiction and poetry, with an emphasis on authors' use of variety in sentence structure. (FL)