SummaryThe purpose of this study was to examine Guamanian second‐graders’ short‐ and long‐term prewriting preferences. Good literature books were used to stimulate writing; thus the study also examined if a child's favourite or longest story would be influenced by the good literature selection, the prewriting strategy or the phase of the study in which the story was written. The children wrote three times weekly. Prewriting strategies, trained classroom instructors and good literature selections were counterbalanced. Likert‐scale preference measures were administered to assess short‐ and long‐term student preferences. In addition, children chose their favourite prewriting strategy and favourite story written at the conclusion of the six‐week study. Teachers’ perceptions of the prewriting strategies used in the study were examined using an evaluation instrument containing open‐ended items. Frequency counts were used to assess when favourite and longest stories were written. Mean scores were calculated to compare students’ ratings of the three prewriting strategies on a short‐ and long‐term basis. Study findings suggest that any good literature selection can stimulate the writing of a favourite student composition; however, one‐half of the 12 literature selections used produced 79 per cent of the students’ favourite stories. The same was true of the students’ longest stories. Both favourite and longest stories were produced each week of the study, and all three prewriting strategies appealed to the students on a short‐ and long‐term basis. The students favoured the drawing strategy, however, when asked at the conclusion of the study to choose one favourite prewriting technique. The drawing and imagery prewriting strategies were the teachers’ favourites; problems were noted with the dialogue strategy. Fluency did increase as the children wrote over a one‐ and one‐half‐month period; three‐fifths of the longest stories were produced during the second three‐week phase of the study.