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The Theme/Rheme construct has been widely studied in English over the last few years proving to be a very important cohesive element at discourse level (Fries, 1981, 1992, 1994, 1995; Martin, 1992, 1995, inter alia). However, researchers have paid much less attention to this construct and its possible usefulness in second language teaching. This paper’s main aim is to prove that the notion of Theme/Rheme can be very helpful as a tool of instruction for the teacher to evaluate L2 writing at the level of the discourse. To address this issue, we have analyzed a sample of 25 student compositions written by Spanish native speakers learning English as a second language in terms of their Thematic selection and progression. This empirical analysis has enabled us to uncover several common problems for textual cohesion and coherence in L2 writing.