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It's called gesture drawing, and I never really thought about it as being anything remarkable. I thought of them as warmups, just something to do before going to work on the "real" drawings. I generally didn't even bother to bring them home, I just pitched them in the recycle bin at the school. Then, two things happened. (1) Earlier this summer, I was at a group show where folks had framed their gesture drawings, put price tags on them, and hung them in a gallery; and (2) I found out that there are students - full-time art students in their final year at Sheridan, so people who know their stuff - who list gesture drawings as one of the most frustrating and difficult things to do. At this point, I'm thinking to myself, "Dang, I gotta start keeping some of that stuff."
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When I'm doing a gesture drawing, I start with a few seconds of observation, to get a feel for the pose, about what it would feel like to be in that pose, where the tension is, where the weight is, and where the energy is. I do all this on a gut-level, not any kind of thinking or analysis... when the pose is only a minute or two long there's not really any time for that.
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Once the first line is down, I start putting in lines that support the premise, describing the major masses, starting with the biggest ones and moving out from there.
A gesture drawing is about the tension and energy of the pose. It's not about getting a likeness of the model, it's about getting the attitude they're showing. When you're doing gestures of a good model, then any one of them could be the starting point for a story.
At least, that's the way I approach it. I'm not saying that there's a particularly right or wrong way to do it, just that this is how I do it, and it has worked out pretty well for me so far. See it, Feel it, Draw it. In that order - and that is the important bit.
P.S. Check out http://holmesinccomic.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/gesture-drawings/ for an update to this post.