Hopefully you're talking about preproduction
If anything like this even came close to happening in my studio I'd boot the band instantly, take the days deposit, and have them book more time later once they actually wrote the songs..
With preproduction, yes. Somebody mentioned the nashville number system, i.e I IV I V. And that is great, I love it, people who know it love it. But out of all the people I've worked with, more know how to read music or at least a chord sheet than know this system.
Someone said "there is no substitute for a musician great at everything," couldn't agree more.
What I have noticed works the best is writing out a song that is intro verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus as (A) A B A B C B. Everyone I've worked with gets that. Pretty sure I learned that system in the 1st grade.
Either way, there is no emotion on a graph or piece of paper, once you start breaking it down like that it really just kills the mood for me. I find its best to just jam out each part and verbally stop and say "okay, do this part twice, then there is the transition, then go to the chorus."