To gain an understanding of the development of the composing process, researchers observed, categorized, analyzed, and collected the writing of 10 Papago third and fourth graders in the Indian Oasis Public School District of Arizona over a period of two years. Of 30 children originally chosen to represent lower, middle, and upper development levels, 6 became the focus of in-depth study. Researchers collected data from observation; videotapes; interviews with parents, children, and teachers; and debriefing notes. They also studied 300 English language texts (over 17,000 words) produced by the children in regular classroom settings to determine the status and development of the orthographic features (spelling, punctuation), syntactic features (clauses, phrases, terminable units), and semantic and pragmatic issues including textual cohesion, contractions, dialect, metalinguistic knowledge, and overt behaviors accompanying writing (such as revision, subvocalization, rereading, interruptions, resource use, stop and think). The report describes the findings and the educational environments in the children's classrooms. It includes detailed analyses of the development of the writing process of each of the six children studied in depth. The analyses include information regarding the children's background, samples of the children's work, excerpts from the interviews, and descriptions of the various aspects of the writing process. (SB)