Building upon the National Study of Writing in the Secondary School conducted in 1981, this volume presents the results of recent scholarly inquiry into the nature of writing. Background information for the study is discussed in chapter 1, while chapter 2 describes the additional data that have been gathered since the national survey: a study of textbooks in a variety of secondary school subject areas and a longitudinal study of the writing development of 15 students over a 16-month period. It also describes the system for analyzing student writing in terms of the audience addressed and the functions of writing. Chapter 3 reports the results from the study of the writing activities suggested in popular textbooks, and chapter 4 introduces the case study students and the writing they undertook during the 16 months. Chapters 5 and 6 examine this writing in more detail, focusing on the organizational patterns students are mastering. Chapters 7 and 8 concentrate on the varying approaches students took to their writing tasks, while chapters 9 and 10 address the link between the problems students have in writing, their knowledge of the topic under consideration, and the role of writing as an aid to learning in content area classrooms. Chapter 11 develops in more detail the notion of instructional scaffolding and its usefulness in improving writing instruction. Finally, chapter 12 highlights the findings and suggests some questions that need to be addressed in future studies. (HOD)