A study of the influence of the writer's social and cultural background and training on the organization of his or her writing was studied in essays written by two groups of students: Chinese students at the Beijing Institute of International Relations and the Xian Foreign Language Institute and foreign students in the United States. The essays were descriptions of and responses to a situation in which rain began to fall heavily on a long line at a bus stop. It was found that most Chinese students gave the reason for being at the bus stop, described the beginning of the rainfall and the sky, described the crowd, and drew a moral lesson from the crowd's behavior. Metaphorical language was common. Elements in the nonnative U.S. students' writing that were not found in the Chinese students' papers included mention of weather predictions, excuses for taking the bus rather than driving a car, greater variation in the crowd's composition, and concern about time pressures and the opinions of others. These essays suggest that topic development is largely a factor of cultural experience, as well as social and educational policy. Therefore, teachers must be careful that assigned topics do not require students to relate experiences that they do not have, and in reading the compositions, teachers need to determine which aspects of the essay are not in keeping with their own social and cultural experiences and thus contribute to a written discourse accent. (MSE)