If educators are to realize the power of the link between cultural studies and composition studies, they must examine the cultural codes that govern their own professional discourse as teachers of writing. They must accept the responsibility for their own acts of literacy in describing pedagogical practices, in reporting their research, and in theorizing about language and learning. One particular code commonly employed in writing research is the conversion narrative. An examination of an article by Richard E. Miller, which appeared in the April 1994 issue of "College English," illustrates some of the complexities and difficulties inherent in the conversion narrative, particularly as a genre in which student transformations are recorded. Borrowing James Phelan's terminology for discussing the multidimensional nature of characters in texts--namely, the synthetic, mimetic, and thematic aspects of character--scholars must discover some of the pitfalls in proffering a student's narrative of his/her own conversion as evidence of the effectiveness of a particular pedagogy or approach. (Contains nine references.) (TB)