Focusing on children's production of written language, a two-year study, conducted on the Oodham (Papago) Indian Reservation in Arizona, explored social context, linguistic systems, and the creation of meaning as aspects of the writing process. Ten American Indian children in third and fourth grade provided over 200 stories that formed the basic reseaerch material for this study. The primary tool of data analysis involved putting information about each story into a format suitable for computer manipulation. The social context was explored through a description of both classroom settings and the kind of verbal and nonverbal behavior children engage in as they write. In an analysis of the linguistic systems used in writing, the syntax in students' compositions was analyzed by looking at the length of their t-units, clauses, and phrases, and unusual and anomalous syntactic structures. An analysis of children's orthographic features considered how they used and controlled such factors as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and letter formation. The analysis also identified the extent to which conventional and invented forms are used and explored patterns involving high and low frequency words in spelling and types of invented spelling. Variables discussed in regard to the creation of meaning included ownership and involvement, topic choice and development, genre, and stylistic choices. Findings emphasized the complexity of the creation of meaning. Statistical tables are included, as well as samples from children's handwritten stories. (JD)