A study investigated the effects of explicit versus implicit instruction in story grammar on the narrative writing skills of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) students at the university level. Subjects were 83 freshmen enrolled in English at the Faculty of Education at Suez Canal University (Egypt). The subjects were randomly assigned to explicit and implicit story grammar instruction conditions. In the explicit condition, students read, analyzed, and imitated 15 story examples; in the implicit condition, students only read the same story examples, focusing on meaning rather than form. The study lasted five consecutive weeks. Subjects were pre- and posttested on story writing. Results indicate that students in the two treatment conditions scored about equally on the pretest, but those in the explicit condition scored significantly higher in the posttest, supporting the value of explicit instruction in story grammar. (Contains 38 references.) (MSE)