The purpose of this 3-year data gathering and analysis project is to specify ways in which strategic instruction is conducted in classrooms, including how teachers adapt instruction to their curriculum and how students adapt instruction to fit their purposes for and methods of writing. The purposes of the writing instruction on which the study is based are to change students' representation of their writing tasks and to provide guided practice in planning and revising after feedback. Research sites are Roundtown High School (a predominantly white, middle class school located in a university town) and the Riversend School on the Sun reservation. By comparing the two groups and their decision-making in writing and revising, the study hopes to discover how culture influences strategic learning, and whether the models for collaborative planning and revising after feedback, upon which the writing instruction is based, are applicable to diverse populations. Data are gathered using cognitive process tracing (which includes stimulated recall and concurrent verbal protocol) and ethnographic techniques (audio/videotaping of classes, focused observations, and interviews). Preliminary findings highlight the cultural chasm that divides the students in Roundtown High School and those on the reservation. Four questions have surfaced that reveal some of the characteristics of the context of learning; these have to do with concepts of authority; a research effect (Native American subjects' reactions to the presence of tape recorders and camcorders in the classroom); pedagogical issues; and motivation. (Forty-four references are attached.) (RS)