Becoming a writer is a complex and ongoing process, and becoming a writing teacher is no less complex. A teacher's journey toward understanding the complexity of both writing and teaching often begins with a look to the past, for scholarship originates from the ability to synthesize past insights and apply them in the pursuit of continued inquiry. It is, therefore, encouraging to realize that a great deal about writing has been learned from studying how native speakers of English acquire skill in writing, knowledge gleaned from a field of study almost unknown in its modern sense a quarter of a century ago. A vigorous developing tradition of scholarship in composition and rhetoric has recently produced excellent bibliographical resource guides (e.g., Moran and Lunsford 1984; Lindemann 1987, 1988; Tate 1987) as well as in-depth reviews of scholarship (e.g., Hillocks 1986), guides to conducting research in the field (e.g., Myers 1985; Lauer and Asher 1988; Daiker and Morenberg 1990), and attempts to define the field of study itself (e.g., McClelland and Donovan 1985; North 1987).

The emergence of composition studies in the past quarter century as an area of professional emphasis within academic communities has also spurred on a tremendous metamorphosis in the teaching of writing, for composition teachers are now being schooled in ways unheard of before the late 1960s.