In response to the New York State Fifth Grade Writing Test indicating inadequacies in students' writing abilities in a Southwest Bronx elementary school, a study employed Evelyn Rothstein's developmental, systematic instructional approach to improve students' writing competencies. It was hypothesized that, as a result of the instructional program implemented between January and June of 1986, students would demonstrate an improvement in writing skills by (1) reducing the number of students falling below the state reference point by 1.5%; and (2) increasing by 3.4% the number of students who scored above the state reference point. These two objectives were achieved. The third objective postulated that, as a result of regularly monitoring specific writing strategies during the prescribed time period, 60% of the students would demonstrate sequential development of writing skills in three of five skill areas measured. Results indicated that only 29.6% of the students achieved this. However, this finding was interpreted as an encouraging statistic. (Statistical tables provide extensive comparison data, particularly on the state reference point/frequency distribution by both the class and school. Extensive sample tests and instructional materials are appended.) (JD)