An examination of 13 selected samples of the English compositions written by Navajo college students revealed much of interest for the developing concern over widespread classification of native Americans as failure-bound in college courses involving written English skills. Four culturally motivated text strategies were found to be typical and regularly relied upon by the students within speech act expectations and discourse patterning of units larger than the sentence. The four strategies, related to specific cultural norms, were described and exemplified in the following areas of investigation: (1) speaker/hearer role requirements, (2) implosive directional focus tendencies, (3) verbal and temporal reference disparity, and (4) repetition of information. The most preferable way to bridge the linguistic and cultural gap between Navajo and English was considered to be the utilization of a bilingual-multilingual native language approach in teaching. Until such courses become available to large numbers of native American students, college instructors with Navajo students should become aware of the responsibilities and problems associated with teaching such students. (Author/FL)