Writing research has indicated that exophoric reference--features of linguistic texts that refer to the situations that surround language--are more characteristic of weak writing and possibly associated with socioeconomic status. To follow up on such research, writing samples from 114 ninth and eleventh grade students and college freshmen were collected along with a teacher's interpretations of the students' socioeconomic status based on students' school records. The students were asked to look at four drawings and then write a description of the actions they contain to someone who cannot see the illustrations. With each grade level the number of total words produced in response to the assigned task increased significantly. The calculated rates of exophoric references, however, were not significant for either grade or socioeconomic status, although the rate of exophoric reference appeared to stay the same or decline slightly across grade levels. Contrary to previous research, the students in this study were able to produce explicit, context-independent writing, regardless of student socioeconomic status. (The drawings used in the study and three student responses are appended.) (RL)