A study investigated the extent to which oral language forms influence the written products of Mexican-American students attending an inner city school in a low income neighborhood. For the study, writing samples from 78 third grade and 92 sixth grade students were analyzed for Spanish, interlanguage, and Chicano English features. (Interlanguage forms, produced by learners of English from a variety of language backgrounds, occur as English is being learned.) In the writing samples of the third grade students, 773 errors were identified; of these, 33% were considered to have possible influences from Spanish, interlanguage, or Chicano English. In the writing samples of the sixth grade students, 677 errors were identified; of these, 36% were considered to have possible oral language influences. (Prompts for the writing samples and lists of errors are appended.) (FL)