A research project investigated the development of narrative rhetoric in students in grades 3 through 8 in New York City public schools. Two types of tasks were used, the first requiring students to write a story about the events depicted in a drawing, the second asking them to correct rhetorical problems in prepared narratives. A series of studies were conducted manipulating various stimulus characteristics and elicitation procedures. Among the many findings are the following: (1) younger children conformed fairly well to the model of simple traditional story structures, while older children conformed more to the "in media res" structure found in certain types of popular fiction; (2) among elementary school children, an increase in rhetorical complexity significantly increased story length; (3) different elicitation stimuli produced slightly different configurations of rhetorical elements implying that, for evaluating purposes, children should be required to produce more than one writing sample; (4) children had little trouble maintaining consistent voice and tense structure in their own narrative composition, but experienced problems when asked to edit others' work; and (5) children at all ages provided explicit causal or motivational information about the actions in their stories. (Extensive appendixes contain materials used in the study.) (FL)