Writing teachers notice how students who succeed with their written projects often do so after they have moved to a kind of anger either with themselves or the project, with external stimuli, or with a general sense of injustice. They are stimulated by the emotion to creative problem solving, and as an effect, they may succeed at eliminating the perceived problem or injustice and overcoming the sense of injury. This type of expression of anger might lead to anti-social features in the writing--disrespect, unconventional language, threatening statements, manifestations of hate, severe sarcasm and contempt for the rights of others, and contempt for the status quo. Anger, however, can channel a writer's thoughts to creative problem solving with socially acceptable language choices in the writing. In all cases, a response to the emotion driving the written response seems called for, and writing instructors may need to understand and consider boundaries for their roles in each of these situations that reveal a rhetorical nature of anger. A survey of 28 teachers in the 1998 summer institute of the PA Writing Project elicited identification of anger as a constructive starting point in their own personal lives and as civically responsible individuals. Pro-active manifestations of anger relate to how learners solve problems they define, remove doubts they have identified, or pursue other types of inquiry related to active learning processes. (Contains 24 references.) (NKA)