A study correlated the results of the Omnibus Personality Inventory (OPI) and two holistically scored narrative writing samples to determine how high school students' intellectual and emotional characteristics affected their writing improvement. Students in a small West Coast high school completed the OPI and generated a pretest writing sample in September and a posttest sample the following May. Fifty-seven complete sets of data were correlated. Students showed a mean improvement of .52 on the holistic scale. The standard deviation indicated that the 30 students who improved and the 10 who regressed did so substantially. Seventeen students showed no growth. The correlation between writing scores and the OPI indicated that student attitude orientations played a demonstrable role in writing ability, although this assessment was limited by the inconstancy of personality traits. Those whose writing regressed showed a positive relationship with the thinking introversion category on the OPI, a negative interest in complexity, a flexibility toward religious orientation indicating open-mindedness, and a low correlation with social introversion. The improved writers indicated a negative relationship with high impulse expression, and rated low on the anxiety scale. They also indicated high scores on the altruism scale. These results suggest that rethinking of the role of student personality and motivation in learning is necessary if teachers are to help students improve their writing. (Narrative assignments, evaluation criteria, and student writing samples are appended.) (HTH)