Information on current trends and issues informally discussed and then delineated by the directors of six National Council of Teachers of English commissions, is presented in this 13th annual report. The commissions and their directors are: (1) Commission on Curriculum (Dorothy King); (2) Commission on Composition (Christine Kline); (3) Commission on Language (Roseann Duenas Gonzalez); (4) Commission on Literature (Carol Jago); (5) Commission on Reading (Diane Stephens); and (6) Commission on Media (Lawrence B. Fuller). Some of the subjects discussed in the report include: assessment issues in writing; the possibilities and constraints of technology (particularly the Internet) in the field of composition; the teaching of writing in both teacher preparation programs and graduate programs for returning teachers; an emerging tension between teaching skills in isolation and integrating language arts skills; the manipulation of curriculum by groups promoting their own economic or ideological concerns; conservative political discourses dominated by a language of exclusion; efforts of English Language Arts teachers to discuss issues of equity and social justice among all students; the growing use of multicultural literature in classrooms at every level; the "manufactured crisis" in reading; the Standards for the English Language Arts document; efforts to include media literacy standards in curriculum guidelines; reduced funding for institutions (such as public broadcasting) which have produced some of the better instructional materials dealing with media education; and the growing confusion among educators about how media literacy differs from mastery of technologies that have applications to traditional reading and writing pedagogies. (RS)