To examine the effects of background and personality on the attitudes of developing writers, a study surveyed and interviewed 17 high school students from a 1988 summer school writing class (an in-house Rural Scholars Program sponsored by the Continuing Education Office at Indiana University of Pennsylvania). Students completed a questionnaire about their home, school, and community, and each student was interviewed to verify answers on the questionnaire. The Daly and Miller Writing Apprehension Scale (WAS) was given to determine how students felt about writing, and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) was administered to determine personality traits. Two writing samples from each student were analyzed to correlate findings with results from the WAS and KTS, and two case studies were analyzed. Results revealed a significant correlation between writers' attitudes and their personality traits, writing apprehension, and writing background. Eight of the ten students who tested "extraversion" on the KTS were not writing apprehensive. The four students labeled "introversion" in their writing had no difficulty writing as long as it was teacher directed. (Case studies of two students and three figures are included, and three tables of data and 31 references are appended.) (MM)