Based upon sociocultural theory, particularly the work of Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and Holland et al., this qualitative study provides in-depth case study analysis of successful teachers of writing and how they persist within their ever-changing classrooms. All four participants of this study attended the same local site of the National Writing Project, and they all taught in the same English department at a local high school. This study investigated how these four experienced and successful teachers of writing conceptualized and enacted writing in their teaching, in their school activities and in their lives. Semi-structured interviews were used to examine the dialogic, social, and cultural influences on the language the teachers employed to identify their conceptual understanding of writing. These interviews were supplemented with observations to provide insight into how these concepts were enacted in the classroom. Data sensitive category creation and discourse analysis (Gee, 2005) of transcripts of the teachers' language revealed how the participants' identities as teachers of writing influenced their behaviors in, their interpretation of, and continual engagement with their figured world in the institution of school.