Many local and state education agencies in the United States now mandate annual assessments of student writing ability. To comply with these mandates, schools across the country have developed a variety of assessment procedures. To determine the "state of the art" of large-scale writing assessment in the country, a questionnaire was sent to all 50 state education agencies and selected city agencies concerning their assessment practices. From those agencies responding to the questionnaire, 10 representing varying assessment philosophies were invited to send participants to a conference on assessment held in New Orleans. The purpose of this conference was to provide both verification and clarification of the questionnaire findings. In addition, the study drew data about assessment practices from schools throughout the state of Louisiana. These three activities yielded conclusions concerning such problems as (1) the selection of scoring procedures, (2) development of test items, (3) the selection and training of scorers, (4) the value and use of information produced by a writing sample, (5) the scoring of mechanics, and (6) other problems associated with large-scale assessment programs. (Appendixes contain a list of city school systems receiving the questionnaire, a copy of the Louisiana scoring guide for writing samples, and names of participants in the writing conference. Extensive tables of data are included in the paper.) (FL)