California has provided other states with an example of how not to assess student writing and has initiated a new direction in the statewide assessment of student writing achievement, a direction designed to influence writing instruction positively. Before 1987, the California Assessment Program (CAP) limited English skills assessment to multiple choice items. With the support of State Superintendent Bill Honig, however, CAP administrators have launched the CAP Direct Writing Assessment (CAP-DWA), which reflects the best of what is now known about the writing process from researchers and theorists such as James Britton and James Moffett and directly assesses various types of writing. The program focuses on the most important characteristics necessary to a particular type of writing rather than those that are common to all types of writing. Twenty exemplary writing teachers comprising the CAP Writing Development Team wrote prompts, scoring guides, and writing guides for each type of writing being assessed. After a trial assessment involving 20,000 students, the team successfully used these materials to train readers to score according to selected criteria from three categories: awareness of readers, presentation of problem, and argument for a solution. The CAP encourages school districts to refine their programs by using the teachers from the CAP Writing Development Team as a resource for workshops. It also provides examples of the prompts, makes the scoring guides public, and offers sample essays, commentaries, and reading lists. Thus, the CAP-DWA furnishes districts not only with data indicating students' writing achievement in a particular school, but also with specific information teachers can use to improve that achievement. (Information for ordering the "Writing Assessment Handbook: Grade 8," is included, as is a short bibliography.) (JD)