Present composition teaching and testing techniques do not formally capture student improvement across essays. Contract learning, a procedure in which student essays are error-analyzed for repeated mistakes, can do so. Correction of those repetitions becomes a set of goals on a written contract signed by the teacher and student, and the student works to accomplish the goals by the end of the term. Contract fulfillment may involve either remediation or self-motivation. Fulfillment is based on a slowing, stoppage, or reversal of error trends by the term's end. Contract results provide a new, individualized, criterion-referenced source of measurement information to be integrated with other criterion-referenced (task based) and norm-referenced (rank based) sources in an advancement decision using multiple references. Examples are given of this technique, based on 2 years of experience with the contract learning procedure. (Author/MSE)