This handbook is one of a series developed by the Texas Education Agency in response to requests to provide schools with additional information concerning the written composition portion of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). The handbook focuses on grades 1 through 3. Following an introduction, the handbook is in two parts. Part 1 contains general information on the writing process and how that process applies to the TAAS writing test. This section includes discussions of prewriting, elaboration, revision, and editing. Part 2 shows the scoring criteria and sample papers with detailed annotations for each type of writing eligible for testing at Grade 3: informative/descriptive, expressive/narrative, and informative/narrative ("how to"). Three appendixes present TAAS writing objectives and instructional targets for grade 3, an explanation of purpose/mode at grade 3, and eligible types of writing at grade 3. (SR)