Educators are faced with many decisions regarding supporting students' writing. While writing achievement and curriculum-based measure scores provide numbers that are important for high-stakes decisions like determining special education eligibility, they do not provide educators with information on a student's explicit instruction needs. Written products can provide substantial information if educators know what to look for. This article offers five steps within an empirically supported framework to describe a student's writing at a finely grained level and connect their writing performance to instructional planning.