The Nevada Writing Assessment Program has been developed, implemented, and facilitated by Nevada classroom teachers, who have adapted, designed, and continually revised the scoring criteria; designed the assessment writing prompts; evaluated and chosen anchor papers; led the scoring sessions and read and scored the student papers; and made the classroom connections from assessment to instruction in order to improve student writing. Types of writing measured and their real world uses are: Narrative writing tells a story by sharing details of an experience; Expository writing instructs, gives information, or explains something about a topic; Persuasive writing gives a writer's opinion of a topic and tries to get the reader to agree; and Descriptive writing describes a person, place, thing, or idea. The Nevada Writing Assessment Program uses two types of direct writing assessment: holistic and analytic trait scoring. This guide is divided into the following sections: Introduction; Background and Purposes of Assessment; Scoring Rubrics; Eleventh Grade Sample Papers; Twelfth Grade Sample Papers; Eighth Grade Sample Papers; Fourth Grade Sample Papers; Writing for Assessment Tips; Trait Bookmarks for Classroom Use; Resources for Writing Teachers; and References for Writing Assessments. (NKA)