The central role of teachers' interpretive assessments in guiding the growth of young writers is explored. Theories of reader response and literary criticism have been used to design a framework that integrates what is read with what is written. The current context of writing assessment is explored, and some of the other authors' efforts to develop methods for the assessment of narrative are described. The program "Writing What You Read" emphasizes the analytic and integrated nature of narrative reading and narrative assessment. By learning to critique the craft of published authors, teachers and their students are provided with points of access into the world of creative narrative writing. A developmental perspective is offered in the genre-specific nature of story development and the development of children's writing. To aid teachers, a narrative feedback form to support student-teacher conferences and a narrative rubric to help teachers evaluate students' present understandings and future possibilities were developed. The feedback form allows for comment in the areas of theme, character, setting, plot, and communication, as well as convention and writing process. The rubric is a classroom measure with five evaluative scales for student writing. Some examples of student writing and the application of teacher evaluation are given. Three figures illustrate the discussion. (Contains 68 references.) (SLD)