The language arts department of an Arizona high school serving American Indian students developed a locally normed writing assessment to comply with a state mandate for the identification of limited English proficient (LEP) students. The members of the language arts department decided on a direct assessment of writing in which the student would respond to a set of comprehension questions about a story with cultural relevance for the school's population. Two forms of the test were developed, each containing a literal question, an interpretation question, and an evaluative question. The reading prompts chosen were culturally relevant and easy to read. Holistic scoring procedures based on a six-point scale were developed through pilot testing with 47 English-as-a-Second-Language students. The majority of the school's students then took the test to develop local norms. Two trained scorers independently scored each sample, with a third scorer used when scores differed significantly. Steps were taken to reduce the chance of scorer drift, scorer bias, and scoring errors of leniency and central tendency. High interscorer reliability was achieved, with over 60 percent of scores differing by 0 to 1 point. Appendices contain both forms of the test, scoring sheets, anchor papers, directions for administration, and scoring rubrics. (KS)