As part of the test development process, this technical report is intended to present technical information from the tryout and pilot stages of the Michigan High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) in Communication Arts: Writing. There are four major parts to this report. Part 1, Evolution of the HSPT in Communication Arts: Writing, introduces the purpose, the legislation, and the committees involved in the test development. Development of the writing assessment framework and the framework structures is briefly described in this part. Part 2 provides an overview of the exercise development of the test. Part 3 summarizes the process used in sampling, the tryout design, the rating process for constructed-response questions, reader reliability, test statistics and analyses, and other technical issues for the HSPT in Communication Arts: Writing tryout and pilot administrations. Summary results from student and teacher surveys conducted during the tryout stage are included in Part 4. Appendixes contain lists of committee members; expert panel recommendations; holistic scorepoint descriptions; tryout and pilot statistics; survey instruments; and survey results. (RS)