Four papers describe a study of the use of holistic writing assessment procedures in a pretest and posttest manner to determine improvement of 10th graders' writing skills. "Problem and Context" (James E. McLean) briefly describes the project and introduces the other three papers. "Holistic Scoring Procedures for Scoring Writing Samples" (Sybil A. Hobson and D. Joyce Steele) describes use of the holistic procedure for scoring the pre- and post-writing samples collected by the project. The need for a homogeneous group of scorers with similar backgrounds who are open to using prescribed scoring methods is discussed. "Reliability of the Holistic Scoring Procedures for the Blue Ribbon Committee Writing Assessment" (Margaret L. Glowacki) assesses the reliability of holistic scoring for two groups of readers (retired teachers trained in holistic scoring specifically for the project and experienced holistic readers). Controlled essay reading, scoring criteria guide, sample papers, checks on reading in progress, multiple independent scoring, and evaluation and record keeping were used. "Validity of the Writing Assessment" (Marcia R. O'Neal) addresses the validity of the writing assessment, using data for 484 10th grade students in Alabama participating in the fall 1991 pretest and spring 1992 posttest. This study provides some limited evidence for the validity of the writing assessment as used in the Blue Ribbon Committee Project. Writing outcomes measure characteristics similar but not identical to those measured by objective methods. Data show stronger relationships with theoretically similar measures. (RLC)