Teachers conducting a thematically organized literature-based reading program centered around student-led discussion groups wanted to explore ways in which the values they wanted to promote could be reflected in the ways they assessed their students. This study considers how valuing a broader scope of language and literacy abilities and making these values part of an assessment system played out in the case of one male student, a representative of a population of students for whom assessment has been a high stakes venture and traditional assessments usually led to their removal from regular education classes to special education, isolated from regular education peers. The student was in his first year of mainstreamed education, in a class of 23 students, having previously been in special education. The Michigan English Language Arts Framework provided a model for describing students' progress. All 23 students participated in three assessment activities: (1) a criterion-referenced test consisting of traditional comprehension and vocabulary tests; (2) a performance-based assessment test designed to parallel daily language and literacy events; and (3) a self-assessment activity in which students evaluated their book club participation and their reading log entries. The student's performance on the criterion-referenced test by itself probably would have prevented him from participating in regular fifth-grade reading activities, but the other assessments gave him better opportunities to demonstrate his understanding, as well as more experience in reading activities. Taking a broader perspective means he is more likely to avoid long-term tracking and to preserve his self-esteem. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables, and 11 references.) (SLD)