This guide to different/alternative assessment was prepared for participants in the Rural School and Community Trust, formerly the Annenberg Rural Challenge. Given that Rural Trust participants focus on local place-based education and the relationship between rural schools and their communities, they are not, by and large, enamored of the externally-developed testing that has come to dominate schooling in America. This monograph briefly explains what's wrong with standardized tests and presents a detailed exposition of several assessment practices that aim to demonstrate student understanding through real-world problem solving and products of student work. These different/alternative assessment practices are also known as authentic assessments, performance assessments, educative assessments (formative evaluation), exhibitions, and portfolio assessment, among others. The monograph outlines principles of alternative assessments, recommends practices for designing different/alternative assessments, offers suggestions for constructing rubrics, and discusses ways to engage students in the evaluation criteria for quality performance. Specific examples are provided from various rural school communities that are constructing assessment procedures to reflect the quality of student work while centering student learning on the local community. An appendix presents a sample of a fifth-grade writing portfolio in a Vermont school. (Contains 16 references and 3 related Web sites.) (SV)