In this paper we describe four ways secondary pre-service teachers appeared to be developing assessment practices during field experience, after taking a content area literacy course. This paper arises from a multi-year study exploring pre-service and beginning content area teachers' use of literacy strategies in teaching mathematics, science, and other content areas. Pre-service teachers' descriptions of their teaching revealed how they understood assessment and literacy practices during field experience as intertwined and symbiotic. Pre-service teachers discussed the use of literacy strategies as multi-faceted and serving multiple assessment purposes in their classrooms, enabling them to better understand student learning by making the invisible processes of thinking visible.