The Testing Trap is more than a catchy alliterative title; it is an apt metaphor for the situation currently experienced by America's K-12 teachers who find themselves pressured in both subtle and painfully obvious ways to teach to the expectations of state writing tests. In this meticulously crafted volume, George Hillocks, Jr. analyzes the writing tests used in Texas, Illinois, New York, Kentucky, and Oregon in order to demonstrate their influences on classroom instruction. By choosing states with widely differing writing tests, he is able to reveal how each test shapes the concept of "good writing" within the state that uses it. Although Hillocks' analysis of the evidence from these five states strongly suggests that most current state writing tests promote neither good writing nor good writing instruction, the real value of this volume lies in his thorough exploration of the reasons for these failures.

Guided by evidence that portfolios have a chameleon like ability to adapt themselves to diverse environments, Sandra Murphy and Terry Underwood have analyzed eight portfolio systems that represent a range of roles formal portfolio assessment was asked to play in the late 1980s and early 1990s. To date, university portfolio systems have been studied much more extensively than those developed for K-12 students, so this volume provides much needed information about how portfolios have been used to assess younger students and their writing programs. Murphy and Underwood limit themselves to systems created in the public schools that were designed to be read outside individual classrooms. The eight portfolio systems that form the heart of the book range in size from departmental experiments to the national New Standards Project, and range in purpose from a desire to integrate Navajo culture within coursework and assessment to a state-mandated effort to hold teachers accountable for student learning.