Murphy and O'Neill examine the landscape of high-stakes, test-based writing curriculum and assessment and propose a new way forward that centers student learning and success. The authors demonstrate how a test-based approach to accountability and current practices have undermined effective teaching and learning of writing.

Acknowledgements 1. Why Do We Need to Remodel Our Accountability and Assessment Systems and Why Now? What do we mean by assessment? How have high-stakes accountability policies impacted writing curriculum? 2. What Do Assessment Concepts Tell Us about the Limitations of Traditional Approaches to the Large-Scale Assessment of Writing? Reliability Validity Implications for rebuilding the system 3. How Have Theories of Writing and Learning Evolved? Conceptions of writing: Shifting toward the social Conceptions of writing: Emphasizing the social context Conceptions of learning: Shifting toward the social Implications of contemporary conceptions of writing and learning for the teaching of writing 4. Redesigning Assessments to Support Learning and Align with a Complex Cognitive and Social Construct of Writing Using assessment to promote learning Assessing a complex cognitive and socially situated construct of writing in large-scale systems Designing performance assessments and portfolios to support learning Taking social perspectives on learning, accountability, and assessment 5. Redesigning and Renovating Writing Assessment: Engaging Teachers and Students Investing in teachers and students Investing in teachers' professional development Involving teachers in the development and scoring of assessments Encouraging collaboration across different levels of the system Supporting and reinforcing the teacher's role in formative assessment Turning accountability inside out 6. An Ecological Approach to Writing Assessment Ecology in writing studies Writing assessment ecologies Ecological validity Taking an ecological approach to assessment