The document discusses various topics related to assessing writing, including what skills to test, how to design assessment tasks, and how to score writing. It describes microskills like spelling and grammar, and macroskills like organization and rhetorical forms. Assessment tasks can be imitative, intensive, responsive, or extensive writing. Scoring methods include holistic, primary trait, and analytic scoring. Responding to writing involves formative feedback on meaning, organization, and language use at different stages of the writing process.