Based on a writing program evaluation project that took place in the Ferguson-Florissant School District in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, this booklet provides administrators and policymakers with a plan for evaluating their own writing programs and also provides results of the Ferguson-Florissant evaluation. The first chapter contains introductory material on the importance of writing as a basic skill for young people, and describes the background and development of the writing program, which was based on the Bay Area Writing Project. The assessment project's methodology is spelled out in the second chapter, while the third chapter focuses on the research design and analysis. In the fourth chapter, the sampling procedures are described, while issues and procedures for data collection are emphasized in the fifth chapter (particularly holistic scoring methods). The sixth chapter explains how the data--six essays by each participating student--were prepared for scoring; the seventh chapter includes details of how the data were actually scored. Data analysis methods and the results of the Ferguson-Florissant study are contained in the eighth chapter, which reveals that students of teachers trained in the Bay Area Writing Project Model obtained the highest mean scores. The final chapter contains concluding remarks about the program's success, including seven principles about writing program evaluation. (SKC)