The purpose of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of a passage-copying measure that could be used to indicate general writing proficiency among secondary school English language learners. Participants were 57 students in 3 high school English as a second language classes. Alternate-form reliabilities for passage copying were generally in the moderate range; validity coefficients were also moderate. Sufficiently reliable and valid scoring procedures are identified for further study. (Contains 5 tables.)