The author provides a conceptual framework that illustrates the spectrum of authentic writing assignments and operationalizes authenticity, in an effort to guide practitioners toward crafting writing assignments that are meaningful for students by reflecting and replicating the kinds of writing that occur outside of the academic context. The author outlines the research on authentic writing assignments and examines latent authenticity and functional authenticity while providing examples to illustrate differences between the two. The author also discusses the mixing of different elements to create both latent and functional authentic writing assignments.