The New Mexico Portfolio Writing Assessment for grades 4 and 6 (optional for grade 8) is conducted each school year with a call for each student's best piece in March. All students in grades 4 and 6 participate, unless assessed as Limited English Proficient. This Teacher's Guide provides instructions for procedures to be followed throughout the school year in order to ensure standardization in grade 4 writing assessments. Procedures begin with required materials and the introduction of portfolios to students, and then move to working with practice prompts and the required prompts. Use of the portfolios and interpreting the results are discussed. Portfolios are scored holistically; and scoring guides are provided for narrative, expository, descriptive, and analytic writing. Each scoring guide contains examples of student writing at proficiency levels 1 through 6. The required prompts (topics for student writing) for 1992-93 are included in an addendum. (Contains 24 references.) (SLD)