While the grading of student writing is of central concern to composition studies and to teaching, the process has not been clearly defined. The act of assigning a grade raises such issues as how teachers read student writing, whether form and content are of equal concern, what the purpose of grading is, and whether grading should take place at all. The vagueness of grading points to the complexity of the topic, which encompasses such matters as student peer review, psychometrics, student-teacher conferences, portfolios, collaborative learning, and English-as-a-Second-Language. Because of the centrality of grading and its complexity, the topic has generated a large body of literature.