Assessment Philosophy
General Philosophy on Writing Assessment
At its root I believe that assessment is a tool meant for the benefit of our students’ education. In the past assessment has been used to actively gatekeep marginalized people from entering academia as Norbert Elliot (2005) accounts in On a Scale: A Social History of Writing Assessment in America. He powerfully when accounting the ETS testing system states, “the underlying fact is inescapable the ETS test system caused many individuals painful upheavals. Whenever widespread pain is inflicted to people, it is essential to ask why. It is important to keep in the forefront of any such inquiry the experience of victims”(p. 168). Another text giving accounts of our country’s flawed past with writing education is Jessica Enoch’s ( Refiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students 1865-1911 in which she chronicles how systems of oppression existed in our world and how a handful of female teachers sought to level the playing field and give those marginalized communities an education, one teaching as a member of that marginalized community. Our system is still very flawed where seemingly the level of k-12 writing education you receive is only as good as the area code in which you live in; especially Illinois, which to date has the largest educational disparity according to the Education Trust’s findings (Morgan & Amerikaner,2018, https://edtrust.org/resource/funding-gaps-2018/) where the communities who need funding and resources the most are not getting it.
Paretti and Powell (2009) in their book Assessment of Writing explore this disparity further in discussing how a lot of things in k-12 education can shape someone as a writer. They state:
Writing development, we believe, depends very heavily not only on cognitive development, but also on environmental factors such as the degree to which parents and teachers supported early childhood literacy activities including reading, speaking, and writing…Consequently, tests, depending on their design and content, encourage the development of certain types of writers. For example, impromptu essay exams reward- and, therefore, encourage the development of-writers who are able to develop ideas and draft quickly, and who, without response or revision, can produce first drafts that are clear, concise, organized, and relatively correct. Based on the results of these writing assessments, student writers are labeled in static and one-dimensional ways-e.g., basic, developmental, standard, or honors. Writing teachers, however, prefer to highlight the multiplicity of positions student writers may occupy—a novice or basic writer in one situation may be considered a much more accomplished, experienced writer in other circumstances. Writing teachers also attempt to appreciate the particular experiences of individual writers. For example, though we may all agree that certain types of early childhood literacy experiences can be traced to parents educational level and social class... We also understand that individuals within those groups will develop and perform in ways uncharacteristic of the group as a whole. It is the acknowledgment of these individual differences that help us meet the needs of all our students—not just specific groups of students. (p. 38).
It comes down to assessment and access to education. Your writing skills amount to what kind of k-12 education you received; which amounted to where you grew up, how much money your parents had/what their education was like, and what your teacher’s thought of your writing. These students enter college not knowing they carry this baggage, and they may have not had a teacher to help them unpack it yet. They believe they are “bad writers” and that any class with the words “writing” will be a huge struggle for them. But none of that is true. They are not bad writers; they just have not had the tools or training to express and communicate their thoughts and ideas properly. In a country where a majority of entry-level positions now require post-high school degrees and where most colleges require a version of first year composition courses as a graduation requirement; their economic well-being, self-esteem, and lives are in our hands. Composition instructors are the ultimate gatekeepers in higher academia, and our gates are held up by assessment.
This struggle is felt twice as much by neurodiverse students whose brains work differently from neurotypical students and will always work differently from neurotypical students. I myself have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and have a seizure disorder related to my Lupus. Growing up, I learned to some educators, I was a "bad writer," but to others, I was highly advanced for my age "good writer," who even won writing contests and awards for my work throughout my k-12 education. When I had an educator who labeled me as a "bad writer," I didn't understand why. My self-esteem would decrease and I would feel imposter syndrome and that I hadn't earned my awards or that my teachers who labeled me "bad writer" simply didn't like me, which would make me shut down and not want to do any work for that educator. It was not until taking a course on the assessment of writing that I learned the labels "good" and "bad" derived from an educator's assessment techniques and values. I was a "bad" writer to educators who placed grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting higher than content, organization, argument, and research integration. At the same time, I was a "good" even advanced-level writer for educators who held argument, content, organization, and research integration above grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting. It made me really upset to realize this. My self-esteem and self-worth, my writing education as a whole came down to this inconsistency between writing instructors. This followed me throughout my k-12, undergraduate degree, MFA, and even my PhD. It shaped what field I felt more accepted by. This realization hurt a lot that everything came down to this difference, and to think how many students were like me whose brains will always struggle with noticing punctuation, spelling errors, formatting hiccups, etc. Students who have not had the resources that I have now: writing centers, technology like Grammarly and Read & Write Gold. My heart broke at the thought of the mass number of people who think they are a "bad writer" or that all neurodiverse individuals are "bad writers" because of this difference in assessment philosophy. I thought of the great academics we will never have, the books we will never read, the movies/TV shows we will not see, the comics we won't read, the news articles we will never have, etc., all because of this inequity in writing assessment. This is my central driving force when I am assessing student writing. How can I help my students' writing get to the best place it can be? How will what I write as comments affect my students' perception of their own writing, and what are my ultimate purposes/goals of assessing this certain paper or content made?
White, Lutz & Kamusikiri (1996) state in their book Assessment of Writing Politics, Policies, Practices, that “Teachers generally experience two purposes for assessment: evaluation as an administrative sorting device, to make institutions more efficient, more accountable, and more objective; and evaluation as a personalized teaching device, to help students learn more effectively” (p. 12). I as an assessor, while I acknowledge the importance of the administrative side, lean heavily on it as a personalized teaching device. I want my students to learn from the feedback I am giving them. I want them to read the comments, know how to improve upon it for the next draft, gain something out of their assessment, and help it craft their individual style and voice. I want their work to be stronger coming out of my classroom, for them to feel more confident and know that they have been writers for years and will continue to be writers for years to come.
White, Lutz & Kamusikiri also mention, “when our students ask us whether a class topic will be on the test, they express the same view: if you really value it, you will assess it. The converse is also true: what you assess is what you value, whatever you assert” (p. 9). I wholeheartedly believe this. When you assess student writing and you give that rubric with point values, margin comments, etc. back; you are showing your students what you value as an educator. Growing up with ADHD I learned this firsthand as my instructors who valued grammar, spelling, and formatting often gave me poor grades and harsh comments telling me that my writing was disappointing, weak, below grade level, etc. Meanwhile, instructors who valued rhetoric, argumentation, idea generation, organization, flow, would give me outstanding praise and tell me that my writing was well above grade level. Before taking English 629 I was always confused about why there was such a drastic difference year to year as I got new writing teachers, but after reading Assessment of Writing Politics, Policies, Practices I learned that they were assessing my work through a lens of their beliefs and values. I never was a poor writer, my grammatical errors were just seen as bigger problems to some instructors versus others.
Therefore as I utilize assessment as an education tool, have a passion for fighting the injustices in our system, and know I need to prepare my students for an academia that will always have this discourse over what values constitute “good writing.” I have to incorporate all of these aspects into my assessment system. In writing, my biggest values are rhetorical content creation, argumentation, logical flow, and organization, original idea creation, and development of individual style/voice. To me, grammar, punctuation, spelling, correct capitalization, formatting, etc., are skills taught over time that can be corrected now with spellcheck, grammar check, and Grammarly, and ultimately always shown as flawless with AI programs like ChatGPT. Those skills I don’t value in my classroom that much. They are minuscule things that can be easily corrected by oneself, a writing lab, or the programs mentioned above. What can’t be fixed or computed is original idea formation, argumentation, logical flow/organization, and rhetorical content with an individual’s passion, knowledge, emotions, etc. That is what I want my students to learn and especially learn now in the wake of AI writing tools.
How do I do this, then? I champion the e-portfolio system in my classroom as a tool that not only aids in my assessment of their individual work; it also assesses my work in how I well I taught my students that semester. I can compare their e-portfolios and assess my own teaching, see where I might have dropped the ball a bit and refigure my own classroom. Peter Elbow in his article “Writing Assessment: Do it Better, Do it Less” states, “because students perform differently on different occasions, we simply cannot trust evidence about a student’s writing ability unless we see different pieces of writing, produced at different times, in different genres, directed to different audiences” (1996, p.120). Through the e-portfolio we get just that. We see the breadth of their work and how they chronologically improved over the course of the semester. They also show students how much they really learn in a semester by making them revisit works they may have forgotten they even wrote weeks prior. This gives them a higher sense of accomplishment at the end of a semester and helps them to see the value in their degree as making this very portfolio in this class has made me see.
When it comes to individual feedback, I have both a rubric with categories aligning with the outcomes of my class and the department’s desired outcomes. This rubric will allot point values in categories ranking from 1to 5, 5 being exceeds expectations and 1 being below expectations. This gives the student insight into not only my values, but how they are doing in those categories. They see what areas they are strong in and which ones need some work. I also give thorough feedback where I do some line by line mark up and give constructive criticism throughout their draft—knowing that writing is a process—and that my feedback’s job is to help them make this stronger for the next draft. While I have all of this numerical data and feedback for my students, this is for their benefit. In seeing these categories and numbers they can learn from them, and on the administrative side I have numerical data I can use in my research. They can be exposed to the rubric system and see how it operates, how a teacher uses it to assess, but also they might see it for how I see it; rather restricting. This is why I ultimately place an informed holistic grade on their paper. I want them to see my reasoning, I want them to see easily where they excelled and what they could improve upon, read the comments and know how to shape their draft for the next submission, but I don’t want a restrictive rubric stop what feels to me as an A paper, become a B-. It never feels right to me in grading. Over the years I have developed a good holistic sense for what things are A,B,C,D,F. Also I do not want my values I place in a rubric to restrict someone’s writing into a box which another instructor might have differing boxes in the first place. I view the rubric-informed holistic grade as that little freedom I have to both have the numbers so students and I can interpret them; and that ability to give them the grade they deserve.
Ultimately, I hope, through my assessment philosophy, I can help my students’ writing continue to strengthen, allow them to find their style/voice and use my assessments as a way to learn and improve their writing. I also wish to use my assessment strategies to continue to assess me as ultimately, I as a gatekeeper need to always be assessing, refiguring, and calibrating myself as an educator. I have seen faculty be burnt out and lose sight of who they are as an educator and their assessment/teaching philosophy they wrote in graduate school fades from their minds. I never want that to be me. I never want to be so fused to my ways that I cannot assess my teaching, my own assessment strategies; or not listen to other people when they critique mine. So, I view this assessment philosophy I write here in 2023 as my first draft, it is not complete nor will it ever be complete. It is a process never a product.
References
Elbow, P. (1996). Writing assessment: Do it better, do it less, Assessment of Writing: Politics, Policies, Practices. Edited by Edward M. White, William D. Lutz, & Sandra Kamuskiri. The Modern Language Association of America, p. 120-134.
Elliott, N. (2005). On a Scale: A Social History of Writing Assessment in America. Peter Lang.
Enoch, J. (2008). Refiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students, 1865-1911. Southern Illinois University Press.
Morgan, I. & Amerikaner, A. (Feb 27, 2018). Funding gaps 2018. The Education Trust. Retrieved from: https://edtrust.org/resource/funding-gaps-2018/.
White, E.M., Lutz, W.D., & Kamusikiri. (1996). Assessment of Writing: Politics, Policies, Practices. The Modern Language Association.
Paretti, M.C. & Powell, K.M. (2009). Assessment of Writing. Association Institutional Research.