Key Quotes and Questions In Writing Assessment
Neal
“Digitalized writing assessments are not necessarily better than their lower-tech predecessors, nor should we fall into the trap of false nostalgia that assumes older ways of assessing writing are somehow purer and thus superior to newer methods (59).”
“The rhetorical nature of reading and writing is the hill on which teachers of writing should make our stand against the pervasive notion that machines can do the work of assessing student writing and that they can do it better since they are objective and reliable (67).”
What are we defining as reliable? What are these mythical few reliable methods of mechanized assessment like?
Webber
“…by encouraging us to work publicly from the terms of reform, reframing dis- counts the power of realist style to narrow and constrain the participation of the publics served by reform. And by disciplining public critique, reframing discourages us from tapping into the public inquiry and participation that could authorize our professionalism as publicly representative (134).”
“When we create opportunities for parents, teachers, and administrators to assess the assessments, our critiques of machine scoring may not only issue expert denunciations but also foster public participation in reform (135).”
“A turn toward sponsoring students’ public inquiry would recognize that we in composition need a basis for our professionalism that is broader than the redirection of neoliberal reform or the reassertion of our expertise (139).”
If we aren’t basing our profession on our expertise, what in the world should we base it on?
Haswell
“I want to argue the obvious point that for writing teachers commercial machine scoring is largely a black box and the less obvious point that for writing teachers, even for those who participate in it, even for those who help construct and administer it, holistic scoring is also largely a black box (68).”
“…we need to avoid treating evaluation of writing in general as a black box, need to keep exploring every evaluative procedure until it becomes as much of a white box as we can make it (75).”
“We need to fight our own internal forces that work against good evaluation. Above all, we have to resist the notion of diagnostic response as rote drudgery, recognize it for what it is, a skill indeed—a difficult, complex, and rewarding skill requiring elastic intelligence and long experience. Good diagnosis of student writing should not be construed as easy, for the simple reason that it is never easy (77).”
It’s not obvious to me! What is holistic scoring in this context? Scoring by a group?
