Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing Gregory Shafer Mott Community College

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Volume 31 | Issue 1 Article 7

2015 Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing Gregory Shafer Mott Community College

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Recommended Citation Shafer, Gregory (2015) "Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing," Language Arts Journal of Michigan: Vol. 31: Iss. 1, Article 7. Available at: https://doi.org/10.9707/2168-149X.2094

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Language Arts Journal of Michigan by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing

GREGORY SHAFER

“As standardized testing has swallowed up public education in the U.S. in the A Quick History of the Fight twenty-first century, its ravenous hunger intensifying yearly since the federal man- for Composition Classrooms date inaugurated by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind and perpetuated by President Obama’s Race to the Top, students have largely become test takers.” In the 1980s, when I was in col- —Robert Hatch lege and learning to teach English, the goal was to transcend narrow tests, to omewhere in our journey to elevate the progress and educational move beyond the constricting peda- achievement of our most challenged students, many of us who teach gogy that centered on numbers and composition have watched with consternation as our most revered theo- multiple choice exams. It was a time of ries of writing have melted away into yet another reason for testing and exciting research, much of it galvanized excessive accountability. With all of the good intentions that accompany by a movement away from prescrip- Sthe social worker or moral crusader, politicians and school administrators have tried tive, teacher-driven writing. Macrorie to convince us that rigid testing and placement help students to achieve more and spoke of new, more personal ways to become successful. do research, Bruner emphasized learn- And so, instead of portfolios and process we have Race to the Top, Common ing through discovery, and books like Core, and No Child Left Behind. By the time they reach college, writers have been Banesh Hoffman’s Tyranny of Testing fully acculturated into a system that measures skills and prescribes form, placing po- exhorted instructors to avoid the limi- litical games and academic literacy above self-actualizing communication. Perhaps it tations of testing and its tendency to is grounded in the frustration of seeing so little concrete progress among develop- usurp the language experience from mental or beginning writers, but in many classrooms across our country—includ- classrooms. Above all, there was a call for cultivating a writing program that ing my own department at Mott Community College—testing and placement have focused on the process, on the journey, usurped student freedom and transformed many writing classes into prescriptive on the self-actualization that occurred places where teachers teach grammar, use standardized books, and are expected to when one wrote in a progressive class- follow uniform rubrics for success. It is a lamentable result of best practice being room. supplanted by a confused political expediency. One of the most prominent voices How could this have happened? Where did it all begin? How did all of those in the 1980s was Stephen Tchudi, whose lofty discussions in graduate school about a process approach that would liberate books focused on the inimical effect of the student become a battery of tests that we somehow find not only palatable but the Back to Basics Movement and the preferable? It is tempting to suggest that it has never left—that testing and a top- pressure placed on teachers to standard- down approach to writing have always been present in our classrooms, either linger- ize their classrooms. In his 1980 book, ing in the periphery or standing at the head of the class. Such a theory would not be The ABCs of Literacy, Tchudi provides unreasonable, considering the fact that while composition programs have spent the a list of thirteen reasons why tests do last five decades advocating a process and post-process approach to the teaching of not work, suggesting that we distinguish writing, most political and educational bureaucrats have pushed a curriculum that between testing and evaluation and places numbers and skills as the goal of a successful education. It is a historical and reminding readers that “the question ideological tug-of-war that has left many of us filled with consternation. is not whether teachers will evaluate

LAJM, Fall 2015 39 Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing growth in literacy, but how” (p. 150). In focus on the writers, their growth terms that teachers were not doing their other words, nobody is against assess- through language, and the general no- jobs and that schools must do more to ment, but that does not mean we have tion that writing could become a part secure the nation’s security. Of course, to test, that does not mean that we con- of their existential linguistic experi- the main efficacy of the document was tort literacy evaluation into a regime that ence. Donald Graves was studying the its political and international theme. alienates students and makes them into acumen of young language users, and This was not simply another attack on robotic test takers. Denny Taylor was celebrating her book schools but on their failure to protect That was 1980. Two years earlier, Family Literacy—a work that evinced the the country by producing enough smart Peter Elbow had galvanized many in natural and totally social aspects of lan- people to win the Cold War. It was the writing world with his book Writing guage acquisition and growth. For per- clearly no accident that the conservative without Teachers (1978), a small, simply- haps the first time, teachers were being report couched everything in terms that written book that celebrated composi- told that language pedagogy was best related to Cold War rhetoric: tion as discovery, as imagination, as a taught from a bottom-up approach, one If an unfriendly foreign power had personal exploration. Elbow had been that focused on writers and the inherent attempted to impose on America influenced by Donald Murray and the abilities they brought to the classroom. the mediocre educational perfor- entire Expressivist position, which ar- mance that exists today, we might gued that writing was about personal well have viewed it as an act of war. Politics and Language empowerment and artistic vision. When As it happens, we have allowed it Instruction: Now You’re in Murray (1978) wrote that “the most ac- to happen to ourselves (as cited in- Real Trouble curate definition of writing, I believe, is Long, p. 11). that it is the process of using language In the midst of the linguistic and As a teacher in 1984, I was witness to discover meaning in experience and pedagogical euphoria—one that sug- to the impact of A Nation at Risk and to communicate it,” (1978 p. 122) he gested a paradigm shift--came Ronald the transformative influence on all that was suggesting that writing was a per- Reagan’s A Nation at Risk (1984). For I had learned and come to understand sonal act of creation and self-discovery. some reason unknown to any of us in graduate school about language learn- It was not, in contrast, about test scores, in graduate school, the writers of this ing. Suddenly, there was little room or impersonal school objectives, or stan- highly political and oftentimes incendi- patience for creative writing or portfo- dardized versions of literacy. ary document had not gotten the memo lios. Tests were again being stressed, and Later Elbow would be joined by about process and humanistic learning. the new word around the high school the social constructivists, who argued Indeed, A Nation at Risk was written in where I taught was accountability. that writing could not be removed from military terms, arguing that not only was When I submitted lesson plans, the social and political winds that forev- our educational system feckless and ir- my department chair examined them er imbued it with meaning. Paulo Freire responsible but was also endangering for skills being covered and the atten- (1988), Henry Giroux (2006), and Ira our entire country. One needs only to tion paid to tests that would later be Shor (1999) would contend that writ- read the opening lines to feel the puni- given. For someone who had just left ing—and education in general—had to tive and paternalistic tone of the docu- a graduate program at Michigan State militate against a “banking system” that ment: University—where my advisor had been inexorably removed it from its demo- Our nation is at risk. Our once editor of English Journal—the transi- cratic and egalitarian moorings. unchallenged preeminence in tion was nothing short of apoplectic. The 1980s was an incredibly ex- commerce, industry, science, and Like Dorothy, who realizes she is not citing time to be a graduate student in technological innovation is being in Kansas anymore, I learned within composition studies. Just a decade re- overtaken by competitors through- months of my first high school teach- moved from John Dixon’s Growth through out the world. (as cited in Long, ing job that countervailing winds were English and the Dartmouth Conference, p. 10). blowing through the language arts class- we were immersed in the optimism of The response to A Nation at Risk room. One was the voice of research a more humanistic approach to teach- could hardly be predicted. Dozens of and scholarship. It had dominated in ing writing. Now there was a chance to articles were written arguing in scathing graduate school and had celebrated the

40 laJM, Fall 2015 Gregory Shafer incredible acumen that students bring all conservative works, Hirsch sug- forced to adopt the culture of those who to class, urging me to build on that gested that students needed to be acc- had been their historical oppressors. In ability with process-oriented assign- ulturated, to be given and drilled in a essence, Hirsch was calling for an end to ments that transcended skills exercises common core of knowledge, so they complex thought and culturally diverse and five-paragraph themes. could be prepared for the literacy of the teaching methods. Indeed, how could The other, a more powerful wind, culture in which they lived. “At the heart one question the greatness of Andrew was blowing from outside the school of modern nationhood,” writes Hirsch Jackson and his genocide of the Cher- and was concerned with using fear (1987), “is the teaching of literacy and okee Indians if there was already an to move the population to embrace a common culture through a national accepted version of his record? How test scores and a general narrative that system of education.” Later, he adds, could one question the owning of slaves damned public schools so it could gen- “What is needed is a general education by Jefferson and Washington when the erate more interest in vouchers. De- in a common culture” (p. 73). common core of important knowledge spite what we had learned in graduate The response to Cultural Literacy had already been established? school, the message was clear: It was could not be anticipated and again Perhaps most revealing about the time to get back to basics through drill, represented a tidal wave of support lost battle for our composition class- memorization, and core values from the for a skills-based curriculum that was rooms is the fact that within a year of past. What was perhaps most upsetting antithetical to the cultural diversity the publication of Cultural Literacy came was how shrill and complete the politi- education being espoused in university the publication of Shirley Brice Heath’s cal voice was, and how decisively it had composition programs. More impor- Ways with Words (1988). In examining the won and had taken over the curriculum. two books, one recognizes the antitheti- Mary Hatwood Futrell, then president How could one question the cal theories they advance. While Hirsch of the National Education Association, greatness of Andrew Jack- suggests that learning is about acquiring explains the impact of A Nation at Risk son and his genocide of the a fixed and static body of knowledge, this way: Cherokee Indians if there was Heath contends that teaching success- As I was saying to my students not already an accepted version fully requires embracing the many lit- long ago, I can remember when it of his record? How could one eracies that permeate our classrooms. In came out and it didn’t matter if you question the owning of slaves her study of Trackton and Roadville— were looking at the morning news, by Jefferson and Washing- two communities populated by predom- the afternoon news, magazines, ton when the common core inately black or white students—Heath newspapers, it was everywhere. of important knowledge had came to appreciate the unique and rich And no one anticipated that it was already been established? literacies each community practiced going to have that kind of impact and valued. Equally important, she ar- (as cited in Graham, 2015). tantly, Cultural Literacy’s main premise gued that teachers were unsuccessful Why do we have standardized tests? was based on the idea that there was a in teaching both communities because Why do tests and skills-based pedagogy specific body of knowledge that should there was a distinct chasm separating consume much of our time? Consider be taught and tested. As with A Nation the school literacy from the ways with that just a few years after A Nation at at Risk, Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy sug- words embraced at home. Risk had staggered the country with gested that schools needed more con- For Heath (1988), the solution was worries about the future of our repub- trol over students and the content they to become ethnographers—to learn lic, conservative professor E.D. Hirsch learned. And so, African Americans about the lives and literacies of students published Cultural Literacy (1987). In it, should be taught the common culture and to incorporate them into the class- Hirsch rode the wave of skills-driven so they could be successful in a white room. Teachers became learners so they pedagogy in arguing that schools should world. could make connections between the teach a specific body of knowledge, a Of course, as Hirsch was loathe demands of the school and the worlds very focused, classical education, so to admit, in learning this common cul- of their students. “Within class work,” students could become better readers ture—which was anything but com- writes Heath, “the stress was on mak- by sharing a common culture. As with mon—minority students were being ing linkages between how the students

LAJM, Fall 2015 41 Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing learned information in their daily lives background. I suspect that if a survey beings. At the heart of the CTR—and and ways they could talk about these were given to teachers in my English de- the testing that often works congruently ways on a meta level” (p. 339). partment, more would know about Cul- with it—is the premise that “children In other words, while Hirsch was tural Literacy than about Ways with Words. are not capable of original thought” and urging teachers to impose a standard More would be able to tell me about “have little need to discover new ideas and very testable literacy on students Common Core than the work of James through writing” (Dornan, Rosen & from various cultures, Heath was exult- Paul Gee or James Berlin. Wilson, 2003, p. 223). More importantly, ing the experience of sharing cultures Put simply, the war to win the CTR removes the ideological or social and making them part of the academ- hearts and minds of not only the public aspects of writing from its instruction, ic setting. Unfortunately, while Ways but also many of our teachers has been assuming that all writing is done the with Words was celebrated in graduate won by those who know little about best same way and for a monolithic audi- classes, Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy be- practice, and it is reflected in our pres- ence. came a best-seller, landing the author ent policy to test both our students and In the CTR classroom, essays are on Sunday talk shows. In the end, it is teachers. Even many teachers accept the taught in uniform ways, without the not hard to guess which work became efficacy of tests, despite the very real consideration of diverse audiences or more prominent when educational questions about them in language peda- the adjustments to register that certain bureaucrats argued for certain pedagog- gogy. circumstances require. The writing pro- ical policies. Tests, five-paragraph themes, pre- cess is also treated as a rather static sys- scribed thesis and clincher sentences, tem, and teachers often demand that the The Lost Battle for Information and other teacher-driven assignments process—which is supposed to be there are part of a broader system of teaching to liberate the writer to explore—be The fact is, through much of our that has come to be called Current Tra- done in prescribed and predictable ways. history as teachers of English, we have ditional Rhetoric. Despite the fact that According to Crowley (1998), “Current seen political and media-driven docu- it was introduced in the late nineteenth traditional textbooks display no interest ments undermine virtually any sound century, the CTR continues to dominate in suiting discourses to the occasion for research on language pedagogy. Com- the teaching of English and works in which they are composed. Rather, they bine this with the disconcerting lack of concert with the theory that writing can collapse every composing occasion into background in composition and literacy be reduced to discreet skills that need to an ideal in which authors, readers and studies that many writing teachers have, be tested. According to Sharon Crow- messages are alike undistinguished” (p. and we see why tests and prescriptive ley (1996), “current traditional rhetoric 94). assignments and policies are so often maintains its hold on writing instruction Writing then, is not about compos- embraced. because it’s fully consonant with aca- ing in a dynamic and living social con- Indeed, when I was getting my doc- demic assumptions about the appropri- text—which reflects real life prose—but torate degree in English at the Univer- ate hierarchy of authority” (p. 66). forcing “students to repeatedly display sity of Michigan in the 1990s, virtually In other words, despite the revolu- their use of institutionally sanctioned no one in the department was specializ- tion of the 1960s and 1970s, culminat- forms” (p. 95). This, of course, justifies ing in composition theory, despite their ing with the works of Murray, Elbow, the monolithic thinking and tests that appointment to teach freshmen com- Judy, and Freire, most writing classes can treat all writing as simplistic. position. Many taught writing without maintain or stay loyal to the current The five-paragraph theme is per- any scholarly background because they traditional paradigm that has been her- haps the most notorious of the CTR, thought that common sense and hand- alded by people outside of composition and one can see how it fits into a test- books would guide them. Today, most programs. laden, teacher-centered curriculum. of my colleagues are trained as literature As we explore the prominence of First, if writing does not offer students teachers and have learned what little testing in language studies, we must first a place for social interaction and idea they know about composition theory appreciate that it is part of a philosophy, invention—engaging in a process that from their peers or former teachers— an approach to writing that treats stu- is both linguistic and personal—then all of whom had even less theoretical dent writers as rather passive, vacuous there is no need to involve the writer

42 laJM, Fall 2015 Gregory Shafer beyond the prescription of rules and model, students are given facts and rules Testing and CTR as Signs of rubrics. Typical of CTR is a class- and asked to apply them to their writ- Success room where students languish through ing in a methodical and orderly way. The teacher-directed lessons with very spe- process is linear and objective, and the Even a cursory examination of cific rules that need to be followed and basis for a successful paper is decided college programs reveals the incredible mastered. Such papers are easy to grade well before the writing ever begins. Stan- frenzy to test and measure students. At and test since the specific expectations dard English is right and other devia- my college, we have totally abandoned are uniform and impervious to the real tions are wrong. Thesis statements must any notion of student-initiative and world of writing. Paragraphs are often be put in certain places, and paragraph replaced it with a test for virtually any a certain length, the style is formal, and are expected to have a certain number class the student seeks to take. Want to introductions are always a funnel that of sentences. The audience and the lan- go into a literature class? Before doing culminates with a thesis. In essence, the guage to be used for that audience tends so, one must take a reading test, which academic writing class has created its to be monolithic as well. claims to be able to measure the abil- own standard that does not reflect the In transactional writing, students ity of the student to succeed in the diversity and dynamics of writing for become immersed in a more dynamic next class. Developmental students are real audiences. process of considering the specific au- subjected to tests before they can ad- Thus, we see the popularity of the- dience and goals for a paper and the vance into college-level writing, and programmed grammar tests have been sis statements, topic sentences, clincher language that must be used. The word mandated for all adjunct instructors. sentences, and “proper grammar.” transactional suggests an open and lively With the help of administration, which Eliminated from this static and anti- interaction with the many complex as- seeks to push students to graduation so social pedagogy is the complexity of pects of authoring a paper. Is the au- as to advertise their high success rate, authentic communication, the incred- dience liberal or conservative? Black, our department has initiated a program ible dynamics that decide how language white, Hispanic, or from another cul- is used and what makes it effective. that requires students to complete gram- ture, race, or ethnicity? Is the context Writing becomes monolithic and test- mar exams as part of their placement. for the writing formal or more relaxed, ing becomes as easy as multiple choice Our department has, with protests and how does that influence the style questions. “A frequent criticism of the only from a select few of us who did of the writing? Most importantly, the current traditional approach,” writes graduate work in composition pro- transactional writing model respects the James D. Williams (2014), “is that it grams, become test-driven and a part many dialects, the many Englishes that seems disconnected from the social as- of the Current Traditional model of pulse through and breathe life into our pects of writing” (p. 53). teaching. Indeed, many teachers proudly diverse communities. In responding to assign papers that mandated five para- the continued battle between these ways Tests and Language Arts graphs and that require specific “skills” of teaching, Patrick Shannon (2001) ar- Education in each paragraph. We are is a long way gues the following: from the euphoria that gripped us in the Which brings us back to the lam- rather than an established 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. entable proliferation of tests through curriculum designed to lead How then, do we combat this test the years. Despite several decades of re- students through a set of pre- mentality and the desire of so many search that suggest a process approach ordained skill exercises, ad- teachers to embrace the testing, pre- is most effective in teaching students vocates suggest schools and scriptive approach? The answer to the about an authentic language experience, classrooms as sites of inquiry first question lies in a concerted effort Current Traditional Rhetoric has domi- in which students investigate among teachers and administration to nated most language arts pedagogy. In their own questions, simul- embrace current theory, to promul- the words of Constance Weaver (1990), taneously learning language, gate the latest research, and to inform writing has embraced a “transmis- learning about language, and interested community members about sion model” of teaching rather than a learning through language. how language is actually learned. A nice “transactional” one. In the transmission (p. 21) place to start is with workshops and

LAJM, Fall 2015 43 Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing presentations, where the politics of teacher, “As an African American, I felt To transcend the limitations of the testing are confronted and plans can extra pressure to make sure I was writ- exam—whether it is multiple choice be made to offer alternatives. In an ef- ing in the dialect of the academic com- or a timed essay—is to appreciate the fort to better educate my own staff munity, and that takes more time—time complex nature of communication. and colleagues about the limitations of that is more of an imposition for minor- Once we come to terms with this, we placement tests at our college, I gave ities who do not practice this language can begin moving toward a college-wide a workshop on the writing exam and as regularly as white students.” system that reconfigures writing as a the reductive characteristics it contains. The writing exam, as with any test, heuristic act that is forever determined Tests, as a rule, are preferred by people measures the most minimal skills and by a unique context. With this in mind, outside of the classroom because of reduces writing to a formula that must we can at least improve the exam if that their easily accessible number, which be quickly cobbled together in an at- is what our institutions demand. purports to tell us all about the writer. tempt to satisfy a reader who rarely has One of the solutions comes in In fact, I suggest, one writing episode any connection with the writer. At the the work of Moore, O’Neil, and Huot only tells us about the limitations of the same time, the holistic ability of au- (2009), whose essay on writing exams suggests that the ideological and social tests and should be supplanted with a thors—their overall, long-term portfo- aspects of writing must be incorporated portfolio or some kind of holistic eval- lio—is completely ignored. uation. According to Ann Del Principe into any writing assessment: and Janine Graziano-King (2008): Alternatives to Writing Exams Developing writing assess- The direct assessment of writing ment procedures upon an As part of my workshop, I ask ability by means of timed writ- epistemological basis that hon- teachers to consider ways to combat the ing tests remains a commonplace ors local standards, includes a test mentality and to examine how we, method of assessing student abil- specific context for both the as teachers, can continue to engage stu- ity at the programmatic level de- composing and reading of dents in dynamic and complex writing spite the fact that much classroom student writing, and allows assessment practice has adopted assignments while also preparing them for the communal interpreta- portfolios as the method of choice for the challenges of a one-size-fits-all tion of written communica- (p.297). writing exam. Above all, it is essential tion is an important first step To better understand the limita- that we continue to teach writing as in furnishing a new theoretical tions and challenges of the timed writ- an artistic act, as a personal journey, as umbrella for assessing student ing exam, I asked fellow instructors to an experiment in knowing more about writing. (p. 561) take one. In being placed in the position a subject in an intimate and aesthetic Of special interest in examining of the student, teachers quickly come way—none of which can or should be their response is the significance placed to terms with the way the writing exam contorted into an exam. Those in the on the complexities of the writing act distorts the act of writing and severely post-process camp suggest that com- and the local production of writing truncates any process for planning and posing cannot be codified in a set of assessment. While conventional writ- discovery. Equally significant, it removes steps that become universal. ing exams have seen the context as monolithic, the authors rightly contend any aspect of the poetic from an act that In my presentation, I broach this that assessment designers must con- should be artistic as well as functional. issue and examine the myriad writing sider writing in certain rhetorical situ- And finally, they see how uncomfort- tasks that make up composing. In the ations—that acknowledges the socially able minority students can be in trying real world, we write to business people, dynamic aspects of language. Further, it to write in Standard White English with to lovers, to friends, and for the aes- is suggested that writing assessment be very challenging time constraints. thetic pleasure it brings us. In short, it a community project—not something “I didn’t like the fact that I was is a social, evanescent activity. It is not, that is imported from the outside. Ac- rushed to do something that meant in contrast “content to be mastered” cording to Moore, O’Neil, and Huot: nothing to me—that I was doing a pa- (Kastman Breuch, 2003, p. 113). It can per for someone or something else,” never be taught as a set “of codified When we begin to base writing argued one instructor. Added a second phrases” (p. 97). evaluation on the context of a

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specific rhetorical situation ad- produced and that respects the varied political and administrative currents that judged by experts from within a contexts of writing is best. have gotten us here. We must appreciate particular area, we can eliminate the One way to tailor an exam would the historic inertia of the Current Tradi- guessing students now go through be to create scenarios that give rise to tional model, the metrics that drive edu- in preparing for such examinations specific kinds of authentic writing. For cational debate, and the need to base our as well as the abstract debates and instance, an exam could ask a test taker pedagogy on what is known about writ- considerations about the best pro- to write a review of a popular rap or ing as an act of recursive stages—stages cedures for a wide variety of as- rock song, giving specifics from the that require time and consideration of sessment purposes. (p. 560) work and providing commentary on its context. While many of my colleagues Central to the quotation above is merits. In doing this, students would still believe in a numbers-driven assess- the idea that writing can no longer be not be limited by the ideas of Standard ment procedure, others are fighting to seen as it is in the Current Traditional White English and would be given li- maintain the integrity of the decades of model, where there is a uniform and cense to use non-standard expressions research that has shown writing to be static vision of literacy. Such approaches and words as they are deemed appropri- an act that engages those who do it in do not represent writing but academic ate. Secondly, the test would not require a dynamic and inexorably personal ex- obedience within a limited framework. the typical five-paragraph theme that periment in communication—one that They replace creation with coerced per- students have been conditioned to pro- can never be reduced to a formula and formance. duce like assembly-line workers. a number. In many ways, this would expand Our struggle at my college is typi- Exams That Allow for Time their literacy and challenge them in per- cal of the consternation many feel and Multiple Literacies sonal ways. Equally important, this exam as they see tests usurping decades of would allow students to work through- exciting research about composition The first step in transcending the out the day and perhaps return the next pedagogy. Part of the problem lies in limitations of the standardized test is to day to continue work. In allowing this, the convenience of tests and the satis- make it less standardized—to imbue it test takers are given the freedom that faction of the instant number. Another with some of the realities of authentic is often a part of real-world compos- problem lies in the disconcerting pau- discourse and to allow for multiple liter- ing and have the latitude to engage in city of teachers with composition back- acies in its production. In doing this, we revision and rethinking of their topic. grounds. No matter what the particular present students with a better setting for Not only would this provide for better challenges, we must forge on, demand- what real writing looks like and expand papers, but it would also give students ing more for our students and their writ- the notions of correctness and accept- some much needed practice in writing ing experiences. ability beyond the narrow parameters of and rewriting as professionals do. The the Current Traditional model. political and personal advantages are In this article, I have argued that best expressed by Henry Giroux (2006): tests are poor representations of a stu- At issue here is the development dent’s ability to write—that they are part of a pedagogy that replaces the of the legacy of the Current Traditional authoritarian language of recita- Rhetoric that has dominated composition with an approach that allows tion pedagogy. In providing an alterna- students to speak from their own tive to the test—which might be man- histories, collective memories and dated in many institutions—we would voices, while simultaneously chal- be wise to replicate the complicated and lenging the grounds on which recursive aspects of the author at work. knowledge and power are con- In addition, students would benefit structed and legitimated. (pp. 60- if the actual topics had more connec- 61) tion to discourses beyond the academy. But to do this, we must first, as If a test is mandated, one that is locally teachers at any level, understand the

LAJM, Fall 2015 45 Testing, Assessment, and the Teaching of Writing

References Greg Schafer is a frequent contributor to the LAJM. He Crowley, S. (1996). Around 1971: Current-traditional rheto- teaches at Mott Community College. ric and process models of composing. Composition in the twenty-first century: Crisis and change, 64-74. Crowley, S. (1998). Composition in the university. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Del Principe, A., & Graziano-King, J. (2008). When timing isn’t everything: Resisting the use of timed tests to assess writing ability. Teaching English in the Two Year College, 35(3), 297. Dornan, R. W., Rosen, L. M., & Wilson, M. J. (2003). Within and beyond the writing process in the secondary English classroom. Pearson College Division. Drechsel, J. (1999). Writing into silence: losing voice with writing assessment technology. Teaching English in the Two Year College 26(4), 380-387. Freire, P. (1988). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Giroux, H. (2006). The Giroux Reader. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Graham, E. (2013). ‘A nation at risk’ turns 30: Where did it take us? Today’s News from the National Education Associa- tion. Retrieved from http://neatoday.org. Hatch, R. (2014, September 13). Why I hate standardized tests: A teacher’s take on how to save public schools. Salon. Retrieved from salon.com. Heath, S B. (1988). Ways with words. New York, NY: Cam- bridge University Press. Hirsch, E.D. (1987). Cultural literacy. Boston: Houghton Mif- flin. Judy, S. (1980). The ABCs of literacy. New Yor, NY: Oxford University Press. Kastman Breuch, L. (2003). Post-process pedagogy: A philosophical exercise. Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Ed. Victor Villanueva. Urbana, IL: NCTE. pp. 97-126. Long, R. E. (1984). American Education. New York, NY: Wil- son Company. Moore, C., O’Neill, P., & Huot, B. (2009). Creating a culture of assessment in writing programs and beyond. College Composition and Communication, 61(1), 107-132. Murray, D. M. (1978). Internal revision: A process of dis covery. Research on Composing, 85-103. Weaver, C. (1990). Understanding whole language: From principles to practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Williams, J. (2014). Preparing to teach writing. New York, NY: Routledge.

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