Assessing and responding to student writing is an area that particularly interests me, something that I am considering for a thesis area. I think what intrigues me most about this area is something I hear from my new SIs every semester: "I know there is a problem with this student paper, but I'm not exactly sure what it is or how to tell this student how to fix it." I think this is a challenge for everyone who reads student work. If we were reading (or viewing or listening as the case may be) to student work as an editor, it would be easy to point out where we would make changes. But when we assess or respond to student work as teachers, the issue is much more complex. We must think realize the student is the author of the work, so we shouldn't be trying to change it or alter it in a way that imposes our purpose over the student's purpose. Instead, we should be using formative assessment to help students evaluate and achieve their own goals. And we should be using summative assessment to determine whether a student met his or her own goal.
Formative Assessment
The progress journal mentioned in the Selfe text is one innovative way to help teachers and students alike strive toward an ultimate goal in their multimodal composition. Like these kinds of formative assessments do in the strictly written composition classroom, progress journals do a good job of allowing students and teachers to keep track of where they are in a project, along with the steps that they need to take to continue. A few versions of this that teacher friends of mine have used are as follows:
1. The Writing Process Pegs: I saw this during the NWIWP institute in 2009. Students would have a small piece of yarn featuring a charm with their name on it. A set of pegs that were labeled with the different steps in the writing process would be at the front of the room. Students would put their names on the peg that best represented where they were in the writing process. Then, students and teachers could discuss in private what needed to be done to advance to the next step, or if the student should take a step back.
2. Status of the Class Conference: To keep her freshman English class on task, a friend of mine would take a "status of the class conference," asking each student where they were in their project and writing it down on a piece of paper. This helped the students feel accountable.
3. Cumulative Progress Journal: Some teachers, like those in the Selfe text, keep a progress journal during an entire semester or course so they can track what concepts their students get the hang of and which ones they are still struggling with.
Each of these ideas can be easily applied to the multimodal project, and I think many of them can be used even more appropriately with this type of project. As the Selfe text suggests, many students become so engaged in their multimodal projects that they find it difficult to stop and turn the project in. They find that there's always something that can be done. In addition, as the Selfe text suggests, some students won't admit when they need help with a multimodal project. For this reason, status of the class conferences, writing process pegs, and progress journals can help the student and teacher stay in communication and on task with the project.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment is a difficult area for me to discuss because I greatly dislike grades and wish we could go to a system where they are not used. However, because they must be used, I find the rubric the best way to evaluate students. A rubric gives students a clear explanation of what is expected in an assignment. However, I think a weighted rubric is best in the case of a multimodal assignment, a rubric that shows content as more important than technicalities, similar to the rubric listed in the Selfe text. In addition, I think summative assessment should take into consideration the progress the student has made throughout the year or semester. A student who began at the level of C but ended class at the level of A, therefore, I think should be given an A.
Understanding how to assess and respond to multimodal assignments seems challenging to be, someone who has not yet viewed a great deal of these kinds of assignments. However, as the Selfe text points out, all essay crafting is about good rhetorical decisions. Assessing a student based on these components in a multimodal assignment makes the prospect of grading multimodal assignments less harrowing.
I wonder if there could be classes where the instructor actually does edit the student’s paper, to play the Devil’s advocate. Just one class, like maybe a class that focuses on publishing your writing or freelance writing, since editing is such a significant reality in the professional writing world. Having the instructor edit the student’s work and point out what edits were made while explaining them should be something that is done very rarely, if it’s done at all, just to give students experience with negotiating with editors. For example, the instructor might ask students to defend certain writing decisions and explain why they made them.
ReplyDeleteTo be somewhat controversial again, given the workload of writing instructors and given the fact that students don’t always read the summative instructor comments, maybe instructors could ask students if they would like summative comments. Some students might agree so that they can improve their overall writing ability for later classes.
Rubrics are excellent formats for students to use in the project creations. They give the students guidelines and goals to aim for.
ReplyDeleteSome students are extremely motivated by getting the good grades especially that A. A "gradeless" system would take a lot of adjusting, too.It is a very diplomatic idea and an ideal to shoot for though.