Holistic Writing Assessment Circa 1980
As distinguished from standardized tests of editing skills
My first brush with holistic writing assessment came out of the blue. I was working as a graduate assistant at Illinois State University in 1975 and teaching sections of Freshman Composition while taking courses in English and American Literature, Composition and Rhetoric, and Linguistics.
One professor whom I assisted had me scouring the microfiche for historical information about American author Joseph Hergesheimer in the 1920s; another was studying the reasons for inconsistency among professors in their grading of student compositions.
This professor put together recyclable packets of essays, asked instructors blind to student or assignment to grade the essays, and provide reasons. I don’t recall much of the methodology. But I was stunned by the variability of grades. An essay could as easily draw an F as an A.
This was the year Paul Deiderich invented a Swiss army knife of a writing rubric that came to be known as “Six Trait.” I’ve chaired Master student projects created as professional development materials around teaching these traits. Paul Deiderich found a like mind in Miles Myers, a founder of the Bay Area Writing Project, who was a saint of the safe and sane assessment of writing.
Miles and NCTE published a revolutionary little pamphlet in 1980 that remains the gold standard manual for doing on-demand locally designed writing assessment.1 I’ve used it on several occasions as both local assessment and teaching practice. Here is what Miles wrote 42 years ago about grading:
I distinguish between assessment and evaluation as follows: Writing assessors focus on written products and processes to discern and communicate useful information in a reliable and consistent manner as feedback to enhance learning. An objective observer can give useful feedback to writers to impact not just this piece of writing, but the next, not just this lesson plan, but the next, not just this year’s curriculum and instruction, but the next. Grades are final judgments that speak to the past.
Miles published student Anchor essays in his booklet of some 70 pages. He commented on what he saw in these essays to pave the way for improvement. Assessment should speak to the future. Here he speaks to us:
An aside: Try this in prison.
Portfolios of writing with contextual information and learner reflection (written or taped), Miles would later argue, could lay a foundation for critical feedback through referencing external standards, placing a public value on text. Students at some point become citizens who participate in public discourse. For example, I’ve long had the itch to write a screen play. I would need considerable instruction and critical feedback to produce deliverable text. I’d love to try it someday.
I’ll have much more to say about writing assessment. As I say, it came at me out of the blue.
What kinds of academic writing are happening in your world? What would you find useful or interesting to discuss in this realm? What are you seeing going on with writing among the toddlers in your sphere? Writing is the engine that drives reading; together they make an information and enlightenment transportation system.
.
https://www.amazon.com/Procedure-Writing-Assessment-Holistic-Scoring/dp/B005AQ9NUC