Building Writing Center Assessments That Matter

Building Writing Center Assessments That Matter
Author: Ellen Schendel
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2012-10-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1457184478

No less than other divisions of the college or university, contemporary writing centers find themselves within a galaxy of competing questions and demands that relate to assessment—questions and demands that usually embed priorities from outside the purview of the writing center itself. Writing centers are used to certain kinds of assessment, both quantitative and qualitative, but are often unprepared to address larger institutional or societal issues. In Building Writing Center Assessments that Matter, Schendel and Macauley start from the kinds of assessment strengths already in place in writing centers, and they build a framework that can help writing centers satisfy local needs and put them in useful dialogue with the larger needs of their institutions, while staying rooted in writing assessment theory. The authors begin from the position that tutoring writers is already an assessment activity, and that good assessment practice (rooted in the work of Adler-Kassner, O'Neill, Moore, and Huot) already reflects the values of writing center theory and practice. They offer examples of assessments developed in local contexts, and of how assessment data built within those contexts can powerfully inform decisions and shape the futures of local writing centers. With additional contributions by Neal Lerner, Brian Huot and Nicole Caswell, and with a strong commitment to honoring on-site local needs, the volume does not advocate a one-size-fits-all answer. But, like the modeling often used in a writing consultation, examples here illustrate how important assessment principles have been applied in a range of local contexts. Ultimately, Building Writing Assessments that Matter describes a theory stance toward assessment for writing centers that honors the uniqueness of the writing center context, and examples of assessment in action that are concrete, manageable, portable, and adaptable.

Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies

Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies
Author: Asao B. Inoue
Publisher: Parlor Press LLC
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2015-11-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1602357757

In Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies, Asao B. Inoue theorizes classroom writing assessment as a complex system that is “more than” its interconnected elements. To explain how and why antiracist work in the writing classroom is vital to literacy learning, Inoue incorporates ideas about the white racial habitus that informs dominant discourses in the academy and other contexts.

Standing at the Threshold

Standing at the Threshold
Author: William J. Macauley
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2021-07-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1646420896

Standing at the Threshold articulates identity and role dissonances experienced by composition and rhetoric teaching assistants and reimagines the TAship within a larger professional development process. Current researchers and scholars have not fully explored the liminality of the profession’s traditional path to credentialing. This collection reconsiders these positions and their contributions to academic careers. These authors enrich the TA experience by supporting agency and self-efficacy, encouraging TAs to take active roles in understanding their positions and making the most of that experience. Many chapters are written by current or former TAs who are writing as a means of preparing, informing, and guiding new rhet/comp TAs, encouraging them to make choices about how they want to think through and participate in their teaching work. The first work on the market to delve deeply into the TAship itself and what it means for the larger discipline, Standing at the Threshold provides a rich new theorizing based in the real experiences and liminalities of teaching assistants in composition and rhetoric, approached from a productive array of perspectives. Contributors: Lew Caccia, Lillian Campbell, Rachel Donegan, Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannady, Jennifer K. Johnson, Ronda Leathers Dively, Faith Matzker, Jessica Restaino, Elizabeth Saur, Megan Schoettler, Kylee Thacker Maurer

Standards for the Assessment of Reading and Writing

Standards for the Assessment of Reading and Writing
Author: IRA/NCTE Joint Task Force on Assessment
Publisher: International Reading Assoc.
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2009-12-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0872077764

With this updated document, IRA and NCTE reaffirm their position that the primary purpose of assessment must be to improve teaching and learning for all students. Eleven core standards are presented and explained, and a helpful glossary makes this document suitable not only for educators but for parents, policymakers, school board members, and other stakeholders. Case studies of large-scale national tests and smaller scale classroom assessments (particularly in the context of RTI, or Response to Intervention) are used to highlight how assessments in use today do or do not meet the standards.

Labor-based Grading Contracts

Labor-based Grading Contracts
Author: Asao B. Inoue
Publisher: Wac Clearinghouse
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Academic writing
ISBN: 9781607329251

Asao B. Inoue argues for the use of labor-based grading contracts along with compassionate practices to determine course grades as a way to do social justice work with students.

Knowing What Students Know

Knowing What Students Know
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2001-10-27
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309293227

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.

Center Will Hold

Center Will Hold
Author: Michael Pemberton
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2003-12-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 087421484X

In The Center Will Hold, Pemberton and Kinkead have compiled a major volume of essays on the signal issues of scholarship that have established the writing center field and that the field must successfully address in the coming decade. The new century opens with new institutional, demographic, and financial challenges, and writing centers, in order to hold and extend their contribution to research, teaching, and service, must continuously engage those challenges. Appropriately, the editors offer the work of Muriel Harris as a key pivot point in the emergence of writing centers as sites of pedagogy and research. The volume develops themes that Harris first brought to the field, and contributors here offer explicit recognition of the role that Harris has played in the development of writing center theory and practice. But they also use her work as a springboard from which to provide reflective, descriptive, and predictive looks at the field.

ESL Writers

ESL Writers
Author: Bennett A. Rafoth
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780867095944

This book's focus on the different types of ESL learners, such as students from different countries, students of various academic levels, and Generation 1.5 Learners, is remarkable. It is a very useful book, and we frequently refer to it in our Writing Center. -Franziska Liebetanz Writing Center Director, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) Do you have second language students in your writing center? Do you have peer writing tutors? If so, here is the very book you and your tutors have been hoping for! -Harvey Kail Writing Center Coordinator, University of Maine The second edition of ESL Writers continues to be the single most useful resource for tutor education on ESL matters....Writing center professionals will find the text to be an invaluable addition to their staff education program. Writing center tutors and consultants will benefit from the comprehensive review of L2 tutoring practice. -Clint Gardner Former president, International Writing Centers Association Writing centers are seeing more and more kinds of ESL students. That's why the much-loved ESL Writers (winner of the International Writing Centers Association's Outstanding Scholarship Award for Best Book) has changed with the times to reflect the expanding diversity of writing center students. The Second Edition features five totally new essays and has been thoroughly revised to be more useful than ever. ESL Writers, Second Edition: expands the definition of students and tutors with respect to their linguistic backgrounds, describing specifically the characteristics of a variety of English learners, including bilingual writers, Generation 1.5ers, recent immigrants, and foreign students who need support with academic English in a new first chapter focuses greater attention on the diversity of cultural and literacy identities among students and tutors addresses tutors' most frequently asked questions about helping ESL writers with English grammar outlines methods for succeeding with tutoring ESL writers online as well as tips for common pitfalls. Filled with suggestions and strategies based on a rigorous combination of experience, research, and theory, ESL Writers, Second Edition, remains a tutor's top resource for working with English learners.

A Guide to Assessing Needs

A Guide to Assessing Needs
Author: Ryan Watkins
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2012-01-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821389017

Making informed decisions is the essential beginning to any successful development project. Before the project even begins, you can use needs assessment approaches to guide your decisions. This book is filled with practical strategies that can help you define the desired results and select the most appropriate activities for achieving them.

Writing for Scholarly Publication

Writing for Scholarly Publication
Author: Christine Pears Casanave
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2003-10-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135633940

This collection of first-person essays by established authors provides a wealth of support and insights for new and experienced academic writers in language education and multicultural studies. Although writing for publication is becoming increasingly important as these fields become both more professional and more competitive, few scholars talk candidly about their experiences negotiating a piece of writing into print. These essays will help researchers, practitioners, and graduate students expand their understanding of what it means--professionally and personally--to write for publication. Carefully crafted, focused, and provocative, the chapters in this volume document authors' experiences with a range of practical, political, and personal issues in writing for publication. Many portray the hardship and struggle that are not obvious in a finished piece of writing. Readers are encouraged to resonate with the events and issues portrayed, and to connect the narratives to their own lives. Practical information, such as contact information for journal and book publishers, manuscript guidelines, and useful books are included in appendices. Although organized thematically, the essays in Writing for Scholarly Publication: Behind the Scenes in Language Education overlap in many ways as each author considers multiple issues: *In the Introduction, the editors discuss key aspects of writing for scholarly publication, such as writing as situated practice, issues faced by newcomers, the construction of personal identity through writing, writing and transparency, facets of the interactive nature of scholarly writing, and intertwined political issues. *Part I focuses on issues and concerns faced by "Newcomers." *In Part II, "Negotiating and Interacting," the essays closely examine the interactions among authors, editors, manuscript reviewers, and collaborators; these interactions tend to be the least often discussed and these essays therefore offer readers fascinating insights into the sensitive social, political, and personal relationships among the many players in the scholarly writing game. *"Identity Construction" is addressed in Part III, where authors share their experiences with and reflections on the ways that professional writing helps them construct their identities as writers and scholars. *The essays in Part IV, "From the Periphery," help redefine what the notion of "periphery" might mean, from a concept with a negative connotation of "outsider" to a positive connotation of active and unconventional participant.