Interview

Assessment as Opportunity: A Conversation with Brian Huot

Brian Huot is a distinguished scholar and teacher of writing who currently serves as the Writing Program Coordinator at Kent State University. Previously, he taught at the University of Louisville, where he directed the composition program from 1996 to 2004. Huot has conducted workshops, provided consulting, and written extensively on the subject of writing assessment, challenging writing teachers and writing programs to think of assessment as a constructive teaching tool rather than something to be feared, avoided, or ignored. On 27 October 2004, IW Editors Mary Bowman, Wade Mahon, and Sarah Pogell of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point spoke with Huot by telephone.

Articles

- Recovering Response: Emphasizing Writing as Relational Practice. Amy Ward Martin

Abstract: Peer response, one of the hallmarks of writing-as-process pedagogies, has instead come to reinscribe writing-as-product through its evolution into an evaluative measure in writing classrooms. Rather than viewing peer response as a way to help others with their writing and to solicit valuable feedback on their own writing, students have come to view peer response as yet another obstacle to surmount on the way to a final grade. However, by shifting the focus of grading in a writing class to students� written discussions of their writing processes (or metawritings) rather than the products of those processes and allowing students to play an active role in their evaluation through their designing of evaluation criteria, students can begin to see the value in peer response and feel freer to take risks with their writings, knowing that the �products� will not be evaluated.

- The Assessment Trick: Trial and Error in Assessing Temple University�s First-Year Writing Program. Christine Palumbo-DeSimone

Abstract: Periodic assessment is a crucial component of any writing program and often the initial assessment agenda can be quite ambitious, perhaps reflecting a desire for an assessment �silver bullet� that can shoot directly to the heart of both student proficiencies and programmatic standards and goals.  However, the grand expectations of writing assessment committees can be quickly deflated by the real logistic and pedagogical challenges of large-scale writing assessment.  This paper traces the steps�and missteps�of an assessment committee in a large university writing program working to design effective and efficient large-scale assessment instruments.  Ultimately, the true value in large-scale writing program assessment lies in seeing both the product and the process as an opening to lines of inquiry previously not considered

- Avoiding the Black Dot: Toward a Model of Fair Grading for Collaborative Writing. Mark Sutton 

Abstract: Students frequently resist participating in collaborative writing assignments because they fear they will be graded unfairly.  In order to overcome this resistance, instructors must be able to explain how students will be assessed, using criteria that students consider valid.  This paper argues that theories of fairness developed by social psychologists�called distributive, procedural, and group�could be a way to make this argument and to build a model for assessing collaborative writing, drawing on the results of a survey of first-year composition students who had completed collaborative assignments.

Reviews

What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Assessing Writing, by Bob Broad

Reviewed by William J. Carpenter

Tenured Bosses and Disposable Teachers: Writing Instruction in the Managed University, edited by Marc Bousquet, Tony Scott, and Leo Parascondola

Reviewed by Elaine E. Whitaker

Response to Reform: Composition and the Professionalization of Teaching, by Margaret J. Marshall

Reviewed by Wendy Olson

Innovative Approaches to Teaching Technical Communication, edited by Tracy Bridgeford, Karla Saari Kitalong, and Dickie Selfe

Reviewed by LeeAnne G. Kryder

From the Editors (pp.1-3)

Interview

-Perspectives on Professional Writing from an Academic and Practitioner: A Conversation with Lu Rehling (pp.4-24) 

Abstract: Since 1994, Lu Rehling has directed the Technical & Professional Writing Program at San Francisco State University, where she is a Professor in the College of Humanities. Previously, she taught at The University of Utah, Westminster College, and Salt Lake Community College. Lu also has over fifteen years of workplace experience as a writer, editor, trainer, consultant, and communications manager, including a position (during 2000-2002 leave-of-absence from academe) as Technical Publications Manager for AvantGo, Inc. Lu�s A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees are in English Language and Literature, from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has published widely in the fields of business, technical, and professional communication and is active in professional associations for both academics and practitioners. IW Editors Dan Dieterich, Wade Mahon, and Rebecca Stephens of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point spoke with Rehling in March 2004.

Articles

-Teaching Students What They Already Know: Student Writers as Genre Theorists.  Jeanne Marie Rose (pp.25-44) 

Abstract:  During the last two decades, literacy theorists in Australia and North America have been exploring various approaches to genre pedagogy. After reviewing these overlapping, yet competing, pedagogical trends, this paper describes an alternative approach to writing pedagogy, aligned with North American interest in genre as social action yet rooted in students� recognition of the habitual generic choices involved in all language use. By raising students� awareness of their tacit genre knowledge in order to promote active genre theorizing, this paper suggests, composition instructors encourage students to reflect upon and take responsibility for their writing choices, a shift that could have positive implications for students, teachers, and writing programs.

-Forging a Path from School to Work: Involving Students in Communication Consulting Projects.  Lynn Hanson. (pp. 45-59) 

Abstract:  Technical writing faculty who also serve as consultants in the field have opportunities to help students make the transition from classrooms to the workplace by involving them in consulting projects.¹ Working together on �real world� contracts can transform the teacher-student relationship into a manager-employee relationship, a shift that reinforces the reciprocal relationships among the academy, the workforce, and the community. Student and faculty successes in communication consulting then provide tangible evidence that communication skills taught in English programs and schools of Liberal Arts are valued in other arenas outside academia.

-An Integrated Approach to Teaching the Business Writing Unit Using the Business Plan Assignment.  Janet Mizrahi.  (pp. 60-69) 

Abstract:  To provide undergraduates with a realistic picture of professional workplace scenarios, a major team project to write a business plan is integrated into an introductory business writing course curriculum. Core business writing principles are stressed in shorter traditional assignments such as composing memos, e-mails, letters, short reports, etc., but links them to the larger, long-term assignment by tying the content of those assignments to the business plan. Combining all these objectives into a ten-week quarter requires a tightly configured schedule but ends up producing impressive projects.

Reviews

A Communion of Friendship: Literacy, Spiritual Practice, and Women in Recovery, by Beth Daniell

Reviewed by Anne Elrod (pp. 70-74)

Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition, by Anis Bawarshi

Reviewed by Cynthia R. Haller (pp. 74-78)

Embodied Rhetorics: Disability in Language and Culture, edited by James C. Wilson and Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson

Reviewed by Roy Vallis (pp. 78-83)

(Re)Articulating Writing Assessment for Teaching and Learning, by Brian Huot

Reviewed by Elaine E. Whitaker (pp. 83-86)

Strategies for Teaching First-Year Composition, edited by Duane Roen, Veronica Pantoja, Lauren Yena, Susan K. Miller, and Eric Waggoner

Reviewed by Philip Zwerling (pp. 86-90)