Page 103 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of New Media On

72 CHAPTER 3

one might think, because faculty are measuring student and in-
structor achievement. Theoretically, these voices are correct. When
it comes to actual assessment practices, though, compositionists
should not be so convinced of the student-centeredness in these dis-
cussions. Far too frequently, we can read about and watch other in-
structors at all grade levels and across the curriculum drive the
criteria for what is "good" writing. Then the students' writing be-
comes measured in a teacher-centered manner. Although these dis-
cussions often result in well-intentioned actions and beliefs—such as
how writing socializes individuals and affirms their membership in
a community of scholars or thinkers - the conversations create a
strain on the concepts of community and writing by trying to estab-
lish a one-sided norm grounded in academic writing. In practice,
what emerges is a focus solely on writing conventions, structure,
grammar, and mechanics. Damn the ideas, unless the student
writers are skilled enough to articulate their views in flawless
standard American Edited English.
This approach promotes a double-bind circumstance. Critics of
writing programs and of Composition in general can argue that
writing instructors are blind to teaching critical thinking because
their red pens keep marking up the content. Should compositionists
put down their pens, these same critics can then wail that stan-
dards are falling in the institution's writing program. Either way,
the instructors take ownership of the students' work; in the first
instance by virtue of a heavy hand and in the second situation by
having to defend whatever their standards are for each class they
teach. The ones who produce the text, the students, are rendered si-
lent in both instances.
Although students do perform a task in a writing assessment
context, whether it is a conventional or alternative assessment,
how authentic can most assessments of learning be with a silent
partner? To draw on a business metaphor, a practice that is now
quite common in higher education, the silent partner invests most
of the capital and often has the greatest risk in a joint venture. Yet
the silent partner has no direct say in the active partners' transac-
tions. The silent partner is indeed an owner, just one who has no
voice or control. If we extend this idea to writing assessment as it is
currently practiced, even in online situations, the student as silent
partner is an owner of the text. She invests her intellectual capital