Page 28 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of New Media On

INTRODUCTION xxvii

The reason for working through this timeline is not only to see the
complexity of Composition's cultural history related to computers
and writing assessment but also to note how the 30-year rule sets up
a type of spiraling path of development for each through the teach-
ing of writing. As writing assessment moves through Composition,
so does computer technology.
It is interesting to note how these two technologies intersect and
counter each other at various points in time. For example, just as
written entrance essay exams became a familiar item in the admis-
sions process, in 1919, the multiple-choice exam emerged. This
movement reflected a change in education's social conditions.
Learning had entered a period that had educators elevating a scien-
tific or behaviorist model as the way for measuring student
achievement. The behaviorist model of learning ushered in the no-
tion that writing, like other learning activities, could be machine
scored efficiently and effectively.
In Composition, the spiraling development of computer technol-
ogy and writing assessment appeared to take an almost clear
30-year path. In 1936, IBM established itself in the grading of essays
using the Markograph system. In 1966, a computerized parsing sys-
tem based on trins and proxes was created to measure discrete word
items in students' writing. Through various refinements in trins and
proxes word counts, by 1995, an essay grading software program
emerged. This idea was further expanded on until 1997 with soft-
ware packages like the Intelligent Essay Assessor (still patent pend-
ing), CyberQ, the commercialized Vantage system (now defunct),
and ETS's WritePlacer (now AccuPlacer), which emerged to handle
placement exams. Now, in mid-2004, Pearson Education has offered
The College Board use of its version of essay-grading software to
handle the 2005 SAT Essay Writing component. In essence, what has
happened to Composition's culture, just as what happens in most
cultures that rely on technology, is the idea of coevolution between
computers and writing assessment, that is, a series of changes in
technological means that respond to the "complex interplay of per-
ceived needs, competitive and political pressures, and social and
[other] technological innovations" (Fidler, 1997, p. 23).
Many of these perceived needs, competitive and political pres-
sures, and social or other innovations come from outside the field of
Composition. In the 1920s, only a couple of decades after Harvard
instituted its Freshman A model, compositionists could see the exter-