Page 113 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

80 CHAPTER 3

classrooms. Generally, the assessment procedures in place tread
heavily on a writer's choices, especially in large-scale approaches.
These teachers find that assessment frequently limits interactivity, as
the traditional rubrics preselect what characteristics a student writer
is expected to demonstrate in the finished piece. All of this is antitheti-
cal to the tenet in computer-based writing that the more choices for a
writer, the better to communicate with an audience. Moreover, these
instructors recognize the rights of students to own their texts and
make textual decisions—even in assessment situations—and this po-
sition often places them at loggerheads with others in their depart-
ments, their colleges, and in their communities who want to know
why students nowadays can't write.
To repeat the question posed at the beginning of this section, Can
students ever fully claim ownership of their written work in net-
worked classroom environments? In most cases, no. The traditional
classroom model of teacher overwriting or coproducing the text is
too ingrained in most writing instructors' pedagogical training. Un-
til composition pedagogy includes sections on how to work with
student writers as genuine authors who have real rights in online
writing, how to stop the grading hand from moving too quickly to-
ward a text, and how writing assessment needs to conform to the
purpose of the assignment, it seems that teachers overriding the
students' texts will continue.
Likewise, it appears nearly impossible for writing specialists to ever
fully evaluate an e-text that is completely owned by the student. If the
student truly owns the text, she is guaranteed certain rights and privi-
leges accorded to other authors. To be completely respectful of the stu-
dent as author, the instructor will more than likely have to revise her
assessment and teaching practices to reflect this change in the student
writer's status. This is especially true in networked environments,
where others' voices carry as much weight in assessing a student's
finished piece as the instructor's. Writing specialists will have to rene-
gotiate their role as single evaluator of the e-text to prevent overwrit-
ing and overriding the students' e-texts. The instructor's voice of the
assessor is just one of many in this converged, interactive form of
writing. Mechanisms can be put in place that allow others to respond
to the students' e-texts, such as a pop-up response form to review the
student's site or a short checklist with possible selections that visitors
can tick to record their perceptions of the student's site or hypertext.
Although the instructor can and should make comments, as should