Page 145 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

112 CHAPTER 4

calibration of sample essays or texts; rather, the function of assess-
ing for adequacy parallels the tasks of manuscript reviewers. The re-
viewers, chosen from members of a community, depend on their
experiences with the material in front of them (in this instance, sets
of student data archived online), to "accept, reject, or revise and sub-
mit (substantial revision or minor revision needed before decision
reached)" (in Huot & Williamson, 1993, p. 198). In assessing for ade-
quacy, students may learn to be more rigorous in showing compe-
tency compared with more traditional assessment settings. This is
because assessing for adequacy looks at students' real writing abili-
ties instead of measuring them against a generalized, idealized norm
of written competence. Broad's DCM model (2003) points us toward
a highly workable manner of assessing for adequacy in that the cri-
teria are localized for a series of courses, a set program, or an
institution based on the shared beliefs of the stakeholders involved
with the evaluation.
Because archived data can be included in this type of evaluation,
assessing for adequacy also allows for multidimensional plotting of
student progress, takes responding to a student's work out of the
linear numerical order that often substitutes for a grade, and pres-
ents responses in narrative (qualitative) forms that make better
sense to students, faculty committees, and program administrators
who may be unskilled or uncomfortable with quantitative research
methods and statistical evidence. The ability to measure writing in
this manner puts forward the position that the evaluators know the
community in which the writer writes and that they can be fairer in
their judgments about the material based on the evaluators' prior
experience with teaching similar courses and students' prior experi-
ences with writing in similar courses. Moreover, assessing for ade-
quacy respects the local conditions of the institution where a student
produces her assignments.
Smith's adequacy model is a reliable form of assessment for use with
e-texts because the categories (variables) from which an evaluator se-
lects a decision are limited enough to produce clear, consistent decisions.
In assessing for adequacy, writing specialists simply measure whether
the writing is acceptable for the situation. If the student's writing is not
acceptable, the distinction becomes whether more revision is needed or
whether the problems are severe enough to reject the piece completely.
For networked writing composed of many components, literacies, and
rhetorical strategies, assessing for adequacy is ideal. Instructors famil-