Page 157 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

124 CHAPTER 5

• On a regular basis, students display more knowledge about a
wider range of subjects than their professor has or expects the
students to know.

Assessment practices in computer-enhanced classrooms, then, re-
quire something more than an emphasis on skill or the manipula-
tion of rhetorical techniques. Assessment also has to extend beyond
the instructors' knowledge bases, because there are students who
have greater knowledge in some topic areas and perhaps an even
greater knowledge in technical ability. Moreover, writing assess-
ment designed to accommodate a growing institutional push to-
ward adopting computer-enhanced composition classes no longer
has to continue on a consumerist, colonialistic, nationalistic, or
corporatist path over who controls language use. Instead, techno-
logical convergence can offer instructors the opportunities to focus
on the independent and collective writing processes of our students
as well as the democratic use of information. The question is, Can
any of this be achieved through the convergence of two distinct
technologies used in the writing classroom?

DEVELOPING ASSESSMENT PRACTICES THAT ENCOURAGE
THE BEST OF HOT AND COOL TECHNOLOGIES
IN THE COMPUTER-ENHANCED CLASSROOM: SUBVERTING
THE LAW OF SUPPRESSION OF RADICAL POTENTIAL

Media theorist and University of Wales journalism professor Brian
Winston invented the phrase "law of suppression of radical poten-
tial" (1998, p. 69) to apply to the social, political, or economic con-
straints that slow or suppress the impact of new technological
advancements in a culture. In Composition's culture, whether re-
lated to the teaching of writing through the use of computers or to
assessment procedures, the law of suppression of radical potential
exits for the classic reasons that Winston outlined.

Needs of Institutions

There must exist an opportunity and a motivating reason for an in-
stitution to adopt new technologies. Innovation in computer-en-
hanced composition or in writing assessment will not be accepted
widely or solely on its merits. The institution has to see a clear social,
political, or economic benefit to develop innovative technologies.