Page 19 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

xvi INTRODUCTION
xvi

ions, values, skills, abilities, interests, and desires that follow. As
electronic genres like "blogging" blossom in the writing classroom
experience, issues of legitimation and power over language certainly
emerge. Instructors and students struggle over who "owns" the elec-
tronically produced classroom text, and such issues and tensions re-
quire mediation to provide a successful learning environment. Last,
determination in this new pedagogical realm needs consideration.
Determination is not simply instructors and students having the
fortitude to handle heretofore unimaginable difficulties with com-
puter malfunctions or software glitches. Rather, determination in
this new writing situation includes how these technologies influ-
ence, control, and govern how faculty and their programs construct
pedagogical goals and values related to all aspects of writing instruc-
tion. This determination includes how writing assessment enters
into the context for learning and how students respond to evalua-
tion. The role of how writing assessment influences, controls, and
governs curricula is becoming increasingly important in higher edu-
cation. As the technologies inherent in writing assessment come to-
gether with computer technologies in the writing classroom space,
various tensions emerge and reemerge.
This book attempts to explore what these tensions are as writing
assessment and computer technology converge on classroom
space. However, I can make no promises that this examination of
the issues can resolve the tensions. Perhaps no amount of study can
resolve the tensions that exist. The difficulties span political, eco-
nomic, philosophical, and pedagogical spectra. What I hope to offer
with this book is the opportunity for teachers to engage with each
other and with their administrations regarding how local issues,
tensions, and concerns might be addressed.
Clearly the rise in demand for both computer technology and as-
sessment technology ushers in significant pedagogical changes for
colleges and universities. As with any critical shift in education,
alarmist rhetoric is sure to be offered by many—whether triggered
by the opposition or by concerned allies. Currently, instructors see
this sort of rhetoric in the mounting calls for accountability on col-
lege campuses, the charges of lax standards in college-level writing,
and the suggestions that perhaps computers can "read" student es-
says better and more efficiently than professors can.
Many accusations circulate about the drop in standards sur-
rounding student literacy. Societal factors—family income, social