Page 190 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

REMEDIATING WRITING ASSESSMENT 157

capitalist thinking applied to education, in that the two reflect speed
and efficiency in textual production. Yet one—computers—reflects
the "new" and the other—assessment—the "old" technological
means of writing production. When old and new forms collide in a
context, one must give way to accommodate the other. In all likeli-
hood, if Thurow's analysis based on the suppression model holds
true, computer technology will subsume assessment technology in
some way, as the new eventually overtakes the old in both capital-
ism and education. In a different venue, Jay David Bolter and Rich-
ard Grusin (2000) called this process "remediation."
The hope is that writing teachers begin to take greater interest in
guiding the remediation process between computers and writing as-
sessment. From what the field has seen with the rise of computerized
grading software programs and the interest administrations have
with such software, a forced remediated writing assessment pro-
gram driven by speed, efficiency, and cost will benefit neither faculty
nor students. An imposed assessment system is frequently a poor as-
sessment system; generally, it is an assessment system that is cheap
to implement and outdated in terms of authenticity. Yet these inex-
pensive assessment programs usually depend on powerful vested in-
terests to promote the benefits of such systems. Writing teachers
who are aware of these predesigned writing assessment software
packages can develop stronger arguments against inauthentic com-
puter-based writing evaluation. There are far better ways to meld
computer usage with writing assessment than what composi-
tionists have been offered.

COMING TO VALUE REMEDIATED WRITING ASSESSMENT

We all see remediated writing assessment looming on the horizon
with Composition encouraging the use of e-portfolios in college
writing classes. Growing numbers of colleges and universities seem
intrigued by the use of e-portfolios for a culminating exit review of
students' work. However, only in rare instances do carefully at-
tended criteria exist for examining the e-portfolio. Most rubrics for
e-portfolios look somewhat like the rubrics used for print-based
portfolios, even though the texts within can vary dramatically.
Many instructors find print-based criteria stifling when applied to
genuine e-texts, because the guidelines do not account for important
elements that readers and teachers value in the e-text. Frustration