Page 197 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

164 CHAPTER 7

to become more objective as more technology is introduced into the
writing class.
Many proponents of traditional writing standards see hope for
computer technology only when it blends with writing assessment
in conventional ways. The current push for traditional assessment
standards melding with computer technology in forms like the In-
telligent Essay Assessor, E-rater, and other software programs pro-
vides a false sense of establishing objective standards that appear to
be endlessly repeated across time and space. The developers' notion
that these assessment programs are objective is specious: There are
human agents programming the algorithms found within these
assessment tools, ensuring that certain content is highlighted over
other content, specific linguistic structures preferred over other
forms. These agents compose the desired criteria and then have the
machine control the processing. The result is not objective; rather,
the result is a Fordist-style efficiency of mass grading student es-
says. This type of assessment is fine if learning is done in Henry
Ford's Model T approach—one style, all in one tone. But as writing
instructors have found with many writing assignments, learning
does not occur in one style or all in one tone. This is particularly the
case with students generating e-texts; reproducing a set format not
only is undesirable but is a fiction exposed by the polyvocal and
polyvalent nature of e-texts. The continual collection of various
data forms will create a genuine objective data flow for evalua-
tion—the student writing will exist in multiple formats for instruc-
tors to examine either summatively, formatively, or in both
manners depending on the questions asked of the evaluation and
the program's expectations.
A second problem with the current crop of computerized writing
assessment programs is that no sense of immediacy exists in this
type of writing assessment. An important thread to consider in this
problem is how student learning will be affected, especially in the
early stages of implementation, when students realize their work
will be constantly recorded and subject to continual evaluation if
the program or instructor so chooses.
Student writers will always be highly conscious of the assessment
medium's presence. In the current crop of electronic writing assess-
ment instruments, this is of particular concern, because the soft-
ware makes the computer the focus of the assessment. As
Negroponte (1995) observed, a strong interface design is transpar-