Page 201 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

168 CHAPTER 7

tures that reach out to the widest audience (right now, the texting
language) would be preferred for online writing. This may require
instructors to present a two-tiered language system, in which stu-
dents learn the conventions of edited American English for print-
based writing and the conventions for online communication (or
"wired English").
The question of standards in remediated writing assessment,
then, will be answered by repurposing what literacy standards are
and the relations these standards have to writing assessment in net-
worked environments. The process of repurposing writing stan-
dards simply means that instructors or programs must reconsider
or revise the reasons for why student writers generate electronic
texts. Any emerging standards will need to have a locus of authority
and meaning in relation to the types of texts and writing our stu-
dents complete for electronic communities. This suggests that a sig-
nificant amount of unpacking the criteria must be done for writing
instructors to discover what practices, what languages, and what
level of visual rhetoric are needed so student writers can be
successful in e-textual production.
Most likely, remediated standards will shift and be constructed
by varying contexts and situations. The hope for remediated writ-
ing standards is that teachers will be able to better create a set of cri-
teria that are fluid and flexible enough to accommodate a range of
student produced e-texts without sacrificing critical values that an
instructor or a program may have regarding writing. In the pro-
cess, these shifting standards will offer new understandings of lit-
eracy and new consequences for students not meeting criteria set
for e-texts. In the best possible scenario, remediated writing assess-
ment will be like ubiquitous computing — the standards will be em-
bedded into all forms of electronic writing to the degree that
students and instructors find it to be part of everyday experiences.
A cautionary note remains in writing assessment, whether in its
present stage or in a remediated form. There are dishonest students,
instructors, administrators, and legislators who undermine evalua-
tion through various dodgy uses of the data or input corruption.
Larger discussions need to happen with remediated writing assess-
ment to find ways that prevent misuse of these large database collec-
tions of student information without violating students' rights to
textual ownership, hindering student and instructor performance,
and misrepresenting the curriculum.