Huot is noted as a professor and director of composition at the University of Louisville. In this article he focuses on how assessment reflects or fails to reflect instructor philosophy. He questions whether assessment can become a process of learning rather than a summative act. He challenges that if grading serves only as distraction, or worse as a destructive force, students can be better served. He looks at the function of portfolios in composition instruction and as a tool for evaluation. The gap between teacher and student analysis is also brought into play with the suggestion that a portfolio may prompt students reflection in a more meaningful way.
If evaluation is the reflection of classroom values, then does the instructor's evaluative process reinforce or undermine intended modes of learning? If reflection cuts short the learning process, then it is certainly destructive. Huot does not explain precisely how "assessment is detrimental to the teaching and learning of writing" (174). Huot's concept of informative assessment leads directly to portfolio and process learning.
My original focus was to identify how the writing process breaks down through ineffective assessment. As students are rewarded for diligence they may be encourages at the price of content mastery. Looking for articles indicating how to evaluate in a productive and informative manner, as Huot discusses, I found a recurring theme of portfolio. This is shifting my focus to look more directly at how to create student ownership of the process of writing and also how to shift student perception of writing as product to writing as process. My next step is to evaluate how to balance assessment with a process empowering students, rather than discouraging or defeating them.
No comments:
Post a Comment