Rhonda Turner did an admirable job (several weeks ago now...whoops...) of presenting Kathleen Blake Yancey to the class. I am glad that she was able to contact Dr. Yancey directly as it was fascinating to hear the responses to her (Turner's) thoughtful questions direct from the source.
Like our esteemed presenter, I found Dr. Yancey's choice of most influential texts rather than people quite interesting. I think it says a lot about academics, and wonder how many of us would have to respond in the same fashion, choosing texts of one kind or another rather than people, if we were truly honest as to our biggest influences.
I have long been interested in the use of portfolio's in the classroom, but have never been sufficiently interested/motivated to get out and find the information necessary. Having seen this presentation and then done some reading (I read "Composition in a New Key" and "Palimpsest and Portfolios," both cited by Turner) I am now feeling much more motivated toward gathering the practical side of the information I would need to begin using portfolio assessment. In fact, it may become my big summer project this year (along with reading way more than is healthy for any one human being, and the usual summer job for a poor teacher and annual curriculum tweaks). The presentation of digital portfolio's was fascinating. I have offered the students in my classes the option of presenting a web page as one of their writing projects in connection with one of my favorite writing projects for years now (it is part of a Tom Romano inspired multi-genre project), however, I had never considered the possibility of making a general presentation format for all students of the type Turner demonstrated in class. I would like to learn more about both Portfolio assessment and digital portfolios for application in my own classroom.
In further reading that split off from these articles by Dr. Yancey I encountered two committee produced assessment pieces that she was a part of. The one I was most impressed by was the Position Statement written by the CCCC Committee on Assessment of which she was the chair at the time. The statement, while containing many of the weaknesses of documents of with its composition history (the over formal presentation, the strained stretching of positions to accomodate the wildly divergent views of a field like ours, etc.), offered several ideas that I found fascinating and that seem particular "Yanceyian" having learned about her work on assessment and on portfolios in particular.
One was that any piece of graded writing (and I believe that this would apply to anything given as a or as part of a summative assessment) should reflect the benefits of the entire writing process. In other words, it should be a drafted and revised paper rather than a composed at the moment piece. Interesting how our assessment often contradicts our teaching. Here we sit and preach process, process, process in terms of how to produce good writing, and then we assess writing by asking students to sit down and spur of the moment write up something that will see no revision, the barest possible minimum of editing, and no outside eyes at all for assessment of their writing skills. Interesting.
The second was that writing should not be assessed through a single piece, but always through multiple pieces - which would, by default, be by a portfolio of work. This was particularly interesting to me, when I read it as it coincided not only with the presentation info, but with an Elbow piece I had just read where he talked about having the students write and not grading anything until he had at least two pieces (drafts or different pieces I'm not entirely certain of at the moment; I don't think it matters much) in hand for the sake of comparison. Then he could point out comparative strengths and weaknesses from the student's own work, an idea I thought admirable.
In any case these two ideas on assessment made a lot of sense to me. I've questioned my teaching a lot in this class, but most has been an "Oooooh, what a cool idea I want to try that" feeling. This was more like "Ouch. She's write. This practice is unfair to my students." I think, judging by my own reaction to it, that - as far as my own immediate teaching practices - these may be the most impactful ideas I've run into this semester.
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