{"id":57,"date":"2024-07-21T15:16:55","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T22:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/antiracisttoolkit\/?page_id=57"},"modified":"2024-10-22T14:23:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T21:23:40","slug":"assessing-student-writing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/antiracisttoolkit\/guidebook\/assessing-student-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Assessing Student Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr. Katie Fitzpatrick<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the opening of his book, Labor-Based Grading Contracts, Asao Inoue (2019) writes:<\/p>\n

\u200bIt is often believed falsely that grading is just an institutional necessity, something we can ask students to ignore, at least while they are learning. But to attempt to do that is to ignore the way grades work in classrooms, how they shape many aspects of the entire ecology, how they influence students\u2019 and teachers\u2019 actions. Not thinking of assessment first, or at least simultaneously with pedagogy, is a mistake. And our students who do not already come to us embodying a dominant English will pay for it, even when our intentions are to help those very students. (p.2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Inoue suggests, the pressure of assessment tends to permeate the classroom\u2014and the effects of that pressure may overwhelm other anti-racist aspects of your pedagogy. It is therefore vital to consider anti-racist approaches to grading and feedback.<\/p>\n

Writing Assessment and Structural Racism<\/h2>\n

The powerful negative effects of assessment may be even more pronounced in the writing classroom since writing and language assessment have long been connected with structural racism. In the US, \u201cstandardized English-centric writing assessment in the US emerged alongside (and was used to advance) anti-immigrant nativism, anti-blackness, colonialism, and the eugenics movement\u201d (Gere et al., 2021, p. 389), while in Canada, the enforced use of English or French at Residential Schools played a key role in the ongoing cultural genocide against Indigenous Peoples. At most universities, the assessments given in writing courses are also treated as \u201cjudgments made about who does and does not deserve opportunities for success,\u201d including access to programs, majors, scholarships, or employment (Perryman-Clark, 2016, p. 206). Writing classrooms where traditional assessment structures remain unchallenged play an active role in perpetuating these problems, purporting to distinguish \u201cgood\u201d from \u201cbad\u201d writing (and writers) on the basis of dominant (implicitly White) standards.<\/p>\n

Questioning Your Practices<\/h2>\n

In working to challenge your own traditional assessment practices, you might ask yourself:<\/p>\n