As a graduate student planning to teach writing at college level, I'm seeking best practices in grading and assessing 21st-century writing. I created this research blog to post responses to scholars, methods, and ideas about assessing writing in digital environments that I study. I invite suggestions and feedback from experienced educators, graduate teaching assistants and graduate students of writing programs--what does and doesn't work in digital writing courses? Please post your comments below. I appreciate any research you recommend, particularly links to articles, videos, websites and blogs. - Karen Pressley, Kennesaw State University

Monday, March 14, 2011

Assessing Writing Assignments Using Social Media--How Now Do We Do It?

In my Digital Technology in the Writing Classroom graduate course, my group explored ideas (through a discussion thread) about how to integrate social media into in-class or online writing assignments. One student, Caitlin Martinez, initiated the idea of using blogging like freewriting. She would get the students to write blog posts at the beginning of class in response to reading assignments, with the goal of getting them to just think and write.  Another student, David Caudill, thought of students using Twitterfall in the writing classroom. His students would explore current events in the news via Twitterfall, then students would post tweets as freewriting based on the discussion. (As an alternate to tweeting, the students could post responses on a collaborative writing page). In either case, the class would review the writings together.

Another student hinted that she views computers as more of a hindrance to learning as they are not used for clear-cut purposes, but function more as entertainers and threats to achieving learning outcomes. Taking that teacher's opinions into account, I wondered whether my other classmates' ideas are merely a way of utilizing computers in the classroom, with no purpose?  I think not. These are both creative and productive ideas, as they contribute to the invention phase of the writing process, and thus serve a clear-cut purpose.  Both Martinez’s and Caudill’s ideas would engage students in the assignment by giving them a way to use social media during class time (to build skills in personal expression), but with the instructor’s intention to use it as a tool for freewriting.

As a writing instructor, my first thought goes to how to assess these types of writing activities.  I asked Martinez if she would do this as a graded activity--would students get points for participation, or what kind of incentive would we give the students to motivate them to write, and to write well?  She said she would assign a participation grade to the blogging rather than to grade a freewriting assignment according to quality.  Her goal for this activity would be helping students to express themselves and put their thoughts on paper/screen. Caudill’s goal was also focused toward the purpose of freewriting.

Both Martinez’s and Caudill’s ideas remind me of the work of expressivist composition scholar Peter Elbow. In “Some Thoughts on Expressive Discourse: A Review Essay” (1991), which I accessed in Norton’s Composition Studies, p. 935, he wrote, “The rhetorical expressionists viewed writing not as a rhetorical act or a practical means of communication but as a way of helping students become emotionally and psychologically healthier and happier, more fulfilled and self-actualized.” Martinez’s, Caudill’s, and Elbow’s goals, then, are less about the product and more about the student’s personal state following the process.

How do I add a quantitative assessment to this? Does an instructor need to? I think the answer is, I don’t. I don’t need to devise a different assessment method to this form of writing just because the students are using blogging or Twitterfall to freewrite.  I turned to the St. Martin’s Guide to Teaching Writing and reviewed the article, “Teaching Invention” (151-173). The article quotes extensively from Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers. He emphasizes the importance of not grading freewriting/invention exercises:


    “The requirement that the student never stop writing is matched by an equally powerful mandate to  the teacher: never grade or evaluate freewriting exercises in any way. You can collect and read them—they are often fascinating illustrations of the working of the mind—but they must not be judged. To judge or grade freewriting would obviate the purpose of the exercise; this writing is free, not to be held accountable in the same way as other, more structured kinds of writing.  Be use to tell students that you will not be grading their freewriting.  The value of freewriting lies in its capacity to release students from the often self-imposed halter of societal expectations. If you grade or judge such creations, you will convey the message that this writing is not free.” 

I think it's best to save assessments for other types of writing assignments where a grade is essential to help the student evaluate how he/she is progressing. This frees me to use social media and other digital technologies in the invention phase of the writing process, without having to devise an assessment method for this.  I do believe students are motivated by grades for completing assignments, or they won’t want to do them, so I’ll allocate a participation point system just for doing the post. But I won’t judge writing done in a freewriting context, whether it is done through blogging, tweeting, using a keyboard and word processor, or using pen and paper.

Thinking this through by reviewing others’ ideas enabled me to see that we don’t need to create a new assessment method each time we use a new technology in writing; we need to assess according to purpose and student outcomes. 

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