This edited collection provides the first principled examination of social justice and the advancement of opportunity as the aim and consequence of writing assessment. Contributors to the volume offer interventions in historiographic studies, justice-focused applications in admission and placement assessment, innovative frameworks for outcomes design, and new directions for teacher research and professional development. Drawing from contributors' research, the collection constructs a social justice canvas—an innovative technique that suggests ways that principles of social justice can be integrated into teaching and assessing writing. The volume concludes with 18 assertions on writing assessment designed to guide future research in the field. Written with the intention of making a restorative milestone in the history of writing assessment, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity generates new directions for the field of writing studies. This volume will be of interest to all stakeholders interested in the assessment of written communication and the role of literacy in society, including advisory boards, administrators, faculty, professional organizations, students, and the public.

About the Editors

Mya Poe is Associate Professor of English at Northeastern University. Her scholarship has appeared in College Composition and Communication, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Journal of Writing Assessment, and Across the Disciplines. Her co-authored and co-edited books have won the CCCC Advancement of Knowledge Award (2012) and the CCCC Outstanding Book of the Year (2014). She has also guest-edited special issues of Research in the Teaching of English (2014) and College English (2016) and is co-editor of the Oxford Brief Guides to Writing in the Disciplines. She is co-author, most recently, of, "Civil Rights and Writing Assessment: Using the Disparate Impact Approach as a Fairness Methodology to Determine Social Impact," published in the Journal of Writing Assessment. Currently, she is working on a monograph entitled Intended Consequences: Making Writing Assessment Fairer.

Asao B. Inoue is Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Director of University Writing and the Writing Center, a member of the Executive Board of Council of Writing Program Administrators, and the 2018 Program Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Among his articles and chapters on writing assessment and race, his article, "Theorizing Failure in U.S. Writing Assessments" in Research in the Teaching of English, won the 2014 CWPA Outstanding Scholarship Award. His co-edited collection, Race and Writing Assessment (2012), won the 2014 NCTE/CCCC Outstanding Book Award for an edited collection. More recently, his book, Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing for a Socially Just Future (WAC Clearinghouse/Parlor Press, 2015) won the 2017 CCCC Outstanding Book Award for a monograph and the 2015 CWPA Outstanding Book Award. In November 2016, he co-edited a special issue of College English on writing assessment as social justice.

Norbert Elliot is Research Professor at the University of South Florida and Professor Emeritus of English at New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is author, most recently, of "A Theory of Ethics for Writing Assessment," published in Journal of Writing Assessment. With Diane Kelly-Riley, he is co-editor of Improving Outcomes: Disciplinary Writing, Local Assessment, and the Aim of Fairness (forthcoming, Modern Language Association of America). With Alice Horning, he is co-editor of Talking Back: Senior Scholars Deliberate the Past, Present, and Future of Writing Studies (forthcoming, Utah State University Press.) With Richard Haswell, he is co-author of Holistic Scoring of Writing: A Theory, A History, A Reflection (forthcoming, Utah State University Press). He presently serves as editor-in-chief of Journal of Writing Analytics, published by Colorado State University Open Press.

Publication Information: Poe, M., Inoue, A. B., & Elliot, N. (2018). Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity. Perspectives on Writing. Fort Collins, Colorado: The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/books/assessment/

Web Publication Date: February 10, 2018.
Print Publication Date: Pending.

Contact Information:
Mya Poe: m.poe@northeastern.edu
Asao B. Inoue:asao@uw.edu
Norbert Elliot: nelliot3@usf.edu

Table of Contents

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Front Matter

Introduction. The End of Isolation, Mya Poe, Asao B. Inoue, and Norbert Elliot

Part 1. Advancing Opportunity Through Historiography

Chapter 1. Toward a Social Justice Historiography for Writing Assessment, J. W. Hammond

Chapter 2. "Human Beings Engaging with Ideas": The 1960s SEEK Program as a Precursor Model of Ecological and Sociocultural Writing Pedagogy and Assessment, Sean Molloy

Chapter 3. Assessment's Word Work: Early Twentieth Century American Imperialism and the Colonial Function of the Monolingual Writing Construct, Keith L. Harms

Part 2. Advancing Opportunity Through Admission and Placement

Chapter 4. Directed Self-Placement at "Democracy's Open Door": Writing Placement and Social Justice in Community Colleges, Christie Toth

Chapter 5. Chasing Transparency: Using Disparate Impact Analysis to Assess the (In)Accessibility of Dual Enrollment Composition, Casie Moreland

Chapter 6. Writing Assessment and Responsibility for Colonialism, Mathew Gomes

Part 3. Advancing Opportunity Through Outcomes Design

Chapter 7. The Violence of Assessment: Writing Assessment, Social (In)Justice, and the Validity of Our Outcomes, Josh Lederman and Nicole Warwick

Chapter 8. Fired Up: Institutional Critique, Lesson Study, and the Future of Antiracist Writing Assessment, Michael Sterling Burns, Randall Cream, and Timothy R. Dougherty

Chapter 9. Writing Program Assessment, Attitude, and Construct Representation: A Descriptive Study, Karen S. Nulton and Irvin Peckham

Part 4. Advancing Opportunity Through Teacher Research

Chapter 10. Bending the Arc of Writing Assessment Toward Social Justice: Enacting Culturally Responsive Professional Development at Standing Rock, Kelly J. Sassi

Chapter 11. Queering Writing Assessment: Fairness, Affect, and the Impact on LGBTQ Writers, Nicole I. Caswell and William P. Banks

The Braid of Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity: Eighteen Assertions on Writing Assessment with Commentary, William P. Banks, Michael Sterling Burns, Nicole I. Caswell, Randall Cream, Timothy R. Dougherty, Norbert Elliot, Mathew Gomes, J. W. Hammond, Keith L. Harms, Asao B. Inoue, Josh Lederman, Sean Molloy, Casie Moreland, Karen S. Nulton, Irvin Peckham, Mya Poe, Kelly J. Sassi, Christie Toth, and Nicole Warwick.

Contributors

Perspectives on Writing

Series Editors: Susan H. McLeod, University of California, Santa Barbara; Rich Rice, Texas Tech University

This book is available in whole and in part in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF).