The Liability of Assessment

During my second week of teaching, I administered a quiz on the qualities of writing and improvement strategies in my Language Arts classes. My students had yet to submit their own, original pieces of writing or construct any form of written work to show how firm a grasp they had on the concepts. Yet there I was, passing out those short-answer quizzes in silent hope that they would remember at least a handful of the concepts that we discussed.

Was I expecting too much? Is it fair to students to assess them on writing qualities that to them are useless until harnessed, mere notes to sit crammed inside their three-ring binder or the bottom of their backpack until needed for that first major composition? Maybe so.

I suppose part of the blame can be laid at the district’s feet. In our first faculty meeting, I received the “lowdown” about grade weightings, percentages assigned to different pieces of assessment. Now I didn’t balk at the 50/50 share between minor (homework, quizzes, and in-class assignments) and major (tests & projects) assessments; as a fellow Language Arts teacher explained to me, it’s really not much different than how we spread them out in the old system to begin with. The subcategories are still ours to manipulate as we like.

However, I blinked at the idea that my school was requiring me to assign a minimum of six major assessments in the span of a nine-week period. That translates to six test grades or six major projects or any combination of the two. Roughly one every week-and-a-half. Six. In a single quarter. Minimum. And this wasn’t a suggestion. It was a requirement.

Have instruction and the learning process become too highly standardized? I think so. As a nation, we are so bound and determined to “promote” our students, to push them to that next level that we take shortcuts disguised as benchmarks. In doing so we reduce teachers to data machines that crank out facts a mile a minute for students to soak up like sponges. Authentic instruction suffers because teachers face the pressures of “teaching to the test;” perish forbid that students learn something life-changing in class that doesn’t show up on the test!

And tests aren’t even “tests” so much as they are vestiges of Social Darwinism, elevating only a select number of students and leaving the rest to wallow in the mosh pit. The classroom environment becomes a shark-infested, high-risk zone. It’s sink-or-swim: either get it right the first time or don’t try at all: the school is swimming on without you.

Being a first-year teacher, I am in no position to seriously affect district-mandated policy. I’m often advised that it’s not my job to reinvent the wheel. But that doesn’t mean I can’t improve the wheel. Look at companies like Cooper, Goodyear, and Michelin. They don’t roll out any startling new inventions in their tires, but simply improve on what’s already there. Therefore, my question becomes this: how can I make authentic instruction work with assessment? How can I creatively merge the two so that the students get something worthwhile out of the class and the district is appeased?

An article I read written by Norbert Elliot, “The Direct Assessment of Writing: Notes for Teachers,” offers hope that compromises are possible, if not the same for every situation. Elliot proposes teachers adopt methods such as holistic scoring and portfolio assessment to effectively instruct students while complementing the expectations of assessments.

In holistic scoring, students submit their responses to meaningful, whole compositions while being assigned grades based upon a consistent scoring rubric. Elliot is adamant that when writing is evaluated holistically, it preserves the process-driven approach to writing while providing students with clear information about content quality and evaluative technique. This way, students do not feel so intimidated by grades that their writing loses the chance to develop and they gain a greater understanding of the big picture, which they need more than just the pieces of the picture.

In portfolio assessment, students keep a record of their written work, taken at various points in the year under varying circumstances. This gives the teacher a broader view of the student’s ability and development, given multiple pieces to work with, and preserves the writing process by encouraging students to draft often for the benefit of readers: the teacher and fellow students, who offer constructive feedback.

While both methods Elliot offers have their advantages, the drawbacks do stand out. The one thing that I tell my students to pay closest attention to regarding their compositions is written feedback. I relish the idea of jotting down little comments in the side margins and between the lines of their work. I want them to read those more than I want them focused on what grade they receive. Otherwise, what are they writing for? To get a good grade in a middle school class?

I want them to write for themselves, and their personal progress as young writers. I want them to use comments submitted by me and their peers to improve on their weaknesses and identify their strong points. A number grade won’t say anything (which is why I give checks for rough drafts rather than numerical grades; obviously I’ll score the final copies, but at this point, they have only written down a bunch of ideas on paper. It’s not yet ready to be scored. What would be the point of assessing numerically?)

Holistic scoring, as Elliot describes it, is quite rapid, meant to ease the burden of grading papers on teachers. However, in doing so, it takes away the ability of teachers to provide diagnostic information relating to specific writing proficiencies and deficiencies. Students lose the chance to be evaluated with a critical lens and there is a tendency to rush through their work, which can inadvertently foster poor writing habits.

Holistic scoring also often considers one piece of writing, for example, personal narrative, to the exclusion of others such as expository, descriptive, or persuasive essays. This can prove potentially harmful for students who are perhaps stronger with one mode or need additional help on another. Of course, portfolio assessment, by its nature, can surmount this obstacle, as it allows for an assortment of student writing samples to be submitted, thus enriching the curriculum.

Being a floater, I am somewhat at a disadvantage when it comes to implementing what I consider to be authentic instruction. I don’t mean to make apologies or excuses, but even so, I face the same requirements under the umbrella of standardized assessment. I’ve had to, on occasion, use a little holistic evaluation in checking my students’ journals once per week. They know that the purpose of the journal is to give them a whole notebook filled with ideas for their compositions. That is why I encourage them to use it not only for the in-class assignments, but for their own daily lives; I want them to “journal” at any time of the day in which they feel the need, not merely when they are obligated or pressed into it by the teacher. Their three-ring binders I require for class each day can also serve as their writing portfolio, with final copies and numerous drafts and revisions that preceded them hole-punched into them.

I cannot say if I would arrange this system differently if I had a classroom with filing cabinets, storage bins that can save their work rather than me taking it around in the hall every day, and consistent sets of workbooks, dictionaries, and texts. For now, both the system and my placement are what they are, and I’m still searching for consistently sound methods to balance the weight of assessment with effective pedagogy.

Even so, Elliot’s article, coupled with my initial ventures into the politics of teaching, got me thinking about how the society in which we live mirrors the way that we are expected to teach. My linking of standardized tests to Darwinian vestiges was mostly intended for dramatic effect, but honestly, I don’t think it’s that far off the mark.

Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong-headed about promoting only a certain number of students who’ve “got the right stuff” while the rest get left behind? Should we not instead be trying to fix the cracks in the surface of our educational system so as to keep “the rest” from slipping through, rather than waiting for it to happen so we can say, “oh well, let’s just toss more tax dollars into No Child Left Behind because its existence is surely justified?”

Food for thought, this "assessment" thing.