Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies. Asao B. Inoue

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      b.understanding and use of the passage

      c.quality and clarity of thought

      d.organization, development, and support

      e.syntax and command of language

      f.grammar, usage, and mechanics (CSU Office of the Chancellor, 2009, p. 14)

      At least items e and f correspond to a locally dominant SEAE, while a, b, c, and d correspond to some conventions and dispositions that are a part of a dominant discourse. The guide offers this description of a 4-essay, which is “adequate,” that is, not remedial:

      a.addresses the topic, but may slight some aspects of the task

      b.demonstrates a generally accurate understanding of the passage in developing a sensible response

      c.may treat the topic simplistically or repetitively

      d.is adequately organized and developed, generally supporting ideas with reasons and examples

      e.demonstrates adequate use of syntax and language

      f.may have some errors, but generally demonstrates control of grammar, usage, and mechanics (CSU Office of the Chancellor, 2009, p. 15)

      I cannot help but recognize this rubric. It’s very familiar. In Chapter 13, “Evaluation,” of William Irmscher’s (1979) helpful book, Teaching Expository Writing, he provides a very similar rubric, one I’ve used in the past in writing classrooms:

      •Content

      •Organization/structure/form

      •Diction/language/style

      •Punctuation/mechanics

      •Grammar/style (1979, pp. 157-159)

      Irmscher’s dimensions are a variation of the five factors that Paul Diederich (1974) and his colleagues, John French and Sydell Carlton, found in their factor analysis of fifty-three judges’ readings of 300 student papers in a 1961 ETS study. The five factors they found most important to academic and professional readers’ judgments of student essays were (in order of importance/most frequently used):

      •Ideas

      •Usage, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling

      •Organization and analysis

      •Wording and phrasing

      •Style (Diederich, 1974, pp. 7-8)

      Diederich explains that these five factors that most of his readers used to read and grade essays only accounted for 43% of all the variance in the grades given to the set of papers in his study. He says, “the remaining 57 percent was unexplained” (1974, p. 10). Most likely, the unexplained variance in grades was due to “unique ideas about grading that are not shared by any other reader, and random variations in judgment, which may be regarded as errors in judgment” (Diederich, 1974, p. 10). In other words, most of what produced evaluations and grades of student writing simply couldn’t be accounted for in the study, and could be unique or idiosyncratic. Each reader has his or her own unique, tacit dimensions that do not easily agree with the tacit dimensions that other readers may have. But what does this have to do with the EPT’s use of a very similar rubric and how does it help us see race in the assessments of writing made on the EPT?

      Diederich and his colleagues show us that reading student writing, like the impromptu essays written for the EPT, will be judged by other factors as well as those explicitly expressed. Even with careful norming, which I’m sure occurs in the EPT readings, there will still be variance. Readers will read from their biases. They have to. That’s reading. But the question I’m wondering is: What stigmata do they see? Is this what is affecting the racialized remediation rates? The guide, to its credit, explains that readers will not “penalize ESL writers excessively for slight shifts in idiom, problems with articles, confusion over prepositions, and occasional misuse of verb tense and verb forms, so long as such features do not obscure meaning” (emphasis in original, CSU Office of the Chancellor, 2009, p. 16). It’s the qualifier I wonder about. Isn’t it possible that many readers will read confusion over prepositions or misuse of verb tense and forms, as obscuring meaning? Is it possible that multilingual students, like Fresno State Hmong students, will usually have more than “occasional” slips in the above linguistic features of their texts? Without doing a detailed linguistic analysis of samples, it seems plausible that such features of texts are associated with many students of color’s discourses. For sure, multilingual students, like most Hmong and many Latino/a students at Fresno State, use discourses that are characterized by “misuse of verb tense and verb forms,” as well as the other items listed. Are these markers read as stigmata though? Does seeing such linguistic markers compel a lower judgment by a reader who is most likely white, female, and middle class? It would seem that the instructions allow for this interpretation.

      All EPT writing prompts direct students to read a short paragraph from a published argument, then explain it and make an argument agreeing or disagreeing with it. In one of the examples in the guide, the passage is from Sue Jozui, which argues against advertisers’ use of celebrities’ testimonials or endorsements to sell products. Here’s the excerpt from Jozui:

      Advertisers frequently use the testimony of a celebrity to support a claim: a football star touts a deodorant soap, an actress starts every day with Brand A coffee, a tennis pro gets stamina from Brand X cereal, a talk-show host drives a certain kind of car. The audience is expected to transfer approval of the celebrity to approval of the product. This kind of marketing is misleading and insults the intelligence of the audience. Am I going to buy the newest SUV because an attractive talk-show host gets paid to pretend he drives one? I don’t think so. We should boycott this kind of advertising and legislate rules and guidelines for advertisers. (CSU Office of the Chancellor, 2009, p. 17)

      The prompt then states: “explain the argument that Jozui makes and discuss the ways in which you agree or disagree with her analysis and conclusion. Support your position by providing reasons and examples from your own experience, observations, or reading” (CSU Office of the Chancellor, 2009, p. 17).

      Often the most instructive examples of student writing are the ones that reveal the borderlands, the margins that define the mainstream. The 2-essay, the “very weak” essay is a four-paragraph essay, one that does not reiterate Jozui’s argument, but attempts to argue both sides of the issue. It has many more errors in local SEAE usage than any of the other sample essays rated higher, but in some ways, it does try to offer an academic approach by considering opposing points of view. It appears, however, to lack focus and a conventional organizational pattern. The 2-essay reads:

      If a football star touts a deodorant soap, an actress starts everyday with brand. A coffee, a tennis pro get stamina from Brand X cereal and if a talk show host drives a certain car it does not mean that your going to do that. I agree with Jozui if an atractive talk-show host gets paid to pretend to drive a car, it does not mean that your going to go buy one.

      It would be good boycotting this kind of advertisement but theres always a positive & negative side to the advertisements. Boycotting this advertisement will be good so it wont be misleading or insulting anyones intelligence. If a celebraty want to be advertised with a product or something at their own I think they have the right to. On my positive side of it I see it that its okay to be advertised, one thing is to be advertised & get known or get the product known, and another thing is buying the product.

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