A review of Asao Inoue- "Community-based assessment pedagogy"
Asao Inoue's article addresses the issue of student involvement in the assessment process. He suggests that students, himself included, learn what good writing is by, "assessing writing [themselves] and talking to others about it" (209). He details a pedagogical approach that has students generate the standards to which they will be held and assess their proficiency against those standards as they write, assess, revise and reflect throughout the semester.
I found his article to be quite interesting and his approach is detailed out well. I particularly liked his explanation of the development of the rubric; instead of creating a final rubric at the beginning, the rubric is more fluid. The students continue to improve upon it as they become more proficient assessors as well as writers.
I am interested in the idea of applying this in my own classroom, but I think there are some limitations imposed by the demographics- specifically age. He teaches third-year university students in their early twenties. I teach 11th and 12th grade at an alternative high school where many students, some also nearing or in their early twenties (up to 21) struggle with motivation. I think in many ways Inoue's strategy would be incredibly beneficial to my students as it would give them ownership and reduce my role- a benefit because many students have had negative interactions with the "grading gods," as Carley put it in our discussions.
I think the potential obstacles reside closely alongside the characteristics that could make it successful- the students must self-regulate and be willing to see their writing as incomplete in order to improve upon it, and in an alternative setting, willingness can be difficult to find.
Ultimately, I think Inoue's work is an interesting idea that addresses the problem of assessing writing effectively. It seems to work for his classroom, and I think, with some adjustments to meet the needs of each group, it has potential for working in mine.
Does Inoue talk about how everyone learns what good writing is? Do they read and discuss? Do they read each others work and discuss what is "good" and "not so good"? The idea of kids taking ownership for creating a rubric is very interesting. I may have to read this article for more details. Thanks for piquing my interest.
ReplyDeleteLike your review of Asao Inoue's piece. Like you I see some value in the piece as well as seeing some ways in which adjustments might be needed. One thing that bothers me is the amount of time and effort spent on the rubric. When you write about student ownership, i wonder if students as writers would own a more writer-based set of practices. Writers don't need to know what a C piece of writing looks like. All writers do need targets for what the audience and the type of writing requires…nice discussion of Inoue's major points.
ReplyDeleteI also struggle with getting some of my basic level senior classes to create rubrics and peer revise. They tend to look at the paper someone else wrote and say "looks great". Peer revision takes roughly 10 minutes sometimes and 5 of the 10 include getting into groups. My honors and college level courses are great with peer revision and often ask for more than one period if it is a lengthy assignment. It seems to just be the less motivated students who really struggle. How can we better engage them? What if we were to use authentic writing pieces they were creating for a real publication? I think they might care more if the pieces were being published with their names. If everyone was creating a publication in the classroom I wonder if students would be more apt to help others peer revise? Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteTo improve the grouping time, I give my student five seconds to sort out their groups before I decide for them. Either they scramble and get into place, or legitimately don't care and want me to decide. It goes much faster!
DeleteI think authentic purposes for writing is a great idea- my students always question how they are going to use X skill in real life. Having them become involved in the real world with their writing would help teach them that. Some ideas would be a class / school newspaper, social issue proposals (think project-based learning writing assignment addressing some issue- homelessness, for example. They research homelessness in their area and the social structures in place to address the issue and then write a proposal to improve people's situation).