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3 T he F raming of C omposition and W riting A ssessment In chapter two, we discussed how the current frame surrounding stories of American education perpetuates and builds upon existing tales of the purpose of school. This frame currently shapes a dominant story about postsecondary education focusing on “preparation for college and career,” linking individual economic success to national progress. It has also led to a number of issues linked to the purposes and audiences for assessment that illustrate the differences that often exist between the many individuals and groups who are invested in postsecondary education, from instructors to future employers. In this chapter, we examine the framing of topics and issues probably more familiar to most of us: composition and writing assessment. Within our discipline, as elsewhere, frames and framing often operate at an unconscious level, drawing on cultural values and creating structures for understanding reality, defining common sense, and producing cultural narratives . Just as reframing requires a broad understanding of these frames and the stories they produce about postsecondary education generally, so we must understand the stories that extend from the frames surrounding composition and writing assessment as well. These frames shape our perspectives just as they shape those of others. The early frames for the teaching, learning and assessing of writing—which in many ways conflict with those constructed by contemporary compositionists and literacy experts—continue to influence how composition and writing assessment are positioned in the academy as well as in contemporary conversations about written literacy. We begin by briefly reviewing the history of writing assessment to reveal the The Framing of Composition and Writing Assessment    41 frames that surrounded English composition as a teaching subject when it was introduced into the college curriculum. From there, we examine the dominant values, theories, and practices that frame contemporary composition. We end this chapter by first exploring the implications of this disciplinary framework for writing assessment, and then secondly arguing that contemporary psychometric theory complements much of the writing assessment theory and practice that compositionists endorse. Our aim in articulating the dominant frames used by composition specialists is to help writing teachers, administrators, and scholars make more conscious decisions about what values and positions we want to reinforce in our local contexts as well as in the larger community. Our goal—one we share with others such as Broad (2003), Haswell (2001), and Huot (2002)—is for writing scholars and teachers to be knowledgeable about writing assessment so we can harness the power associated both with the process of undertaking this research and with the idea of assessment itself to improve teaching and learning. However, we also want to change the way we talk about writing assessment within our field and beyond it. The language we use in discussions about this work—the ways we talk about it within our courses and programs, and the conversations we have with constituencies and stakeholders on and off campus—influences how writing assessment is understood and used by us and others . As we explained in the previous chapter and will discuss more extensively in the next, language helps to construct and reify frames humans use to understand and make sense of the worlds around us. Additionally, language influences the potential of the research we conduct under the mantle of assessment to improve teaching and learning. Because language is not neutral but always carries with it connotations and values, we as a field need to consciously consider the language we use in discussions about writing instruction and assessment. We need to understand how our language frames our work, and we need to make strategic, informed choices about our language and actions so that the frames we construct reinforce our values 42 Reframi ng and support our aims. While we recognize that readers have their own individual values and beliefs (just as we as authors do), what we are articulating here are those values and assumptions the field of composition and rhetoric holds, as expressed in position statements (such as those published by the National Council of Teachers of English, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and the Council of Writing Program Administrators) and scholarship (published in peerreviewed journals, edited collections, and monographs).1 Exposing Historical F rames S urrounding Composition and W riting Assessment Scholars have linked the history of composition as a course and a disciplinary field of study to classical rhetoric, which was the centerpiece of the college curriculum through the renaissance and into the eighteenth and...

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