Asao Inoue's
Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies:
Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future
2015
winner of 2017 Conference on College Composition and Communication Outstanding Book Award. Council of Writing Program Administrators 2017 Best Book Award.
Intro
"We should theorize and practice writing assessment simultaneously" (3)
two strands woven into book:
holistic writing assessment
theorizing writing assessment to "cultivate antiracist agendas" (3)
...
Writing assessment as a ecology, "a complex system made up of several interconnected elements" (9)
"how can a conscientious writing teacher understand and engage in her classroom writing assessments as an antiracist project with her locally diverse students?" (9)
...
"Classroom writing assessment is more important than pedagogy because it always trumps what you say or what you attempt to do with your students. And students know this. They feel it." (9)
...
four types of writing assessment via Tchudi (1997)
response
assessment
evaluation
grading
(see page 15)
...
Great analogy of Olympic sprinters page 17-18.
Thus...
"We define 'good' writing in standard ways that have historically been informed by a white discourse, even though we are working from a premise that attempts fairness." (18)
"White students uniformly and historically do better on most if not all writing assessments, large-scale or classroom" (22)
Chapter 1
The Function of Race in Writing Assessments
The why before the what, the how
why an antiracist project is important
tackles race, racial formation, and racism
via
racial habitus
...
Overriding question driving this chapter:
"how might we define race and understand its function in classroom writing assessments so that we can articulate antiracist writing assessments?" (25)
Chapter 2
More theorizing
Nice overview in second full paragraph on page 10
'What exactly is an ecology and how might we define an ecology in order to use it as a frame for antiracist classroom writing assessments?' (p. 77)
Freire + Buddha + Marx + Gramsci
Ecology
Concept taken from biology and applied by Comp/Rhet to writing studies. Common move.
Writing as ecology, research as ecology...
Asao's Ecology
5 parts
- Relationships between people and places
- Ecologies (re)create the living organisms & environments that constitute them
- Often reference systems of relationships in areas of human settlement
- Actions, effects, consequences of human & environmental activity
- Associated with political activities
(parses OED definition)
Interconnectedness
'any languaging that we do is connected not only to our audience but to the world we experience around us in the act of writing or talking' (p. 100-101)
The Sangha as community
Marxian ecology
all systems are political and historical by nature
power relations inherent in judging, in assessment
teachers, parents, admins consenting to things in school that benefit primarily a dominant group (p. 109)
football stadiums
bio labs
Standard English writing textbooks
Concluding
'Enacting classroom writing assessment ecologies as a way to create a humane and inhabitable place for everyone is an antiracist project in intention, process, and outcome' (p. 117)
Bulleted list p. 117
Bulleted list p. 118
Appendix A & B
Chapter 3
Seven elements of classroom writing assessment ecologies
power
parts
purposes
people
processes
products
places
Burkean ratios
Etymology of race
'race' entered Western languages in mid 16th century
1508 Scottish poem
Shakespeare's Merchent (1600)
both use 'race' as a categorizing of negative things--but not biologically or appearance driven
1684--first reference of modern concept of race, dividing people into groups based on appearance, biology
Places began to racialize people
race as place
Blumenbach's (1752-1840) five races
Malay
Ethiopian
American
Mongolian
Caucasian (Caucasus Mountains; the best)
distinguished by physical characteristics & place
COncluding image
Check out figure 1, p. 176
Chapters 2-3, Asao Inoue
By mrifenburg
Chapters 2-3, Asao Inoue
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