Erin Workman
Writing Assessment and Response
in the Age of Digital Technologies
Collaborative Criteria
ePortfolios
Yancey and Sorapure underscore the importance of reading and responding to digital and multimodal texts on their own terms. In other words, we should not apply print criteria to digital and multimodal texts, as these texts operate with an entirely different logic. Both the Multimodal Assessment Project (MAP) Group, Borton and Huot, and Adsanatham suggest collectively constructing multimodal project assessment criteria with students. The MAP group specifically advises having students discuss both effective and ineffective multimodal projects as a way of collectively determining criteria, and Borton and Huot suggest having students rank a number of examples as a way of developing assessment criteria.
Adsanatham takes up both of these approaches in his three-part assignment:
Rhetorical Viewing
Students watch multiple diverse videos and analyze "how images, sounds, alphabetic texts, and digital effects were used to construct and cohere and in some cases detract the argument" (156-157),
Bi-Weekly Viewing Homework
Students watch videos, analyze the videos by responding to instructor-provided questions, and discuss their analyses on a forum and in class discussion (157)
Designing Criteria
A process in which students individually designed, tested, and revised criteria and the instructor compiled all students' work into rubrics.
I plan to try out Adsanatham's scaffolding exercises for collaboratively generating criteria by having students rhetorically view other ePortfolios and personal/professional websites, analyze those sites, and generate criteria for their ePortfolios. These criteria could help students with invention and design, and they could scaffold self- and peer-assessment, along with my final grading of their ePortfolios. Because students' grades are primarily determined by their ePortfolio work, the collaborative creation of criteria will occupy much of our work for the last six weeks of the course. 10% of students' grades will be determined by their contributions to our collaborative criteria, and 70% of their grades will be determined by applying these criteria to their ePortfolios.
Mapping and Pin-ups
This assessment process is motivated by Yancey, McElroy, and Powers' recent work on ePortfolios, in which they describe the use of mapping and pin-ups to better visualize and understand the work of ePortfolios. I plan to incorporate mapping and pin-ups into students' bi-weekly viewing homework as tools for the analysis of ePortfolios/professional websites. Students will also use this method to respond to each others' ePortfolios and to revise their ePortfolio layout and design based on the gaps between what they and their readers see. Not only will this give the students and myself a different shared view of the ePortfolio, it will also provide us with a final moment to consider the affordances and constraints of different media.